Mon, 28 May 2012
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Rumours surfaced in the media during 2003 suggesting Dutch bakers were adding unsavoury ingredients to fluff up and lighten their loaves. Fortunately Expatica has sniffed out some real bread made with all natural ingredients - and passion.From focaccia to baguettes: it's hard
No one said you had to like those cloud-in-the-centre breads sold at supermarkets across the nation, or at even those sold at chain bakeries in every last village. Frankly, there doesn't seem to be much difference: supermarket or bakery (with the exception of Turkish flatbread), it's all pretty awful unless you prefer filler.
to find quality bread in Amsterdam
Fear no more. Welcome to real bread! Home-made in a "stone oven and baked with natural yeast, long rising times and delicious taste" - so it says on the business card of Bakken met Passie (baking with passion).
Yes you can believe the company's own catchphrase because everything here - from the farmers' multi-seeded bread, San Francisco sourdough, focaccia, baguettes (large and small), rosemary, garlic or olive loafs, white or dark or croissants, hard or soft rolls – is a work of art.
Everything is created in an art form which can be found mostly anywhere in France yet in very few places in the Netherlands.
How did it begin?
Simon Meijssen, owner of a chain of bakeries in Amsterdam, yearned to indulge his lifelong passion for bread.
After many years of travelling to France, he began his quest to find the best French bread and bakers willing to share their knowledge. Once he found what he was seeking, off he went in search of two French bakers living and working in London. Eventually he coaxed them into divulging their hush-hush recipes. It took two full years to get these bakers to agree to reveal their secret ingredients.
It then took another couple of years to get them to come to Amsterdam to train their Dutch counterparts. That lasted between six and 12 months. Even more time was spent by Meijssen to import the exclusive French oven required to bake the products and to find first the ingredients to make a perfect loaf and then someone to import them.
Bakken met Passie was opened two years ago when all the extraneous elements gelled.
The shop has a huge assortment of breads and pastries: from a 55-cent Fijntges (old Amsterdam bread roll recipe) to a EUR 6 garlic bread.
You need to be a bread connoisseur to pay the above average prices, however I gladly hand out my euros for these exquisite staples.
Shopping basket
My average Saturday run includes half a dozen croissants, two baguettes, one farmer poppy seed bread and a ficelle. When I do over-indulge, I go the whole hog and take away a citron (lemon) cake that is rich and compact. It's a nice, breezy feeling to have the deliciously scented baguettes pop out of the good ole bicycle bag.
Some best-sellers include the boerenmaanzaadbrood - farmers' poppy seed bread, and croissants - plain and chocolate-filled, light and airy and not too greasy.
Other originals not to be found anywhere else in Amsterdam include:
• Organic baguettes
• Auvergnat (from that particular region in France)
• Pain de Mie (bread with a soft crust)
• Pain Campagne (everyday baguettes of the kind seen in France)
• Molenbrood (milled bread)
• Ficelle (a smaller sized baguette with fennel, sesame, poppy and other seeds)
Bakken met Passie
Albert Cuypstraat 51-53
1072CM Amsterdam
Tel: 020 670 1376
Fax: 020 670 1381
28 April 2004
[It's 2009 and Bakken met Passieis still going strong.]
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