From a woodfired oven near you.
Well… if Kimberley, BC is near you ; )
The Bread Peddler sells organic, sourdough, woodfired bread & baked goods in beautiful Kimberley, B.C. from our home bakery at 379 Archibald Street (via the alleyway), once a week on Wednesdays, from 5pm to 8pm.
Our Story
Tim and Kate met in the summer of 2012 when they were both riding their bicycles solo across Canada. They met in Forget, SK, and spent most of the remaining kilometres riding together. They were married in January of 2013, and Tim had permanently moved to Canada from the UK by June of that year! Kate quickly figured out that Tim was quite handy, and her dream of operating a wood-fired sourdough bakery came to fruition. They sold their first breads at the first Farmer’s Market in their tiny town of Wells, BC in June 2014, and The Bread Peddler soon became a staple in Wells and in Quesnel at the wonderful Farmer's Market there.
Tim and Kate moved to Kimberley in 2018, and Kate has spent 6 years here boring her friends to death with stories of The Bread Peddler in Wells and trying to figure out how to get a bakery started in Kimberley. It finally happened in the spring of 2024: they built a laneway building on their property, which will serve as a bakery until Kate wants to retire, and then it will be transformed into a residence - the sweetest bachelor pad ever!
Our Oven
This is the third wood-fired bread oven built by Tim, and he says it will be the last. It took about 6 weeks to build, in the spring of 2024. It is based on the design of Alan Scot, and the improvements of Richard Miskovich, both bakers and oven-builders out of the US. In the oven’s interior, the hearth and dome are made of fire bricks, which are then encased in concrete. These two layers act as a thermal mass, soaking up all the heat from the fire. There is plenty of insulation on top, and then the whole business is covered in stucco.
A bread oven is different from a pizza oven: the bread oven uses fire over a period of one to two days to heat up the thermal mass, the bricks and concrete, and then the fire is gone and the hearth is cleaned before the bread is baked. The oven is allowed to sit for a few hours after the hearth is cleaned to allow the heat to soak evenly through the masonry. This provides a lovely, even heat for the bread - there are no hot spots in the oven, there is no need to turn the bread as it bakes. A pizza oven uses a live fire in the back of the oven to provide the quick, hot heat needed to cook pizza. There is no thermal mass needed to retain heat. The pizzaiolo spins the pizza as it cooks to make sure it is evenly cooked.
Our breads and tasty treats
We use only organic flours and grains in our products, and all our other ingredients are as organic and as local as we can get them. The breads are all leavened using the naturally-occurring yeasts and bacteria in sourdough. This makes them taste yummy, and gives them better digestibility too. All the whole-grain flours used are freshly milled by Kate: wheat, rye, and spelt mostly, with others thrown in now and again for fun and variety. Kate also cracks her own grain mixture for the Grainy Day (multigrain bread), ensuring its quality and freshness.
We also sell granola, scones, and a variety of cookies and treats. They are also baked in the wood-fired oven, usually the day after bread day, using the falling temperature of the oven. Kate makes these treats with a lot of butter, a bit of whole-grain flour for taste and health and texture, and tries to maximize flavour over sweetness as much as she can. Of course they contain none of the preservatives, conditioners, and ultra-processed ingredients of super-market baking.
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Find us at 379 Archibald Street (via the alleyway) EVERY Wednesday, from 5pm to 8pm!
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