On a recent lunchtime layover in Westport, I was drawn into Becca's Bakery by a Real Bread Ireland sticker on the front door. Real Bread Ireland is a support network with the aim of promoting the virtues of eating better bread, and highlighting the difference between a real loaf and a part-baked one. It was launched in 2015 by some of our country's finest bakers, including Patrick Ryan from Firehouse Bakery, Joe Fitzmaurice of Riot Rye, Declan Ryan of Arbutus Bakery, Kemal Scarpello of Slow Food Co, Thibault Peigne of Tartine and Josephoine Plettenburg of Spelt Bakers, with support from food blogger Keith Bohanna and food writer Joe McNamee. Find out more on realbreadireland.org.
Becca’s Bakery is a deserving representative of Real Bread’s mission. Becca is Becca Bissell, a pastry chef originally from Staffordshire in the UK. While studying for her culinary degree in catering college in Birmingham, her university gave her and her classmates a catalogue of English-speaking destinations to do work placements in.
One was Westport, and so Becca found herself in west of Ireland. She stayed for a year working in a local hotel, then went back to the UK for two years before Westport called her back again about seven years ago. She’s been there ever since.
Last year, she opened her own bakery. Through the front window, you can see an old-fashioned weighing scales, bunting and the promise of buns. The walls are lined with shelves, weighed down with freshly baked sourdough loaves, baguettes and rolls. There are brownies and loaf cakes, bakewell tarts and birthday cakes, all baked by Becca and her baking team, Karen and Niamh.
The team creates commissioned occasion cakes and party favourites such as their Cupcake Party Box. They host adult and children’s baking classes in the bakery throughout the year.
This bakery is a takeaway treat store as opposed to a sit-in café. There are two chairs on the pavement outside the front of the shop for customers to rest awhile, which works because the ready-to-eat goods at Becca’s can all be eaten with one hand. I grab a bag of goodies for my train journey, and everything is remarkably well-priced. I go away with a sourdough loaf, a flapjack, a quiche, a turnover and a cup of coffee for €10. The coffee is made by a little push-button machine and, though it’s better than I was expecting, it’s a possible area for improvement for Becca, as she has all other bases in this bakery covered.
A delicious spinach and feta turnover is wrapped in golden and flaky filo. The deep pastry case of a mini quiche makes it easy to transport, and its biscuity crumb makes it a great travel companion. I take a loaf of plain sourdough (€3.50) home to Dublin and it toasts up beautifully over the following days. It’s got an excellent tang, and is somewhere between a hardy farmhouse loaf and a hole-filled sourdough.
“It’s a hybrid,” explains Becca of her sourdough loaf. “Our starter culture has a name. We call him Sam the Starter. The day before selling, we make a sourdough sponge with a bit of Sam, water and a combination of wholemeal and white flour. From there, we make the dough. It ferments overnight, and then we prove it in our sourdough baskets the next day before baking. It tastes different from some people’s sourdough, because it’s our own bread.”
With that, Becca sums up what real bread means. For such a long time, our food stores have been filled with uniform conformity. Real, authentic food doesn’t always fit into a mould. It’s sometimes not the shape we expect, and it may not taste exactly the same as the last time you had it. Sometimes, inconsistency is reassuring.
What’s consistent about everything in Becca’s Bakery is the authentically homemade taste and texture of real bread.
