I have fallen in love again. My marriage is safe though, because this time it’s the bread from Rosalind Bakery that has captured my heart, as well as my taste buds. In 2015 Matt Kosoy started making bread at home while working in the tech world. He decided to up his game a bit and took classes at the San Francisco Baking Institute. In 2016 he quit his job as a web developer and started what would become Rosalind Bakery in Pacifica. In the summer of 2017 I started hearing about an amazing new bread baker at the Coastside Farmers Market, and got my first taste of it one day at my in-laws house. I was blown away at how good it was. We bought some when we could at market, but it was frequently sold out. Apparently Matt was on to something. In December when the market stopped for the season I started worrying about withdrawal. Lucky for me (and the rest of the Coastside!) his bread started popping up in a few places, first occasionally at Traveler in Pacifica and now regularly at a few spots around town.

So what makes his bread so good? As I frequently say, cooking (or in this case baking) simply is actually very complicated, because there is nothing to hide behind but quality of the ingredients and the technique.

To start off, Matt uses flour from Central Milling in Petaluma which only uses quality wheat from the Western US. This is the same flour that the famed Tartine Bakery in San Francisco uses, and it is the basic Tartine recipe that Matt uses as his jumping off point for his loaves. The starter for the sourdough breads was developed in Pacifica, so it’s the local yeasts being used to give it a true “local flavor”. Many grains used are from Community Grains in San Leandro, and the walnuts in his loaves are from Old Dog Ranch in the San Joaquin Valley.

As for the technique involved, Matt likes to push the limits of both the amount of hydration in the dough (up to 80%, which makes for a softer, airier interior. This is up to 10% higher than in traditional loaves) as well as the amount of proofing time. While the longer the proof the more is flavor is developed, you also lose more of the yeast which gives the bread its shape and internal texture, called the “crumb”, which manifests itself in the nice, uneven holes you see in the bread below that is the trademark of a good artisan bread. A batch of sourdough loaves takes 36 hours start to finish, and they bake 80-100 loaves per bake in their shared commercial kitchen.

If you are a more patient person than I, you can try your hand at it here. I am quite happy to pay for the work the folks at Rosalind Bakery do since they seem to have it down.

Hydration percentage is not the only experimentation Matt does. He also bakes in color. He makes a tea out of the Butterfly Pea Flower and uses that as the liquid for a very purple/blue loaf.

In the spirit of not wasting in the kitchen, Matt takes old loaves and turns them into charcoal, which is then mixed into a new batch of bread as ash. It sounded very strange to me at first, but then I remembered that ash is used quite often in cheese making both as a layer within the cheese or as a rub on the outside. You end up with a loaf that looks incredibly burnt, but is super moist!

For Valentine’s Day they are working with Beet Juice as a colorant for that loaf to give to your special someone.

So where can you find Rosalind Bread these days? Well, first of all they are supplying sandwich bread to Dad’s Luncheonette for the Mushroom Sandwiches and burgers, as well as baguettes for specialty sammies.

Otherwise, you can pick up a loaf at Spangler’s in El Granada as well as Tablewine, Traveler and Saltwater Bakery in Pacifica. Delivery days are Wednesdays and Saturdays. Follow @RosalindBakery on Instagram for more details and notices about Secret Menu Items which could include pizza dough, bagels and pretzels.

Have a happy Valentine’s Day, and hopefully I’ll see you “loafing” about town!

Stuart

(Thanks to Matt Kosoy for taking to the time to talk with me between baking and being a new dad, and of course for the bread! All photos courtesy of Rosalind Bakery.)