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Knead to Know: the Real Bread starter

This book is the introductory guide to success in bringing Real Bread back to the heart of your local community.

Hurry - the first 500 copies sold out and the limited-edition reprint is now selling fast!

Buy now - 33% discount for Real Bread Campaign members!
 

Join in the #KneadToKnow conversation on Twitter.

Buy Knead to Know now

The limited edition printed version of Knead to Know is just £10 for for Real Bread Campaign members, a saving of over 33% on the cover price of £15.

  • We process orders and membership applications once a week (usually on a Thursday), at which time you will receive confirmation of your order by email.
  • Please allow up to 14 days from date of order for delivery.
  • Sorry but we will only post the limited edition book of Knead to Know to addresses in the UK.
  • Overseas orders will only be fulfilled as a PDF version - see below for.

Current campaign members (UK only)

If you're a member of the Real Bread Campaign already, you can buy your limited edition copy of the Knead to Know book for just £10* here

Non-members (UK only)

If you'd like to take advantage of the 33% members' discount on Knead to Know, you can join the Campaign and order the limited edition book at the same time.

For full details of our membership scheme and further benefits, click here.

Alternatively, you can just buy the book on its own for the full price of £15*.

Book and membership
UK ONLY
If you have a UK address, buy your limited edition copy of the Knead to Know book at the discounted price and join the Campaign at the same time.

 Click here

Book only
UK ONLY
Buy your limited edition copy of just the Knead to Know book to be sent to a UK address.

*plus £2 p+p

  • If you would prefer to pay by cheque, please make it out for the relevant amount (as listed) payable to Sustain, not the Real Bread Campaign, and post, along with a note of your name, UK address and contact details to:  The Real Bread Campaign, c/o Sustain, 94 White Lion Street, London N1 9PF.

No UK address?

Knead to Know is also available to overseas readers (and people who want to help save a tree) as a PDF download for just £10.
Click here to order the PDF

What?

Knead to Know is the introductory guide to success in baking Real Bread for your local community.

Inside its covers, you'll find 140 pages of information on ingredients, basic recipes, techniques, business models, marketing, media relations, legislation, money matters, equipment, apprenticeships, courses, equipment and ingredient suppliers, further reading, and much more?

Who's this for?

Whether baking once a month in your own home for a local produce market, joining together with your neighbours to set up a Community Supported Bakery, or looking to succeed in baking Real Bread as a traditional high street baker, this is the book for you.

Even if you're a professional baker already, inside you will find helpful advice on making the transition from additive-assisted production to baking Real Bread, and how to market it successfully.

Though much of the content will be of interest to readers around the world, information on insurance, money matters, legal stuff, courses and training, ingredient and equipment suppliers is all aimed at readers in Britain. Oh, and we don't do cups: the recipes are all metric.

More...

In between these wholesome slices of advice, we've packed Knead to Know with tasty crumbs from people who know how to knead, including master bakers Paul Barker, Troels Bendix, Aidan Chapman, Paul Merry, and Andrew Whitley; as well as UK Community Supported Bakery pioneer, Dan McTiernan of The Handmade Bakery.

Chapters

Click here for a PDF sampler of the contents.

  • Foreword by Richard Bertinet
  • Introduction
  • About Real Bread
  • Get Real!
  • A trail of breadcrumbs from your kitchen
  • Kicking the additive habit
  • Ingredients
  • Notes on Real Bread recipes and methods
  • Some basic Real Bread recipes
  • Community Supported Baking
  • Different types of Real Bread bakeries and outlets
  • People
  • The bakehouse
  • Equipment
  • Insurance
  • Money matters and admin
  • I fought the law?
  • Marketing
  • Media relations
  • Courses and training
  • Ingredient suppliers
  • Equipment suppliers
  • Bookshelf
  • More useful links

Though much of the content will be of interest to readers around the world, information on insurance, money matters, legal stuff, courses and training, ingredient and equipment suppliers is all aimed at readers in Britain. Oh, and we don't do cups: the recipes are all metric.

Techie stuff...

Knead to Know is in 206mm x 206 mm format, printed in two colours throughout on 100gsm uncoated Cocoon Offset (FSC Certified 100% recycled paper), with a 350gsm, full-colour Cocoon Offset cover.

PDF sampler

Click here for a PDF sampler of a small fraction of the contents of this jam-packed handbook.

