One of the most popular activities here in London for any foodie is to go down to Borough Market. There you’ll find a range of cheeses, fish and meat, coffee and juices, vegetables and fruit; you can almost be forgiven to think you may have gone back in time. Your nostalgia peaks for a time where you can shop for food like this and we’re guilty of the same; our nostalgia for Bread Ahead doughnuts is high and proud. 

Matthew Jones started Bread Ahead in 2013 and it is a staple of the London doughnut scene, constantly appearing on top doughnut lists and even winning awards. Jones boasts that the key to their dough is long fermentation and overnight proofing. No matter what time of day you come to Bread Ahead they have always been consistently excellent in texture, unlike other places where the dough grows stale. Each trip here for us is pure comfort.

Today the stall invited us with their usual Chocolate and Caramel Sea Salt but also offered rarer flavours of Blueberry Jam and Lemon Meringue.

The Chocolate was rich and not too sweet; the flavour was strong, and although unlike Crosstown’s ringed chocolate - which had dark chocolate to balance out - there really is nothing like biting a fully filled doughnut.

Caramel Sea Salt has never been our favourite here. The honey comb on top, although it’s a nice touch, doesn’t add anything other than aesthetics. We found the flavour particularly weird today, reminiscent of a Werther's Original and missing that sharp twang of salt.

Instead of a Raspberry we had to settle for the Blueberry Jam, which was a disappointment. The jam was much too thin and it really lacked the depth of flavour a blueberry has, giving a rather surface level acidic hint.

Of course we like to look forward to the future and it’s exciting to see an established expert experiment with summer flavours, but the Lemon Meringue is not the innovation that will change the world. It is a failed flavour with a lemony sugary creme where no tartness was to be discovered within a bite. Meringue you would expect crunchy little bites but instead it seemed like uncooked meringue, as the filing was just too soft to give you that satisfying mouthfeel.

Texture: 4

Flavour: 3

Ease: 2.5

Ratio: 2.5

Balance: 3.5

Overall: 3.1/5

I love coffee and I enjoy trying new coffee shops.  Everytime I’m bored I always check online to know what are the available coffee shops in the area. Most of the time I just go to different malls and I still struggle to decide on where to go.  Thus, I decided to take note of the different coffee shops that I see. Today, let me share you the different coffee shops / cafes found in the Mall of…

Focaccia

Mix and leave for ~10min

Dough should be soft and pillowy

To kneed - 8min

Grab dough with one hand then “bounce” like a ball

Use scraper to periodically scrape all back into one area

Ciabatta

To kneed - 8min

Spread fingers and scoop dough and lift

Smack down and repeat

Use scraper to periodically scrape all back into one area

Grissini

To kneed - 8 min

Push away with heel of one hand while keeping hold of other end. Fold onto itself and repeat.

After its come together, keep hold of one end and smack other end onto table. Fold onto itself and repeat.

Cut into 16 (half, half, half, half)

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Bread Ahead

There are many things I would like to get ahead of. 

There was that time that I was racing and was determined to get ahead of the next competitor.  As he remained just out of reach for several hours, that helped me push just that little bit harder. 

Or it could have been that time I really really wanted to be picked for the team instead of being one of the laggards shuffled into the back.  Jumping and waving to attract attention had a counterproductive effect in that case. 

More recently, I have heard that people are trying to get ahead of the queue for the vaccine through various legitimate but sometimes nefarious means.  It is cheering when such attempts at underhanded dealing are swiftly given the finger. 

In such dark times, I had to drop by Bread Ahead to get ahead of bad feelings.  The world doesn’t seem so dark when you have a piece of cake in front of you.  Perhaps if I restate this case loudly enough, wishes might become reality.  No hints there to my household co-habitor.  Then again, perhaps such efforts are wasted as she doesn’t read my blog for some reason…

Carrot cake.  Dreamy and delicious.  Airy but moist with cream cheese frosting, it managed to find that balance between stodgy and whimsical. 

Praline doughnut.  Alright but a bit stodgy.  Not to my particular liking but then again perhaps I am spoilt by piping hot specimens.  The dough just wasn’t that interesting even if the filling was good.  It was a little dear for fried bread as well.

Raisin sourdough bread.  This was magnificently bouncy and fulsome.  Bread Ahead definitely is ahead of the curve here as this was great with delightful springiness in each bite.  This was a reason to come back and is excellent topped off with a dollop of butter. 

It seems that Bread Ahead is trying to get ahead of the game.  In some elements they succeed although there is the danger that in order to take advantage of rampant commercialism, something is lost. On other occasions I have seen, it can be value for money, service or quality or sometimes sadly none of the above.  Not to mention any names of celebrity chefs who have walked down this road to entirely foreseeable reputational damage.  How the mighty have fallen.

For the Ahead crew, their detraction was their service as it was rather brisk and caustic.  I prefer to have my server wait for me to finish my sentence before they run away to do my initial bidding and then make a face at me (your eyes tell the story above your mask) when I continue my order requiring them to get more boxes.  I enjoy slavic devotion as much as the other man but only when there is method to that.  On the positive side, although the prices have increased, the quality of product seems unadulterated by excessive popularity.  So if you are undeterred by the no-nonsense service in search of baked goods, you could do much worse. 

  A quiet eating 8/10.

A pastry was GBP4 excluding drinks and service.

  Bread Ahead