Flour power

Lovers of freshly baked bread and pastry will be glad to know that there is a man in town who has dedicated his life to creating the 10 000-year-old staple the right way.
“South Africans are starting to demand good quality bread, and I am very happy about that,” said Barry Korb, an artisan baker who sells hand baked bread out of his small shop in Salt Rock.
Korb’s passion was awoken when, after qualifying as a professional chef in 1967, he went to work in France.
He worked at the Hilton Hotel in Paris for three years before doing an apprenticeship at a French bakery, where he studied under master bakers.
“I then came back to South Africa and went back to college to learn the science of it. I knew how to make bread, now I wanted to know why,” he said.
“Great bakers manipulate time, temperature and ingredients to make bread. For example today is hot and humid, so I have to do different things to make the bread rise.”
The secret behind Korb’s trademark sour dough bread is that the bread ferments before it is baked.
“The beauty is that it is naturally low GI and low in starch,” said Korb.
“My bread is completely different from bread on supermarket shelves. That stuff is poison. We use stone-ground flour, while they use bleached flour, which has had all the goodness taken out of it.”
Korb, who was a founding member of the successful bakery chain, Doppio Zero, retired and moved to Salt Rock after the business grew into a franchise. He said when he could not find any decent quality bread here he had to start baking again.
“My bread will not give you heartburn, my bread does not make you put on weight. Look at me, I eat it every day!”
Despite making and selling his bread and croissants (he is also a qualified pastry chef), Korb still considers himself retired.
“My idea was to make ten loaves a day to keep me occupied. I used to give loaves away,” he said.
But as the word got out, locals wanted more of his bread and he obliged them.
“I did not want a business, but I am happy because people are wanting to eat delicious, healthy and nutritious bread”
Korb bakes a variety of bread and 25 different types of pastries. The Artisan Bakery is at Mall 505 on Basil Hulett Drive, opposite the Caltex petrol station and is open Thursday through Sunday.