The Muskegon Farmers’ Market is bursting with culinary goodies. It is open May through December on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. The market vendors display a plentitude of produce in season, various potted plants and herbs, local farm-raised meats and wholesome baked goods. It seems like all of the farmers and vendors at the market have an interesting story to tell about their products and the passion each has for their particular items for sale is quite evident. One such vendor at the Muskegon market, with not only a fascinating story but an outstanding product line of unique artisan breads, can be found at a booth each Saturday under the name of Laughing Tree Brick Oven Bakery.
Charles and Hilde Muller are the owners, bakers and entire business team for Laughing Tree Brick Oven Bakery. Although, the couple admits they receive some help: friends contribute by completing various tasks at the bakery and market, as well as their two young children, Finn and Annie, give honest feedback on the new products they make.
Laughing Tree has only been coming to the Muskegon market for a year and the bakery has several loyal customers. Charlie greets many of his Muskegon Farmers’ Market regulars by name and even knows what flavor of bread the customer prefers. He happily hands out samples of his products and enjoys watching the reactions of people who never tasted his baked goods before as they try their first bite. Clearly a busy booth, Muskegon market-goers are buying as many as 270 loaves of bread plus several batches of other baked goods from Charlie on a busy Saturday.
A sign above the booth describes the offerings of baked goods made with natural ingredients and produced in a sustainable and traditional manner. The bakery, nestled in the hills east of Hart in Oceana County, is run on solar power and the enormous brick oven for baking is heated with a wood fire. The ingredients, whether used in pastries or bread, are always simple and carefully selected from Michigan sources. The bakers rightfully boast of the better quality, nutrition, flavor and texture that can only be found in their naturally leavened bread. The process of producing the dough and baking the loaves of bread stays very close to the older traditions of the craft of artisan bread making.
The bakery uses very little commercial or packaged yeast, which is almost unheard of in a modern bread-making facility. For most of the breads, the Laughing Tree bakers cultivate a starter that captures wild yeast naturally present in flour and in the air. Incredibly, nothing more is needed to make this “levain” but water and flour and a week or two at room temperature. Once a culture is established, the bakery stores this combination in the refrigerator, uses it as needed, and can keep a culture going indefinitely by simply adding flour and providing the proper environment. It should be noted that one bread variety at the bakery, Oceana Round, requires a small addition of commercial yeast to help create the large holes in the bread that is designed to be ripped and dipped in oils and liquids.
Mostly, dough for the bakery’s bread is made with moderate to low levels of the wild yeast starter in “slack” or wet dough. Wet dough, according to Charlie, has a risk of over-proofing, resulting in a flat product. To assure better quality, the bread is cold-proofed or allowed to rest at room temperature for about 30 minutes after shaping and then placed in a cooler for 10 to 12 hours to slowly rise. According to the bakers, proofing the bread at low temperatures and for longer periods of time allows the wild-type yeast to create a better product with noticeably superior crumb structure, a softer texture inside the crust, and the sweetness of any added grains should be detected with very faint sour notes from the normal yeast acidic by-products.
After the bread has had time to proof, the next step in the process, the actual baking, is performed in the bakery’s prominent red brick oven that Charlie built by hand. Aside from the size of the oven, one cannot help but notice that there are no buttons to push to set a temperature and start the oven. To heat this oven, wood must be loaded inside the baking oven and set on fire. When the fire goes out, Charlie removes the wood ashes and then cleans the oven in preparation for baking.
When the baking begins, Charlie places the round loaves one-by-one into the oven with long wooden paddles. He describes which variations of his breads should be loaded in the very hot oven first and how quickly the bread cooks when he starts placing loaves into the oven. He also explains that, as the oven loses heat slowly, other products the bakery brings to the Muskegon market, such as the scones and brownies, are cooked in the gradually cooling oven after all the breads have been baked. The scones, in fact, are the last items to be baked in the oven, going in at 3:30 am Saturday and coming out at 4:15, with just enough time to cool before leaving for Muskegon to go to the Muskegon Farmers’ Market as well as the Sweetwater Local Foods Market at 5 am.
To maybe state the obvious, Laughing Tree Brick Oven bakery does not do anything the easy or convenient way. The bakery employs the art and the science of traditional artisan bread making and puts a lot of hard work behind high quality products. Rightfully so, the bakers take pride in their free-standing, traditional bread that does not require preservatives or special packaging to maintain freshness. Natural ingredients, no preservatives and products created using traditional methods are a rare find in food. However, such a find is as close at the Muskegon Farmer’s Market and the Sweetwater Local Foods Market on any Saturday. To find out more about the bakery, visit the booth at the markets in Muskegon (at least to try whatever Charlie is handing out in samples!) or visit the bakery website at www.laughingtreebakery.com.
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