German kitchen story

Biscuits, wholemeal rolls, pretzel products, Danishes, and all different types of bread – everything needs a special dough. There can be tremendous differences between the various types of dough, both in terms of ingredients as well as the consistency. Wheat doughs can be kneaded, wholemeal doughs are made very soft and can never be mixed by a machine. They can only be mixed, or stirred together, by hand. The dough rests for a long time so the grain can absorb the water. The preliminary result is so liquid that you cannot shape it by hand. The dough is scooped into baking pans and baked immediately.

Bread baked in a wood-fired oven is completely different. The loaves are big and weigh 1.5 kilograms. They are made of wheat flour mixed with a bit of rye flour, and when the loaves are cut, the bread is moist and light. Bread just like out of a picture book. Bread from a wood-fired oven is Fridolin Artmann’s favourite kind. Why? “I generally think it is the best way to bake bread. The dough is mixed and then intensively kneaded – and then placed in a tub,” says Fridolin Artmann. “The dough rests for at least two hours and sometimes as long as three hours. Afterwards it is tipped out of the tub onto the work table.” But be careful! The most important thing about wood-oven-baked bread is letting it rest. The loaves are gently shaped by hand just before baking. “You have to be very careful about knocking back the dough. You have to handle it very gently, you cannot pull it or rip it. It needs to stay pliable.” Afterwards the loaves go into the oven immediately without any further proving.

The croissants still have to go into the oven. The store opens at seven, in just an hour. It is high time to roll out the dough. Over and over again. Flatter and flatter. In the end, the dough is nearly one and a half meters long and a half meter wide – only then can the butter layer be added. Then the dough is folded up like a bed sheet, over and over again. And then rolled out once again, divided into small rectangles, and finally rolled into croissants one by one. Fridolin Artmann yanks open the door to the oven and uses a peel to retrieve a dozen multigrain rolls from the oven; they spill into baskets. Then the croissants can go into the oven. “Now the temperature isn’t as hot as at it was at the beginning of the night, when we bake the heavy loaves of bread.” Door open, croissants in, door closed. He claps his hands. A cloud of flour. A brief pause.

Yes. And whether he might be willing to share his recipe for success? Fridolin laughs. “There is no secret to it at all. As a baker, you cannot ever believe that there is a perfect recipe that never has to be changed. That simply doesn’t exist. Every year the flour is a little bit different. That is why I always stay in touch with the organic mill in Landshut where I buy my flour.” He maintains an ongoing dialogue with the miller of the Meyer mill which produces flour in precisely the quality that Artmann wants. “Milling grain into flour: That is a science in and of itself.” Fridolin Artmann takes a handful of flour from a sack and rubs it between his fingers. “There is no ‘optimal’ flour. If it was dry and hot in the late summer, then the flour tends to absorb more water. I have to be aware of that when I bake my bread. I need to be able to respond to the flour to ensure that I can work the dough accordingly. Only then will my bread be good.”

Compared to state-of-the-art industrial bakeries, Artmann’s production volume is laughable. If bread is produced on a conveyor belt, 18 tons can easily be baked in just half a night. But for Fridolin Artmann, good baking means something else entirely. He wants to feel the dough as he kneads it, check it with his own hands as it proves, and be able to respond as needed to the characteristics of the flour – changing the amount of ingredients or the position of the bread in the oven if necessary. “I want to get the best out of the dough,” he says. “For me, that is what baking is all about!” Fridolin Artmann considers his profession to be a craft. Nothing would be more foreign to this man than producing bread on a conveyor belt.

Fridolin Artmann is a man with a quiet voice – but powerful forearms and true baker’s paws: With a single glance, you can immediately see that his hands have rolled out many thousands of loaves. He enjoys standing in his bakery that measures just 30 square meters. This is a bakery where every move is just right, every sack of flour sits in its assigned spot, and each of his employees knows exactly what to do when it comes to baking baguettes, wholemeal bread, multigrain bread rolls, and pretzels. Night after night he stands here with his journeymen – “I call them ‘journeymen,” because ‘assistant’ just doesn’t sound right to me,” says the master baker. For Fridolin Artmann, what counts is not the size of an operation or the volume of production, and most certainly not abstract factors such as production efficiency or cost minimisation.