"When I opened my bakery, Margot, I’d never actually baked more than one loaf” admits Michelle Eshkeri, who is celebrating the new year with her first cookery book – Modern Sourdough — published earlier this month.
The Manchester-born, Australian-raised mother of two had actually baked many loaves when she took the decision to open a bakery/café on Finchley’s East End Road. Just not in commercial quantities.
Her prior professional expertise had been making exquisitely decorated celebration cakes for niche bakers including Konditor and Cook. She then went freelance, selling and blogging about celebration cakes as the Lavender Bakery. She was doing this when she married Victor Eshkeri in 2008 — having converted to Judaism — and they had two sons, Rafael in 2010 and Phineas two years later.
When Finn was six months old, she became interested in baking sourdough bread. “I mixed up a sourdough starter and that was the beginning of this journey. Anyone can make a cake but bread was more of a challenge.”
At that time, she says, there was little guidance. “I developed a sourdough challah on my own — there was no book telling me how.” She had been considering opening a bakery but had nothing concrete in mind when things moved quicker than she’d envisaged.
“I was at my hairdresser when she mentioned that a local estate agent was marketing the old post office, a few doors down. Other people were interested so I had 24 hours to get my finances together. I had no experience but the landlord picked me!”
She’d never operated a commercial bakery nor baked large volumes of bread. “Was I brave or crazy?” she asks, laughing.
The process of converting the dilapidated site into a bakery took an entire year. “I learned one step at a time about installing three phase electricity, how to lay out a bakery and a shop and how to manage suppliers, employment law, VAT and baking in large volumes amongst a hundred other lessons!”
It was a steep learning curve: “For the first 15 months I was working seven days a week. I’d go several days without seeing the boys at all, as I left early and got home late. I felt so guilty. Thankfully, Victor [a Company Secretary] was very supportive — he’d do the morning school run and I’d pick the boys up when I could. I also put my entire family finances at risk as we had taken out loans to start the bakery. I just had a feeling that people want good bread.”
That intuition has been borne out. Now open nearly four years, Margot is thriving, but like the bread, it has been a gradual rise. “I did no PR except on social media. I kept it under the radar so the business could grow organically. For at least two years people came in saying they had no idea we were here!”
In keeping with her low key attitude, the book project came to her. “I was approached directly by a commissioning editor who’d seen my work on Instagram and I couldn’t say no.”
It’s a bready bible, taking the novice from creating the sourdough starter — the foundation of any sourdough loaf that gives it the characteristic flavour and helps it rise — through turning it into various loaves and more complicated pastries, both sweet and savoury.
Sourdough is a slow food. “It’s harder to bake because the process is so slow and things can go wrong at various stages. If we lose a batch, it can be two days before I can get a new one into the shop. It takes space and time.”
She’s worried that the effort may put people off but insists that the time is well spent: “It’s better than any other bread I’ve made or tried — it has more nuanced textures and flavours.”
What’s ‘modern’ about her sourdough? “That’s the leavening of sweet doughs. There’s no history of them being made with sourdough, as they were created after bakers had moved on to yeast-risen doughs. I was able to develop them because of knowledge shared by other bakers in Instagram from all over the world.”
In the book are Eshkeri’s recipes for a range of sourdough-based breads inspired from around the world. “I dip in and out of various cultures.” There are ciabatta, baguettes and rye loaves as well as challah and bagels and less well-known Jewish bread, Jachnun — a Yemenite bread tradition for Shabbat that is baked for six to 12 hours. “My friend Clarissa made us this for one of our sheva brachot meals after our wedding.”
There’s also Lepeshka from Uzbekistan — a nod to her Victor’s heritage. “Part of my husband’s family came from Bukhara. I make this bread to maintain the connection for my children with their family history.” She even has an authentic bread stamp to imprint a design on each loaf. “One of my customers, who I met making challah at New North London Synagogue brought it back for me from Uzbekistan. “In Bukhara, Shabbat loaves are the same as daily bread (not sweetened like challah) but they serve two of them.”
She also includes a range of cakes, jams and spreads, including a spelt-based honey cake and Perlette’s apple cake, her version of Victor’s French grandmother’s cake, known to the family as Nanny’s Gateau Aux Pommes.
“She spoke very little English and I speak little French. I understood just enough baking-related French words to follow her descriptions.”
At the time of writing, Eshkeri was still planning her Rosh Hashanah menu but she told me the spelt honey cake will make an appearance as will her tahini date sourdough challah.
She is also hoping to have a bit more time to cook and enjoy the festival for the first time in a while. “The last three years have been hectic! We lean towards Sephardi/Middle Eastern food and, if not a meat meal, I’m very fond of making plum or blackberry tarts for New Year too — actually the first babka I ever made was for a Rosh Hashanah lunch with friends.” ”
Modern Sourdough, White Lion Publishing, £22
