Voorbeeldstraat 1, Voorbeeldstad
Tue – Sat from 07:30
Two bakers.One ten-year-old starter.
Zuurdesem is the bakery of Nadine and Wybren Wijnands. Two bakers, one stone oven and a starter from March 2016. You can smell us from the corner of the street.
Nadine baked in a wood-fired oven in the Ardennes for years. Wybren worked at a flour mill and knew everything about flour, but nothing about ovens. In 2016 they started together in an old butcher’s shop on Voorbeeldstraat.
In the first months they baked forty loaves a day. They sold out in a few hours. Now it is close to three hundred, still shaped by hand and baked in the same stone oven. When the neighbours asked if they could have coffee too, the long table arrived.
In all those years one thing has not changed: the starter. She has been alive since the opening. Every evening she gets fed, and every morning we bake with what she did that night. That is why our bread tastes slightly different in July than in January.
“You cannot rush bread. You can only make sure you are there on time.”Nadine Wijnands
Bertha, our starter
Every starter has a name. This one is from March 2016.
We set the rubber band around the jar at last night’s level. If she has more than doubled by morning, she is ready.
- Born
- March 2016, from rye flour and water
- Feeding
- every evening at 21:00 and in the morning at 09:00
- Ratio
- 1 starter, 1 rye flour, 1 water
- Temperature
- ideally 26 °C, in the cold room at night
- Smells of
- yoghurt, apple and a little vinegar
- Buy a jar
- a jar for €4.50, with feeding schedule
Where the flour comes from
- WheatOrganic, from an arable farmer twenty kilometres away. Milled on a stone mill.white and wholemeal
- SpeltFrom a farmer who has grown spelt for thirty years. Freshly milled every week.spelt flour
- RyeCoarsely milled, for our rye bread and to feed Bertha.rye flour
- ButterFrench butter with 82% fat, for the croissants. We make no exception here.viennoiserie
Who you see here
- Nadine Wijnandsbaker, owner
In the bakery by 04:00. Baked for ten years in a wood-fired oven in the Ardennes.
- Wybren Wijnandsbaker, course leader
Does the dough, the viennoiserie and the Saturday course. Can talk about flour for hours.
- Femmie Haancafé
Makes the coffee, cooks the soup and knows who is coming for which loaf.
How ordering bread works
How we work, in four lines.
- 1Order
Before 20:00 via the form, by phone or at the counter.
- 2We bake
Your bread bakes from 04:30, with your name on the bag.
- 3Collection
From 07:30 it is ready. Skip the queue and take it with you.
- 4Or stay
Have a coffee at the oak table.
Come and see at half past seven. The bread is still warm then.