In a railway arch in east London, with the Stansted Express trains rumbling overhead, Ben MacKinnon plunges his hands into a bowl of flour and water. He is starting a process that – four days from now – will result in a mind-expanding bread called Hackney Wild. "It's an alchemy," he says with wonder. "You start with a mess, your hands are covered in crap and then you take it out of the oven and it's this desirable, amazing thing."
Hackney Wild came from a fortuitous mistake. A couple of years ago, MacKinnon – who is 32, but could pass for younger with his blond fringe and wide-eyed exuberance – had been trying to follow a loaf recipe, but he mixed up the quantities of rye and wholemeal flour. He allowed it to ferment for longer than usual and the result was a deep sourdough with a dark, crackly crust. The loaf sold briskly and now his E5 Bakehouse has bread-hunters from all over London coming to try Hackney Wild; Michel Roux Jr even said it "turns me on".
In an age when you can buy an industrial loaf for £1, making bread that costs many times that and takes more than half a week might seem an anachronism. But real bread – the proper stuff made from just flour, water, salt and a rising agent – is enjoying a revival. The movement was started by pioneers including Dan Lepard, Richard Bertinet of the Bertinet Kitchen in Bath and Dan Schickentanz of Abingdon's De Gustibus. It has since been taken on by a young (overwhelmingly male) crew that includes the Thoughtful Bread Company's Duncan Glendinning and Patrick Ryan, and TV's Fabulous Baker Brothers from Hobbs House Bakery. Domestic baking appears to be growing, too – the online store Bakery Bits, the first stop for any serious baker, launched in 2008 and its turnover has increased by at least 50% each year.
Most experts will tell you breadmaking at home is easy. They are liars. Before arriving for a dough shift at E5 Bakehouse, all my previous attempts had been miserable, including a loaf of challah that ended up resembling a lower intestine. "Anyone can do it! I promise you," says MacKinnon, adding organic flour to his mixture and working it expertly around the bowl. To prove his point, he tells the story of the creation of E5 Bakehouse. In late 2009, MacKinnon was unemployed, having given up a job at a multinational where he advised companies such as Network Rail on how to meet their sustainability criteria. He moved back in with his parents in Suffolk, and ended up on his own at the family villa in the south of Spain.
"I wouldn't say I was having a crisis, but I was drinking quite a lot of red wine," he says. "I needed some bread and there was some wholemeal flour and yeast my mum had brought out, so I baked a loaf. My father rang and said: 'So what are you going to do with yourself now?' I said: 'I'm thinking about becoming a baker.' I thought he'd laugh but he said: 'That's quite a good idea.'"
In early 2010, Ben went on a week-long baking course at the School of Artisan Food in Nottinghamshire and afterwards set up E5 Bakehouse. Initially, he continued doing part-time consultancy for a firm that supplies solar panels, which paid enough to cover the course and for flour to bake for two days a week. He had no special equipment in his flat in Hackney, not even a fridge: fortunately it was winter, so the bread could prove – the rest period before baking – in plastic bags outside before going in the oven the next morning.
The idea was that he would sell bread door-to-door, but on day one he didn't sell a single loaf. "Then I discovered an interesting thing: the doors that say 'No Junk Mail', they're the ones who want organic bread delivered to their door." He laughs. "So I just beelined to all of them after I'd figured that out." Another turning point was when acclaimed east London restaurant Brawn placed an order for 20 loaves, double what he'd ever made before.
While our first batch of dough rests on the counter, MacKinnon passes me on to Eyal Schwartz, who would probably be the head baker if E5 bothered with job titles. He has a PhD in neuroscience from Jerusalem University; before working here he was developing computational linguistics for Motorola. We are joined by Fergus Jackson, formerly a creative director at an advertising agency. The Scot overseeing the pastry section is doing a PhD in philosophy, while an American guy who wears a Charlotte Hornets cap has just finished a masters in theoretical psychoanalysis. If E5 Bakehouse ever decides to enter a team in a pub quiz, then hold on to your money. "We've all studied the brain and philosophy and yet what really gets us excited is a good loaf of bread coming out of the oven," say Schwartz. "That's real satisfaction."
No one at E5 has had previous baking experience. Instead they have chosen a career that requires them to start at 4am at least once or twice a week. So what's the attraction for the thirtysomething, middle-class downshifters? All the bakers I meet talk about bread with a fervour that is not financial but spiritual. You also can't fail to notice that breadmaking is dominated by blokes, although there are excellent women-led bakeries, such as Bread Bread and the Little Bread Pedlar in south London. This isn't easy to explain. The job is physical but not prohibitively so and the hours are antisocial but perhaps men just feel a deeper attachment to bread: nearly half of British males eat it twice a day, compared to 25% of females, according to a recent study. And one factor for the career-changers could be that greater equality in earnings has freed men to choose jobs that maybe pay less but provide much greater fulfilment – from breadwinner to breadmaker, if you like.
Everyone at E5 agrees the male dominance makes little sense – even though it's mirrored across all restaurants and catering – and MacKinnon says he would welcome more job applications from women. The closest I come to an explanation is something one of the bakers, Pete Joy, says as he stuffs a tray of loaves into the electric deck oven. "Until about a year ago, we had a wood-fired oven, so the first thing you had to do when you arrived at 4am was light a fire," he says. "I don't know any man who wouldn't fancy that."
The lesson of E5, MacKinnon believes, is that there are opportunities for anyone – male or female – with a passion for exceptional food. And listening to him, it's hard not to start mentally penning your letter of resignation. "If somebody who reads this article thinks, 'Oh, I'd like to collect all the waste apples in my area and make cider' – you should do it," he says. "Start small, try to avoid going into debt and give it a go. The only thing you can lose is face."
MacKinnon reflects for a moment and changes his emphasis. "You know, I could play it down and say, 'Right place at the right time.' But I think anybody who saw me working at the start could see the wild passion and drive I had. I invested every penny, every hour of the day. It was fraught with worry and a labour of love. I just did it because I loved it."
E5 Bakehouse, Arch 395, Mentmore Terrace, London E8 3PH; e5bakehouse.com
