The ovenFour in the morning
Megan
The first bake of the day is the house white, forty at a time on the peel, with the oven at its hottest. By seven they are on the counter and the second round is proving.
Gallery
Six mornings.
The oven, the bench, the counter, the cake window, the class and the van. Photographed on quiet days because the busy ones are a blur of flour.
A look inside
Six from the last few weeks.
The oven
BreadsShaping the seeded
Megan
Two hundred loaves shaped by hand between nine at night and midnight, each one tensioned the same way so it stands up in the oven. You learn it in a month and perfect it in a year.
PastriesThe counter at half past seven
Rhys
The first round of croissants and the custard tarts, which will be gone by eleven. Rhys laminated them yesterday afternoon and proved them overnight.
CakesThe cake in the window
Ffion
A three-tier lemon and elderflower for a Saturday wedding at the cathedral, finished at six and in the window for an hour before it went in the van. The flowers are from Bethan's on the next street.
ClassesSunday at the bench
Megan
Eight people, two loaves each, and the one thing nobody told them about proving. Everyone goes home with a jar of the starter and a sheet of timings that fit a working week.
WholesaleThe six o'clock run
Dylan
Twenty-six stops between six and half past seven, in the order the cafés open. Dylan has driven it for seven years and knows which doors stick.
The morning bake, the cake of the week, the odd crumb shot.
The bread goes up as it comes out of the oven most mornings, Ffion posts the week's cake before it leaves, and the Welsh cakes on the bakestone get more views than any of it. No reels of the Saturday queue; you were in it.
Come in early, or order ahead.
Sourdough and croissants on the counter from half past seven, Welsh cakes on the bakestone, cakes to order with three weeks' notice, and wholesale to twenty-six cafés with the price list online. Ring, or use the form; a person replies within a working day.