What inspires you to make your stuffed breads? "In the tapas and typical recipes of the bars of Cádiz, Barbate, Chiclana and other enclaves in Cádiz," Dani Ramos answered me the last time we met. By the way, during the past Madrid Fusión had offered me the corusco of a loaf stuffed with chorizo that when biting it seemed to me the best of the sandwiches. Then a different one with mojama and cream cheese slices and, later, a stuffed with sobrasada. This is not bread, I exclaimed excitedly, but giant sandwiches. Great!
How did you come to create more than 40 flavors? Initially induced by some cooks. Not many years ago, when JuanLu Fernández was still officiating with Ángel León in Aponiente, we reflected together on artisan breads, cultivated sourdough, quality flours and slow fermentations. I changed my way of understanding the trade and timidly started in the creative bakery, for me a magical world. I began to knead peaks and scold with flavors of popular tapas that people received with great success. One day until Pepe Melero , owner of El Campero , gave me a pot full of onion tunaso that he made peaks with the flavor of the stew.
Spikes and scolds with the taste of tapas? In effect, black peaks from a chocos stew in ink; You scold with pleasure shrimp omelets, colored butter with pork cracklings and mojama and ling roe ... We make the choco beaks from trammel copies with their interiors intact, we do not add any other ingredient than the ground stew. Something like shrimp tortilla chips .
Baker or pastry chef ? “I am a pastry chef, I had never approached the bakery, I disdained battle breads. I carried out my trade in Mallorca and Madrid , and served as second pastry chef in the Hipohotels chain in Chiclana, until I set up the workshop.
Among its bread-sandwiches is that of prawns with garlic. “The list grows and decreases for weeks. We make loaves stuffed with tuna mojama and cream cheese; caramelized onion and goat cheese in a roll; of sobrasada; payoya goat cheese with chicharno chicharrones; of chorizo and blood sausage, and of roasted tomatoes with payoya goat cheese and pumpkin seeds. I also make them from anchovies and capers; Galician style octopus chunks; bacon and cheese; tomato and basil; marinated loin; of potato omelette; tuna with onions; of chocos in ink; roasted peppers and garlic prawns. Bar specialties turned into breads
Does he cook half with his wife? We replicate traditional flavors, although sometimes we work on request at the request of certain chefs. Every day ideas come to us, we rectify and evolve. Known stews that we incorporate into the masses.
Since my last visit to his workshop, he has made remarkable progress. The training of a baker never ends. I have spent a week at the Richemont Club in Lucerne (Switzerland), together with Carlos Mariel, its president. I have learned to understand the complexity of the cultivated sourdough, to know more about the fermentations and the behavior of the wheats.
Who is your provider? Flours Fuensanta in Coín (Málaga). They come to me with the right grinding and the characteristics that I ask of them .
They also cook vegetable breads. We apply the same system as for sandwich breads. We roast vegetables and add them to the doughs with all the juices they give off during the roast. Breads without water, with an intensity that sometimes seem implausible. The key is to find the proportions, the balance between the ingredients.
Your favorite vegetable breads? The one with roasted sweet potato; those of carrot, ginger and honey; roasted peppers; pumpkin and roasted tomatoes that do not contain water. Always ready to incorporate new recipes and discover other flavors.
What does it take to be a good baker? Bread is nothing but flour, water, salt and time. If the processes are slow and the ingredients are good, the probability of achieving remarkable results is high. In our workshop we feed the oven with firewood, we mold the breads by hand, we use stone-ground flour, and we do not resort to additives. We use cultivated sourdough and apply long rests, very slow fermentations. Basically, dedication and passion for the trade. Nothing new.
La Cremita Bakery . Obrador Polígono Industrial Pelagatos. Ronda de Levante 8 Chiclana (Cádiz) (The operator has not stopped working at any time during the state of alarm)
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