SPRINGFIELD, MO — In line with its name, Neighbor’s Mill Bakery & Cafe in Springfield, MO, does its milling in-house with a Meadows Mill Mealmaster 20-inch grain mill, the only bakery in town to do so. Using freshly milled flour maintains consistency across the bakery’s products. The bakery supplements with Farmer Direct Foods’ Prairie Strong bulk flour to retain quality in its baked goods.
“Since switching to Farmer Direct, we’re now 100 percent stone ground through everything we mill as well as the flour that we use,” shared Clif Brown, owner and operator of Neighbor’s Mill, noting that the switch to stone-milled flour helped stabilize some enzymes that were creating very active doughs.
The bakery goes through about 100 pounds of whole wheat berries from Wheat Montana every other day and about 10-15 pounds a week of rye berries.
Along with milling, the Springfield bakery’s wholesale capacity, which it took on from Harrison, has been a game changer for baker retention. The bakery services 26 wholesale accounts in the Springfield metro area, including restaurants, grocery stores, country clubs and food trucks. This additional aspect of the business supports the staff and operation, offering plenty to bake during the week and justifying costs such as oven usage.
“We always have something to bake,” Clif said. “There’s always someone to bake for. We have wholesale customers every day of the week except for Sundays. We’ve tried to grow that business because it’s important to not only be able to pay our bakers but retain them.”
From 6 p.m. to 2 a.m., the back of house comes to life. Within the 950-square-foot kitchen, the team kicks off each shift by scooping muffin and sweet bread doughs made the day before and popping tins into one of three ovens: the Baxter rotating rack oven, the Blodgett Zephair convection oven or the Blodgett 1048 stone deck oven.
Lacey Beach, Neighbor’s Mill bakery manager, communicates the numbers behind what needs to be made for retail and cafe sales to the bakery team around 7 p.m., which then adds those needs to what is queued up for wholesale.
All the while, baguette and sheet pan focaccia doughs that were proofed overnight are sent to the oven. The overnight process for baguettes, Tim shared, cultivates a sourer flavor, encourages gluten development and extends the bread’s shelf life due to the higher pH.
Tim Jones, head baker, and Sam Yung, assistant head baker, set the shift’s schedule and — along with other members of the bakery team — portion out ingredients for sponges into two Hobart mixers and a 10-quart Globe mixer. The doughs are then proofed for a couple hours. Using the sponge method provides similar benefits to an overnight proof without creating a too-open crumb or overwhelming sourness, and it makes production quicker and more predictable.
Once the pastries and sweet breads are sorted, the priority shifts to the star of the show: the bread. Doughs hit the bench at 9 p.m., which on any given day can range from eight to 10 different varieties.
Clif likens the bakers’ process to choreography. Each baker knows their cue, and the group moves in sync as dough is tossed from one side of the bench to the other. Across the bench, some bakers shape breads while others put the finishing touches on items for the bakery counter. This consistent routine is key for an operation churning out approximately 300 bread loaves per shift.
Once the breads go into the oven, the team moves to other tasks, with some prepping doughs for the next day and others completing breakfast items, de-panning bread and separating retail and wholesale products. All the while, music plays and jokes ring out from each corner of the baking bench.
This story has been adapted from the September | Q3 2024 issue of Craft to Crumb. Read the full story in the digital edition here.
