'A really magical food': Bread lovers and bakers in Sask. share their tips and favourites

For some, there is nothing better than the smell of freshly baked bread. That's why Bluesky hosted the first Breadline on April 11, 2019.

Mark Dyck used to own the Orange Boot Bakery and currently hosts a podcast called Rise Up, dedicated to breadmakers around the world. His beginnings in dough were simple with his family.

"When I was a little kid, I would bake with my grandma," Dyck said. "And she said I had the touch. And later in life, I have had a career where I was working more with my brain than with my hands."

While working, Dyck started making bread as a hobby.

"Making your own bread is a lot of fun. It's not very difficult and it feels great. It's a nice physical and mental challenge. I love it."

His favourite is a plain sour dough. Dyck feels so strongly about bread because it's "baked right into our genes."

"It's been around for six thousand years. For much of the world, people have got the majority of their calories through bread for centuries," he said. "It's just a part of us."

Baking has also been a part of Tracy Muzzolini's life for as long as she can remember, she said. Muzzolini is from a long line of bakers in Saskatoon, and her family operates Christies Mayfair Bakery.

"I remember my dad just taking fresh pan bread loaves out of the oven and was putting them on the table while they're still hot," she said. "It's been a part of my life for so long."

While in Toronto, Muzzolini became interested in bread as an art form, she said. She looks for the flour being fermented perfectly for a nice bread.

Fermentation is key, Dyck said.

"And I think we lost our way with some of the industrial bread that's been made over the last 40 50 years or so and it's been all about how can I get bread out the door as quick as possible," he said. "It takes time to make good bread."

The bread scene is growing, Muzzolini said.

"We've got some nice things happening here in Saskatchewan and Mark [Dyck]'s one," Muzzolini said. "[It's] just coming alive. So it's really exciting."

Eric Anderson said the best smelling bread is the maple oat from the Danish Home Bakery in North Battleford.

"Whenever you bring it into your house, your whole kitchen just smells this beautiful like maple scent. And it makes it the best French toast you've ever had," Anderson said. "It's delicious."

Bryn Rawlyk noticed he was good at it as a young child as well and realized he liked working mornings while being in university. He is now the owner of Night Oven Bakery in Saskatoon.

"We source organic grain from Saskatchewan farmers and we mill it with a stone mill that's located at the bakery there ourselves into flour," Rawlyk said. "And then bake the bread in a wood fired oven."

"I sort of fell in love with the magic of creating bread," Rawlyk said. "Quite a special thing to see."

He decided to mill his own grain because when they opened five years ago, there wasn't anyone else doing it, he said.

"It's a different, you know. It's not that white kind of bread," he said. "But it's something that I really enjoy."

Rawlyk's advice for a new bread maker is to do it twice. He said to pick a recipe and plan to make two: one on a weekend, then the second on the next weekend.

"Maybe the first time it'll work out maybe the first time it totally won't. Then the second time you do it you'll have that perspective to be able to handle it," he said. "I'm sure it'll be better the second time you do it."

"It's not rocket science. Try, try again."

Paul-Emile L'Herueaux said he and his wife grew up on homemade bread but recently bought a bread machine.

"I know it is maybe cheating but it's just so convenient," he said. "I have my own flour too, grow my own wheat and so organically of course and it's amazing."

"The only the only struggle that I have with bread machines is that most of the recipes that come with the machine calls for an awful lot of yeast," Dyck said. "So you're getting bread really quick."

"Long fermentation builds flavor and makes things more digestible," Dyck said. "Aside from that heck, why not, go for it."

The memories people have to bread helps make it the best, Dyck said.

"I think my grandmother because it smells like her kitchen," he said.

"It's the connection with your family or the connection with the person that's making it that's so important," he said. "And it's just what makes it a really magical food."