KANSAS CITY, MO — A bread baker’s origin story often starts with being born into the business and funneling the passion down through each generation. So rarely are bakers thrust into the industry by a simple question. But for Tim Jones, head baker at Neighbor’s Mill Bakery & Cafe in Springfield, MO, this is exactly the case.
He started his baking career in 2017 as a food runner for Broad Street Baking Co. in Jackson, MS. One day, a customer asked him what leaveners the bakery used in its bread. Unsure of what a leavener even was, Tim directed the customer to someone who had the answer. But that lingering feeling of unfamiliarity irked Tim enough to seek answers of his own.
“I should have known how bread works if I worked at a bakery,” Tim said. “I went to the closest Goodwill store, found a baking textbook from the local college and bought it. I read it from cover to cover.”
Enticed by the process, he bought two more books on bread baking and, again, read both in their entirety. Spurred by his interest, Tim transferred to Broad Street’s baking team later that same year.
At Broad Street, he practiced several different recipes, discovering that reading about baking is entirely different from the actual process. He was involved in bread production and pastry lamination but grappled with removing himself from the belief that baking was a perfect science.
“Everybody said, ‘Compare baking to chemistry,’” Tim recalled. “But I believe baking is closer to animal handling. You’re working with living organisms — yeast is living — and you’re cultivating it. It’s so temperamental, just like animals. You can train an animal as much as you want, but there’s no guarantee it’s going to do the exact same thing every time.”
In 2020, Tim and his family moved to Springfield, MO, where he stumbled upon Neighbor’s Mill, which had an open position in the bakery. After talking with Clif Brown, one of the bakery’s owners and operators, Tim was hired almost immediately.
“Right place, right time is a perfect phrase for how it happened,” Tim said. “I had just moved to Springfield, but then I walked into the bakery, and Clif interviewed me on the spot. They just so happened to have this vacancy with operations, and it mimicked what I was already trained to do.”
As he grew accustomed to the ins and outs of the Neighbor’s Mill bakery, Tim quickly moved up the ladder, becoming head baker and sole manager of the baking team.
Today, he works hands-on with recipe development and quality control, ensuring every product that goes from the makeup table to bakery case is up to Neighbor’s Mill standards. The owners give Tim the creative liberty to pitch and test different product ideas — whether it be laminated pastries or flavored loaves — to include on the menu.
Of the entire baking process, Tim enjoys the troubleshooting aspect more than anything else. As a baker, he thrives in the chaos of bread production and swears by allowing the dough to lead him, as opposed to the other way around.
“Baking is more of an emotional process,” he said. “You have to know your dough, and you have to be intimate with it. No matter how good a baker you may be, if you’re not intimate with that dough, you’re not going to get it right.”
Tim finds daily inspiration from the simple fact that baking bread is one of the few artisanal trades he can do exclusively with his hands. He has a strong belief — and fondness for — baking with love.
“You can taste it,” he said. “You can feel the difference, the joyousness, of baking with your hands. There’s a big resurgence right now in hand-crafted bread versus machine-made.”
But even with years of experience to shape his technique, Tim admits he hasn’t perfected it, and he doesn’t have any intention of doing so.
“I don’t think you can ever perfect the craft,” he said. “There is no perfection because if that’s what you’re aiming for, you’re leaning toward mass production. Working here … this is where the magic is.”
This story has been adapted from the September | Q3 2024 issue of Craft to Crumb. Read the full story in the digital edition here.