Reviews

'Your book is brilliant!' Lucas Hollweg, Sunday Times food writer

'Whether you fancy joining neighbours to set up a Community Supported Bakery, or want to establish your own high street artisan bakery, this book tells you what to do. As well as basic recipes, it contains wholesome advice on everything from equipment, to techniques and money matters.' Clare Hargreaves, BBC Good Food Magazine 'good reads' (June 2011)

'This handbook has been written to help anyone who wants to set up a community bakery in their home, or indeed small commercial bakers who want to stop using additives and switch to making real bread.'
Charles Campion, London Evening Standard

'The book looks great!'
Vicki Hird, Friends of The Earth

'Bakeries like The Handmade Bakery co-operative in Yorkshire, featured in last week's Telegraph are providing an inspirational, clear example of a potential working model for the future and, with the support of organisations like The Real Bread Campaign?s Knead to Know, a self help guide to new entrants to the industry, there is hope that, in the long run, David may yet triumph against all the odds.'
Angie Greenham, thecraftbaker.co.uk

'The Real Bread Campaign are to be congratulated. The first striking thing about 'Knead to Know' is the excellent design. The content is thoughtful, inspiring, packed with relevant experience & insight. Above all, it's steeped with practicality. If your curious about whether community baking is for you, I recommend you buy 'Knead to Know'.
Carl Legge, Lynn Lines

Bakers inspired by Knead to Know

2 August 2011

  • Ravi Muniandy in Suffolk baking around 100 loaves a week to supply a Country Market and two independent shops locally.
  • ‘Chef on a Bike’ Dave Foster of Stocksbridge, Sheffield has twenty regular customers, forty who buy less regularly, and has baked for two country fairs and several other events.
  • Mark Woods in the West Midlands has also started a bread club, baking around thirty five loaves twice a week for subscribers.
  • Michael Gopfert in Merseyside, who is now baking forty loaves at a time, and has taken on a helper, resulting in many gains for the local community. 
  • Peter Barabas in south Manchester, who reported that Knead to Know gave him the confidence and the knowledge to start a small scale, subscription-based home bakery.
  • Abi Tomlins and friends in Bournemouth are also just starting out, reporting that they’re running a Community Supported Bakery trial called ‘the baker's dozen’ from a suburban flat, where they’re baking twelve loaves of Real Bread a week to deliver to twelve households over a twelve week period.
  • Gary Mercer in Surrey has also taken the first step towards starting a bakery, selling his wares at a local school fayre as part of his market research.

What readers have said

Here are a few highlights of the feedback we've received from just some of the hundreds and hundreds of people who have bought Knead to Know so far...

'Brilliant, inspiring, it helped me to believe I really can do this!'

'Knead to Know  is a regular reference and reassurance book.  It provides me with advice and accounts of other bakers' experiences.  Most importantly it provides me with contacts which I have used continually.' To see more of this reader's story, click here.

'This is an excellent resource - absolutely essential reading for anyone wishing to do commercial baking at any level. Pragmatic approaches and honest discussions about the pitfalls and costs of setting up a Real Bread bakery. Fantastically inspirational - I can't wait to get started!'

'Knead to Know is helping me now as I work towards obtaining planning permission for the full-blown bakehouse and oven setup in my backyard.  I'm also finding the marketing tips/hints in your book really helpful - I keep returning to those pages to remind myself that I need a coherent message to go with what everybody says is great bread.  It's just so practical having advice on all aspects of setup in one simple book.'

'I'm a home baker dreaming of one day opening my own bakery. This book got me even more excited than ever before.'

'Looking through the book inspired me to set up my small business from home. I am now selling weekly at the local Country Market and two local independent shops. The book gave me some ideas on insurance for the business, as well as other useful information and confirmed my belief that ordinary people with a passion for Real Bread can make a difference to their community. I am now baking around 100 loaves a week with one domestic double oven, taking over my parents kitchen most days of the week!'

'Great book that's turned my wonderings into a burning passion.'

'Lovely little book.'

'Informative and inspirational. Gave me a genuine insight into what would be needed to go from enthusiastic amateur to baking bread for my community.'

'Cracking read, full of great infomation, if you havent got it borrow, buy it or miss out!'

'It is a good guide for a novice wishing to start up a business.'

'I found the book very special and exceptional. I've got loads of bread recipe books but none with actual advice on insurance, law, and management aspect. So Knead to Know makes me feel I got one step closer to providing or bringing Real Bread to my friends and neighbours.'

'I have recommended it to my friends, and it has inspired me to take the huge step into baking commercially.'

'A great read and useful practical publication which pulled all the useful info together - thanks.'

'I have only had a few minutes to look through this and it's amazing! Wish it had been around when i was dreaming of starting out, but reckon it will still be useful to me now! So detailed and inspiring.' 

'I think it was well designed, informative and a pleasure to read and good to flick through, loved the pictures.'

'This is the perfect resource to help you to start thinking about baking real bread for your community. The book is full of inspiration and insights, and with enough factual content to make you feel confident about putting your own ideas into practice.'

Where to buy out in the real world

As well as being able to buy Knead to Know from us here, you cvan also find it in the following places.

To find out whether the book is available by mail order, in a shop/mill/bakery or as part of the price of a course, please check with the stockist in question.

NB - the £5 discount for Campaign members only applies to books bought directly from the Real Bread Campaign, not from any other outlets.

Wholesale enquiries

If you think you might be interested in selling Knead to Know through your shop, bakery, online store, alongside your bread making course, and so on, please email Chris Young to discuss details: realbread@sustainweb.org