Schmidt Bakery
Traditional baking skills are still practised today. In the bakery, there is an historical steam oven dating from the 1920s in which various types of rye and wheat rolls are baked. There is a traditional stone oven, heated by wood, for baking rye bread. This was rebuilt in the winter break of 2011 -12.
To make the bread, master baker Markus Schmidt and his colleagues use only sour dough they have prepared themselves. They add dark rye flour, wheat flour, iodised salt, water and a little yeast, knead it all together, weigh out the quantity needed for loaf by hand and put the dough in a little wicker basket. The loaves ferment for a short time, and are then laid on the baking peel – a wooden tool with a long handle – and slid into the stone oven. There are other types of bread in addition to this wheat and rye bread, namely raisin, potato and seeded breads.
The residual heat in the stone oven is used for traditional tray bakes, which are baked with quark, cherries, apples, poppy seeds, sour cream or butter crumbles. In the colder months of the year, onion tart is also on the menu, and at Christmas time there is also homemade butter Stollen and lots of different Christmas biscuits.
All bread and baked goods are made in our bakery and can only be obtained from the Hessenpark Open Air Museum.