Bakehouse 24 x Velo Domestique - a friendship baked in dough

As part of our Velo Provenance series we are looking at the wonderful suppliers that fill our kitchen with delicious produce, we thought we’d start with one of our longest standing suppliers and good friends Bakehouse 24. We visited their baking unit in Ringwood to catch up with their team and for them to model our new Provenance tees designed by the talented Karolin Schnoor.

A few months into opening our Southbourne cafe, two Velo Domestique regulars, who had supported us since our first few days being open as a pop-up in Boscombe, eagerly reported back from their recent mid-cycle discovery of a new bakery in Ringwood.

"I have never got through butter so quickly. I brought a loaf of their sourdough home and ate almost the whole thing in a day — you have to try it!"

The contagious excitement of a new culinary discovery and the delight of sharing it with friends is something we deeply enjoy at Velo Domestique. Our team are forever exploring new places for inspiration and seeking new ingredients to pass on to those we care about, and we’re just as happy to receive recommendations from our customers — particularly two as knowledgeable and travelled as these.

So we set out, by bike (as it seemed the preferred way to discover this new bakery), to find the also recently opened Bakehouse 24 just off Ringwood High Street. There, you could see how this deliciously chewy but crisp-crusted sourdough bread was made through the floor-to-ceiling glass walls of the first Bakehouse 24 bakery cafe. The signs of a possible partnership were there from the start: a fellow “coffee and…” business, serving great coffee alongside freshly baked bread you could watch come to life in front of you — in a former bike shop premises, no less!

The 24 Sour (their house sourdough loaf) could first be found on plates at Velo Domestique at the end of 2015 as a humble toasty, covered in smashed avocado or simply with jam and butter, and we’ve been happy to have it ever since.

Pete and his team of passionate, friendly bakers supply not only us but most cafes and restaurants in Dorset who truly care about the quality of bread they buy. We had the pleasure of chatting with Pippa, who heads up the ever-growing wholesale team at their new bakery site in Ringwood.

Talking Bread with Pippa at Bakehouse 24

When asked how much bread they bake on an average day: “Around 500 loaves. But if you include everything, like ciabatta, sourdough rolls, burger buns, specials and pastries, today we sent out 2,310 items.”

That output is powered by a small but mighty team. “There were five of us baking today, though usually it’s just four,” she explains. Together, they supply a remarkable 120 wholesale customers — though not all order every week — plus three Bakehouse 24 cafes of their own.

What makes their bread stand out? It’s about focus and consistency. “We’re really careful with the quality of our ingredients — the flour especially. That’s something we hold plenty of too, and it means we can consistently make really good bread.”

Pippa’s favourite: “Personally I love the sourdough, though the pastries are always popular too.”

Pippa herself has been part of the Bakehouse 24 journey for around seven years, with a short break to start a family. “Most people stay for a good while. We’ve had some turnover of course, but it’s a team that grows together.”

Any tips for anyone trying their hand at home baking? “Start with really good quality flour. We use stoneground flour from Stoates Mill, and I’d recommend the same to anyone baking at home. You can’t go wrong if the flour’s good. And keep it sour — we love sour.”

From iconic summer evening Pizza Runs, Bread Shearan slinging loaves at a pop-up stall on Tuesdays at Velo, Pete and Gareth’s early morning deliveries to our little blue caravan on its adventures to festivals and events across Dorset, patiently teaching us how to use a soft serve machine to celebrating business birthdays together — we love working with Bakehouse 24 and we’re excited to see what many more years of this friendship brings.