There’s a kind of alchemy to making sourdough bread. Its success relies on invisible “forces” and the skilled hands of a master to create breads whose traditions date back thousands of years.

Maurice and Helen Lees build a special bakery at Manawahe which they call the Bread Asylum.

Bavarian builder
Thanks to the skills of a local Bavarian builder, Maurice and Helen have incorporated their collection in a charming building with the romance and character of Europe. Its arched windows are from an English Hotel and are at least 150 years old. There’s a beautiful front door from a house in Paris circa 1890.

The roof is wooden shingles, and both the building’s interior and exterior has the look and feel of something which has stood there for centuries.

Helen, an artist, and also the creator and founder of Tauranga-based show Tarnished Frocks and Divas, has used her creative flair to add the finishing touches to the interior of what must be one of the most uniquely designed bake houses in the country.

Looks aside, however, it is a certified working bakery that meets all modern food safety standards and is where Laurent works to prepare and cook traditional sourdough loaves to be sold at local markets, including Rotorua, Whakatane, and Ohope, as well as four times a year at the local Awakaponga Hall market. The Bread Asylum also takes orders from Manawahe residents for bread, but doesn’t make sales direct from the bake house.

“We aim to be an exclusive, niche market bakery and believe we may be one of very few, if not the only one in the North Island that handcrafts every loaf,” says Maurice.

In Laurent, Maurice says he has found a master baker with more than 30 years’ experience, who has worked for bakeries in London, Corsica, Switzerland and one of the most exclusive bakeries in Paris – so exclusive, in fact, its sourdough loaves were flown daily to New York on the famous Concorde airliner while it was still in operation.

Sour dough being prepared at the Bread Asylum.

Spring water
One of the first things Laurent did when joining Bread Asylum, was to create a sourdough “starter” using organic flour, fresh pure water from a local spring, wild bacteria and yeasts, then allowing these ingredients to naturally colonise and begin the ancient process for which sourdough is famous.

“Every sourdough in every location is a little different because of the wild bacteria and yeasts which are unique to that area,” says Laurent as he stirs the thick smooth starter, which will form the basis of his next batch of bread and all the subsequent breads he makes.

The Manawahe starter is faithfully nurtured and fed by Laurent between each batch of breads.

A percentage of the starter is mixed with flour, fermented and then kneaded by hand to form loaves, which are wrapped in cloths of raw linen known as “couche” and left to rise. The overall process takes about 36 hours.

It is not just the great taste and long traditions of sourdough which captivate Maurice, Helen and Laurent - it’s also the health qualities of the bread.

“I believe sourdough is the healthiest bread and that’s due to the long fermentation process,” says Maurice.

Bread Asylum at Manawahe specialises in sourdough natural leavened breads.