Union Mill Union Mill, Cranbrook
Registered charity no.1031879

Bread Making Competition

After the huge success of the first Cranbrook Flour Show in 2010 we shall be repeating the event on Sunday 15th May 2011. This is a Fun Competition for all Home Breadmakers to show what Real Bread is all about. It doesn’t matter whether you bake using a Bread Machine or by hand there is an entry class to suit all, including a specific Class for Children of 12 years and under.

The classes are as follows:

  • Class 1: Top Class Union Mill Loaf
  • Class 2: Machine Made Wheat White Bread
  • Class 3: Hand Made Wheat White Bread
  • Class 4: Machine Made Wheat Brown Bread
  • Class 5: Hand Made Wheat Brown Bread
  • Class 6: 12 year olds and under Hand Made Novelty Shaped Loaf
  • Class 7: Seeded, Fruited or Flavoured Bread

We will be giving a 1.5 kilo bag of "Carrs Flour" to the first 80 entrants to the competition.

The Cranbrook Flour Show is being organized by us in conjunction with National Mills Weekend and their joint promotion with the Real Bread Campaign to encourage us all to eat Real Bread.

What's Real Bread?
The only essential ingredients of bread are: Flour, Water, Yeast (cultured or naturally occurring - optional), and Salt. Additional ingredients are great as long as they are natural (e.g. seeds, nuts, cheese, herbs, oils, fats and dried fruits) and contain no artificial additives.

What Real Bread isn't
The making of Real Bread doesn’t involve the use of any processing aids, artificial additives, flour 'improvers', dough conditioners, preservatives, chemical leavening or, well, artificial anything.

Here are just some of the other things that you might find in industrial bread: E481 (sodium stearyl-2-lactylate), E472e (mono- and diacetyl-tartaric acid esters of mono- and diglycerides of fatty acids), E920 (l-cysteine), E282 (calcium propionate), E220 (potassium sorbate), E300 (ascorbic acid), E260 (acetic acid) soya flour, vegetable fat and dextrose. What’s more, industrial bread could also include substances such as phospholipase, fungal alpha amylase, transglutaminase, xylanase, maltogenic amylase, hemicellulase, oxidase, peptidase and protease - all legally, but the manufacturer wouldn’t have to declare them on the label.


2010 RESULTS

Forty people participated in 2010 and a total of sixty different loaves of bread of all shapes and sizes were entered.

Here are some pictures of the bread produced and the results of the competition:

Winner of Class 1
Top Class Union Mill Loaf

Isaac Bourne and his winning entry for the Novelty Shaped Loaf (a windmill)

John Priestley, a retired baker, who judged the entries

An entry in the Novelty Class

Competition ClassFirst PrizeSecond PrizeThird Prize
1 - Using Union Mill FlourPeter BourneJill HooperNicky Thomas-Davies
2 - White Machine MadeAnn StevensonPeter BourneMargaret Donnelly
3 - White Hand MadeJackie BourneJill HooperJean Jones
4 - Brown Machine MadeJ. PantlinNicky Thomas-DaviesAlan Vaughan
5 - Brown Hand MadeNicky Thomas-DaviesMargaret DonellyPeter Bourne
6 - Children 12 and underFrances WeatherlyErin BourneRebecca Weatherly
7 - Novelty ShapesIsaac BourneIsobel Thomas-DaviesJackie Bourne

WELL DONE, everyone. See you again next year, with lots more breadmakers.


Union Mill Flour

 

Union Mill Stone Ground Flour

You can purchase from our shop "Floury Words", a small booklet of bread and cake recipes, price 50p, as well as stone-ground flour produced in the mill.

Union Mill Flour


Useful Links:

National Real Bread-Maker Week

Home Made Bread - Recipes, Beginners Guide to baking hand made Bread at Home.

Breadinfo.com - Make Home-Made Bread and Flour, Recipes, Bread Machine Reviews, Mixers, Mills, etc.


Watch a video.