There are few things as emotive or satisfying as the feeling of ripping into a crusty, floury loaf, and few things as ingrained in our food history; yet in recent decades good-quality bread has been increasing difficult to find.

Thankfully, things are changing. Artisan bakers are emerging to re-introduce consumers to bread that is like cheese to the chalk that is cheap, mass-produced white sliced. They're baking the sort of loaf that cries out to be thickly smothered in butter, using quality ingredients - with perhaps the most important of these being time.

It was the desire to save time and increase profits that led to the creation of the low-quality white sliced that now accounts for around 80% of bread bought in Britain. In 1961 the Chorleywood Bread Process (CBP) was developed so that bread could be made from low-protein, low-quality wheat, with a substantially reduced fermentation time by using large amounts of chemical improvers and intense mechanical working of the dough.

The award-winning Otterton Mill in Budleigh Salterton uses its own-ground flour in its legendary bread, which is baked on-site, then sold from the shop and restaurant. Bob Butler, the mill’s owner, is rightly proud of his bread and and how it’s made. “Our bread is just flour, yeast, water and a little salt, with no additives of any kind,” he says. “It’s all handmade, from start to finish, and we don’t use any machinery. The flour is made into bread as soon as it’s milled, so you can taste the freshness, and the texture is quite different: it’s crumbly and doesn’t stretch. It’s an entirely different product that bears no relation to mass-produced bread.”

Emma Parkin from Emma’s Bread is equally passionate about her product. She makes naturally-leavened breads (using naturally occurring yeasts) from a culture that is more than three years old. “My pain au levain, a naturally yeasted white bread, has a twelve hour fermentation and is proved overnight. You get an amazing chewy texture and a fantastic crust; it’s white bread as you’ve never had white bread before,” she says. It’s clear she gets an enormous amount of satisfaction from baking the artisan way. “It’s hard physical work, but is the most thrilling, creative thing, and an art, not a science. To get up early and have a huge basket of bread by eight in the morning, ready to take to market, is fantastic.” Emma’s Bread can be bought from shops, farmers’ markets and box schemes in the Exeter area (details on the website), and she also teaches bread-making courses at Occombe Farm in Paignton.

There are lots of places to buy really great bread, wherever you are in Devon. The family team behind Bread of Devon hand-makes its loaves from mostly organic, top-quality ingredients with no additives (‘We put no badness in and take no goodness out.’) and sell through farmers’ markets, local shops and restaurants (see its website for details). Plymouth’s French boulangerie and patisserie La P’tite France makes fantastic, authentic continental loaves. In north Devon, Barnstaple’s East and West Bakery is a locals’ favourite, and in mid Devon, Lifton Farm Shop recently won an award from FARMA for the Best On Farm Bakery - try its moist, dark ‘donker’ loaf, made from rye and pinhead grains.

Those who prefer to avoid wheat should try Devon company G-Free, which uses alternative flours to make traditional and continental loaves that are sold from its website and health food shops and restaurants. And if all this has inspired you to try baking your own, try an Ashburton Cookery School bread-making course; you’ll learn all the theory and practical skills about how to make a variety of breads from ciabatta and French bread to sourdough and wheat-free.

Bread to hunt out

Otterton Mill
Otterton, Budleigh Salterton, EX9 7HG.
Tel. 01395 568031. www.ottertonmill.com

Emma’s Bread
Tel. 01392 490009. www.emmasbread.co.uk

Bread Of Devon
Tel. 01392 841222. www.patfl.plus.com/Breadofdevon

La P’tite France
16/18 Frankfort Gate, Plymouth, PL1 1QD.
Tel. 01752 261183.

East and West Bakery
1 Butchers Row, Barnstaple, EX31 1BW.
Tel. 01271 377577.

Lifton Strawberry Field Farm Shop
Lifton, PL16 0DE. Tel. 01566 784605/784375.
www.liftonstrawberryfields.co.uk

G-Free
Tel. 01404 47904. www.gfree.co.uk

Ashburton Cookery School
Hare’s Lane Cottage, 76 East St, Ashburton, TQ13 7AX.Tel. 01364 652784. www.ashburtoncookeryschool.co.uk

This feature first appeared in Devon food magazine in May 2008.