A few months ago, I posted pictures of a bread oven in Sonsoro. Recently, I toured a new bakery in Kandi. As you will see in the pictures below, there is quite a difference between the two!
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| The storefront |
This bakery is the recent creation of a Kandi entrepreneur who also manufactures potable water and is the leader in technology centers in the city. At the present time, the bakery only produces baguettes, but the owner plans to eventually make pastries such as croissants and pains au chocolat.
Bread production starts around 6 pm and fresh baguettes are available as of about midnight. The owner intends to eventually run a second shift of bread production, but for the moment, there is a shortage of trained bakers to work in his bakery.
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| The giant electric mixer (the top of the bowl would come up to your waist) |
The bread is made using a yeast that requires cold temperatures, thus dozens of blocks of ice are required each night.
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| 100 lbs bags of flour |
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| The kneading table |
When the bread is being produced, an enormous blob of dough (at least 3 feet across) sits on the end of this table as several bakers work on rolling it into snakes of dough that will eventually become baguettes. Then the baguettes are placed on long cloths that have been folded like accordions, with two baguettes in each fold.
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| The bread oven |
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| The final product |
Hundreds of baguettes are produced each day. Their sale price is 125 CFA (25 cents). Some baguettes are sold in front of the bakery, while others are distributed to individuals who will sell them throughout Kandi. When the baguettes are sold wholesale, they are sold for 110 CFA (22 cents), meaning the vendor will get a 15 CFA (3 cent) profit on each one.
Bon appétit!
I didn't quite follow the yeast on ice part. Are they not using dry yeast?
ReplyDeleteApparently, they use a yeast that requires cold temperatures to activate.
ReplyDeleteThat's unlike any yeast I know. I thought yeast were living organisms that got happy when they got warm and wet, and produced CO2 as a result. Oh, ethanol is another byproduct...interesting.
ReplyDeleteAh, there's such a thing as compressed yeast, which has yeast suspended in liquid, and then all the liquid is squeezed out. This isn't usually sold in stores, as it's highly perishable. So, maybe they're using that, and using the ice to keep the yeast cold before they add it to the dough...