Julia Child once pondered, “how can a nation be great if its bread tastes like Kleenex?” Well, quite. The same can be said of any restaurant in any land, as it goes.

In the bartending community, it is widely renowned that the sternest of litmus tests when assessing a prospective hire is the quality of their Daiquiri. Don’t ask me why. It’s a simple drink that is terribly difficult to screw up. Like most cocktails, good specs, freshly squeezed citrus juice, the appropriate ratio of simple syrup (or caster sugar if you’re particularly keen to announce that you don’t care for consistency) and half an idea how to shake the thing generally does the trick.

Bread is the Daiquiri of the kitchen.

It’s what we judge a restaurant’s capabilities on, either subconsciously or not. It can decide a tie before the penalty shootout. It can turn heads, elicit unbearable noises that are only uttered in this circumstance, it can cover you in crumbs and shower you in goosebumps. It’s also capable of irritating the socks off you if it’s gone to cock.

You’ll know by now, if you’ve dined at Venner or even if you haven’t, that bread is serious business for us. It must be, being of a Neo-Nordic disposition and inspired by some of the greatest loaves and slices we’ve come across in our time. The Danes don’t mess around.

If you’ve eaten our bread, you may have wondered if it’s for sale by the loaf. You may have even asked us. You will surely have questioned how the dark, rich malt and the crunchy, nutty seeds can possibly marry together to form something so ruggedly delicious. Don’t forget about the honey.

Wonder no more, for this bread is no secret.

Below, you will find not only the recipe to our malted rye and seeded sourdough but also to its offspring. No, we didn’t make breadcrumbs or bread & butter pudding and we certainly didn’t put French toast on the brunch menu.

Brød is Danish for bread and it’s also a drink at Venner. By utilising the offcuts and discards of our many loaves, through a painstakingly laborious but perfectly necessary process, we’ve created a delightful non-alcoholic drink that has all the maltiness of its source served in glorious liquid form.

Cheers to bread, I suppose?

Recipes below.

MALTED RYE & SEEDED SOURDOUGH

1,800g bread flour
1,125g rye flour
75g malted barley powder
150g honey
100g sunflower seeds
100g pumpkin seeds
100g linseeds
300g bread amazake solids
375g sourdough starter
75g salt

• Soak all of the seeds overnight.
• Combine all ingredients and prove.
• Shape your dough as you desire.
• Cold proof overnight.
• Bake for 15 minutes at 230 degrees on 80% steam.
• Drop the temperature to 190 degrees and bake for a further 5 minutes on 80% steam.
• Allow to cool before serving.
• Lather with copious amounts of butter and devour unapologetically.

BREAD AMAZAKE

150g leftover bread
100g rice koji (ours is home made but you can buy it)
200g filtered water (scale up for a big batch)

• Cut all of the crusts off your leftover bread.
• Seal ingredients in a cryobag.
• Steam in the oven overnight at 60 degrees Celsius.
• Once out of the oven, blend together.
• Freeze mix.
• When fully frozen, remove from the freezer and defrost through an oil/coffee filter to clarify.
• Add dilution (optional).
• Refrigerate.
• Serve in a wine glass or in a double old fashioned glass over ice. Either way, guzzle it down like there’s no tomorrow and revel in the wonders of bread.