How to make handmade bread? Science enthusiast A Duan's patient exploration of baking

General News Jan 1, 1970By Emily Carter 0 views

A-Duan Bakery posts its business hours as starting at 12 o'clock, but by nearly noon the smell of bread already fills every corner of the shop. Some customers know the way well, pushing open the unlocked glass door on their own and picking up bread with tongs; a single cinnamon bun sells two or three within no time. The head chef Wu Chia-lin, nicknamed "Huo Tou Gong" (Fire Tender), warmly brings out a cinnamon roll not yet ground into powder and says confidently: "This cinnamon was brought back from Sri Lanka by a customer. It smells fragrant without being harsh, very mellow and gentle, and the grower is his friend too."

Just like this cinnamon roll, A-Duan Bakery is an inconspicuous yet indispensable presence in the local community. In 1999, owner A-Duan got her start in Muzha Market with cakes, and 5 years ago moved near the Sanyi Xincheng community in Muzha, shifting focus to European-style bread. Tucked away in a quiet residential area, with no fancy decor and no advertising, the budget all goes into ingredients.

**Using a Microscope to Find Yeast with Taiwan Characteristics**

Interestingly, Huo Tou Gong studied physics in university, spending all day in the lab analyzing data, and once worked at a semiconductor company. In 1999 he went to work in China, and his wife happened to open a bakery. After he returned to Taiwan in 2005, he changed careers to help companies with packaging, marketing and image polishing to attract investment, until one day his father said: your work is just like a fraud ring.

After careful thought, he decided to take off his suit and resign, learning to make bread with his wife and watching online video tutorials. He gritted his teeth and studied for more than 3 years before he got a better grasp of the method, and now he has become the head chef. He jokes that back then it really was "no years by the oven's side, winter passes and one forgets the years."

In fact, Huo Tou Gong is not entirely opposed to science and technology; rather, he chooses to be scientific where science belongs, for example using a microscope to observe how yeast changes under different conditions; going online to find papers and study starch gelatinization temperatures, using appropriate scientific methods to help make better bread.

In recent years, more and more people have been using Taiwan wheat to make bread, but what exactly Taiwan bread is remains a matter of debate. Huo Tou Gong is still thinking about this question: "In Yunnan there is an instrument called the hulusi, made up of a xiao, a sheng and reeds, all foreign elements, yet what it plays is all Yunnan music. Whether Taiwan can use Western techniques and ingredients to make a Taiwan flavor is very much worth studying."

But thinking from another angle, he believes that if science can help purify yeast with Taiwan characteristics, it might be Taiwan bread's chance to go out into the world.

**Trying to Get Taiwanese People to Accept Choices Beyond Soft Bread**

But before finding the answer to Taiwan bread, they have another more important goal. Huo Tou Gong admits that Taiwanese people still prefer soft bread, so making European-style bread is very tough. Once a small child at the shop entrance desperately held back his father, saying not to go in, and the reason turned out to be that A-Duan Bakery's bread was too hard and not tasty.

This experience made Huo Tou Gong start to think about how to get more people to accept choices beyond soft bread. He began selling chocolate brioche with a softer texture: "At least I hope customers can walk into the shop and let me share my methods with them." Some customers indeed, encouraged by them, gradually came to accept European-style bread. The bakery's ultimate goal is to have the shop's shelves filled entirely with pure, original-flavor bread.

(This article was funded by the Jianzhen Environmental Education Foundation for personnel expenses as a special project, but it does not interfere at all with news topics or interview writing, ensuring news independence)

How to make handmade bread? Science enthusiast A Duan's patient exploration of baking

Using a Microscope to Find Yeast with Taiwan Characteristics

Trying to Get Taiwanese People to Accept Choices Beyond Soft Bread

Related Articles