I rarely make bread – a) because I don’t really eat it and b) because it requires yeast which I consider to be a pretty high maintenance ingredient – if the liquid is too hot you kill the yeast and if it’s too cold you don’t activate it. After discovering that my local Giant does not carry rice flour and with Whole Foods just a few blocks away I was able to painlessly find some. The most convenient aspect of working in the center of the city is the ability to pop out during lunch and run all your errands. Since my last attempt at making rice flour ended in epic failure (apparently grinding the rice in a blender produces more of a grainy sandy texture than the required powdered sugar texture) I decided to buy some this time. Hailing from Holland (where it’s known as tijgerbrood) but currently popular in the San Francisco Bay Area this dutch crunch bread is unique in that before baking, the rolls are painted with a rice flour paste-like substance which creates the cracks and crunchy slightly yeasty texture in the final product. Having never heard of this so called “ tiger bread” I was intrigued. This month’s Daring Bakers challenge was to make bread dough, topped with the dutch crunch paste, and then to bake it and devise a creative sandwich. Finally, we encourage our customers to minimize paper waste by offering a five-cent-per-loaf discount when they forgo all packaging on bread they purchase in our shops.This month’s Daring Bakers challenge was to make the Dutch crunch bread, and then to bake it and devise a creative sandwich. We collect day-old bread and bread that is returned to us the following day from retailers such as supermarkets into a container that is picked up by a company that processes it into organic livestock feed. We make an effort to donate all fresh leftover bread to charitable organizations, schools, and nonprofits. It is produced from renewable sources (vegetable and animal fats) and burns very clean and efficiently. We now fuel all of our diesel trucks (and diesel generators) with "renewable diesel". In 2008 we covered our largest wholesale bakery in Berkeley with photovoltaic panels in order to generate much of our own electricity. We also use organic raisins, pumpkin seeds and flax seeds sourced by our flour provider, Keith Giusto.Īcme has also done several things over the years to incorporate environmentally friendly procedures and technology. Most significantly, in 1999 we made the switch to 100% organic flour. Since we began operation all of our whole-grain flours have been organic but since the nineties, Acme has been incorporating as many organic and locally sourced ingredients as possible. Relying largely on the requests and suggestions of customers, as well on our own occasional inspiration, we have expanded our product list over the last thirty-some-odd years to include more than 100 different products. When the bakery started up in 1983 we made only four different kinds of Bread: Pain au Levain, Sweet Baguettes, Upstairs Bread, and Challah. Acme supplies bread to dozens of restaurants around the Bay Area including Chez Panisse, where Steven began baking bread in the seventies, as well as to a variety of grocery stores and retail locations around the Bay Area. One is Acme's original location at the corner of Cedar and San Pablo in Berkeley and the other is in San Francisco's Ferry Building Marketplace on the Embarcadero. Today the company is run by a group of five managing shareholders including Rick Kirkby, Claudio Rezende, Monica Contois along with Steven and Suzie Sullivan.Īcme is primarily a wholesale bakery but has two retail shops. Steven and Suzie Sullivan founded The Acme Bread Company in 1983 to bake bread for restaurants and stores who wanted to offer better bread than was generally available on the wholesale market at the time.
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