Grains of different shapes and colours is what Karola Bober has been using for years to bake her special, healthy, homemade bread. What’s more, she gladly shares her knowledge with others.
Karola Bober’s breads are synonym of what’s best and healthiest in baking. Her breads are made from local, ecological products that come from fertile Kashubian land. There is no surprise that there are queues lining up from the break of dawn in front of shops that offer the products from this citizen of Lipusz.
Karola Bober bakes breads according to recipes that are 100-150 years old. She found them all in old Kashubian cook books. Some of the recipes are modified by her in order to meet the requirements of modern palates. Some, she invents on her own, such as the carbohydrate-free bread recipes, or gluten-free bread recipes. These are made especially with all people with health issues in mind.
-Breads, gingerbread (including Pomorski and Gdański gingerbread), cookies – these I bake on a daily basis. When I started my adventure with baking in 2011, I very much wanted to show people how a traditional, homemade bread made in Polish households years ago tasted like – says Karolina Bober.
Today, she admits to being able to bake 9 different kinds of bread out of her head. These include buckwheat, two kinds of spelt bread, white bread with buttermilk, or rye bread, which is made for two days. The wholegrain bread with buttermilk and sourdough with sunflower, flaxseed, fenugreek, fennel, and black cumin is Karola Bober’s absolute classic. This one was named the best homemade bread during the annual traders’ festival, the St. Dominic’s Fair in Gdańsk.
Another interesting idea for bread is one made with hops. – Hops is used to produce yeast, and since bread can be made from yeast (and sourdough), then it as well can be made from hops. The production process is quite time-consuming, as it takes up to 39 hours, but the bread is marvellous – Karola Bober says.
Molds used in baking bread remember the previous century. And even a century before that! Karola Bober owns around 400 molds, and 1700 different classical tapestries, called makatki, that were hung on the walls of Kashubian households.
Karola Bober offers bread baking workshops organised in Zagroda Kaszubska in Lipusz. The meeting lasts for about three hours and all participants, children or adult, learn how to make a unique loaf of bread from the scratch.
– I have more than a dozen cooks in my family, all of them holding high positions and all of them successful in their trade. We have to have something in our genes, otherwise cooking wouldn’t go so well – Karola Bober laughs. – I think that it’s a gift… I can combine flavours in such a way that the end product tastes delicious. This is why I kindly invite all of you to my bread baking workshops to see for yourselves!
Contact
Karola Bober
Młyńska 46a, Lipusz
phone.: +48 605 449 569