Tuning in everyday at 2pm on Instagram live, founder Matthew shares favourite baking lessons with easy to follow instructions (filmed by his wife) and a written chalk board of ingredients answering questions from viewers as they go.
Some upcoming recipes on the schedule 21.05.20, grissini 22.05.20, chocolate brownies 23.05.20, bread pudding 24.05.20, herb & cheese scones 27.05.20, flapjack 28.05.20, focaccia 30.05.20.
The other key public service that the bakery shop has been providing during these times of food shortages is flour delivery (to certain postcodes) and click and collect. It seems to remain the one item I still find impossible to buy in even the largest of supermarkets.
Matthew Jones has been at the forefront of the baking and food revolution in London for 25 years. His mission is to bring quality baking to the masses. Having set up the extremely successful Flour Power City in 1999, Bread Ahead was founded in 2013. Serving everything from pizza’s to desserts, a range of house specials and quick-bites as well as supplying fresh produce daily to Borough Market customers and a range of local restaurants and delis. An appearance of Bread Ahead’s doughnuts on Tom Kerridge’s show caused chaos at London’s Borough Market and to this day the queues at the stand mean then sell thousands daily.
The purpose-built Bakery School opened in February 2014 for all levels of bakers. Providing hands-on classes for adults, the Bread Ahead Baking School has a staggering number of workshops to enrol for, ranging from Scandinavian baking workshops to ancient grains workshops, and classes focused on baked goods from places as disparate as France, Eastern Europe, and the Middle East. Led by Bread Ahead’s masterful bakery school tutors, both seasoned bakers and newbies alike will get an insight into artisan baking and is designed to show the public just how easy baking good bread can be. The school at Borough has expanded and Matthew then opened a second bakery and school in Pavilion Road, Chelsea and a brand new bakery and café in Beak Street, Soho.
As well as innovation, Bread Ahead is also about education and community. To reduce food waste, they use unsold bread from the stall for their bread pudding and they also work with the charity Plan Zheroes which helps get the leftover bread to the people who need it. They also work with local schools to pass on key baking skills to children.
And if that wasn’t all enough, Bread Ahead has also published its first ever cookbook, Baking School: The Bread Ahead Cookbook.
By Anna Bance
May 2020
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