Our bread is on the shelf here. We bake it six miles away in New Windsor, from grain milled on stone thirty miles from this shop — days before it goes in the mixer. Here is why that matters, and how you can have any loaf we make waiting for you on a Friday.
— Lorraine & Igor
We are a two-person bakery in New Windsor, six miles from this shop. Lorraine bakes and has fed our starter Lagom every morning since 2023 — “lagom” is Swedish for just the right amount, which is more or less our whole philosophy. Igor does everything that is not the oven.
We only sell what we feed our own son. That is not a slogan, it is the actual test: if a loaf would not go on our table, it does not go out the door.
Working out what belongs in food, and what is in there to cut a cost, got quietly handed to whoever is buying it — in six-point type, at the end of a working day. We would rather do that work ourselves and be accountable for the answer.
Most flour is milled fast and hot, months before it reaches a bakery. The bran and the germ come out, because that is what lets it sit in a sack for a year. What is left keeps beautifully and carries much less of what was good in the grain.
So we stopped buying flour and started buying grain. Don has spent more than thirty years on it: ancient varieties most mills gave up on, ground on stone, a short drive from our ovens. He does it because he can taste the difference, and that took him a career to learn.
Then the dough gets time. Depending on the loaf that is anywhere from 8 to 36 hours on a wild starter — the ryes take the longest, the sweet doughs less. No commercial yeast, no dough conditioners, nothing to hurry any of it. Fresh flour and a long ferment are the two things you cannot fake, and the two things almost nothing on a supermarket shelf has.
An honest note. We are bakers, not doctors, and we make no medical claims. What we hear most often from people who switch is simply that this bread sits easier. Here is what a long ferment actually changes →
That is the idea this shop was built on, and it is the reason we are on the shelf. Fifty-odd makers in here, nearly all of them from a few miles away. We are one of them: two people, one oven, a miller thirty miles up the road.
Nobody in a supermarket aisle is advocating for you. Deciding what belongs in food, and what is in there to shave a cent off a loaf, got handed to whoever is buying it. We would rather carry that work ourselves and be answerable for it — which is a slower and more expensive way to run a bakery, and the only one we are interested in.
People skip bread now to feel better. They were told the carbs were the problem, when the problem was what happened to the loaf on the way to the shelf. We would like to hand bread back: something that carries you through a morning instead of something you apologise for eating.
So when you pick up a loaf here rather than in a supermarket, the chain is four links long and every one of them is a neighbour — a farmer, a miller, this shop, and the two of us. That is the whole business, and it only works because people walk in here.
We promise to put your gut first. Everything else is what that promise costs us.
The shelf holds two of our loaves. We bake five, plus the sweet things. Tell us what you want and we will bring it on our Friday run, packed for you. Fresh bread for the weekend, not bread that has been sitting since Tuesday.
A text or an email. What you want and your name — that is the whole form.
Your loaf is made for you and comes out of the oven Friday morning. Nothing sits waiting.
Packed for you and waiting at the Collective. We text or email you the morning it lands.
Same as anything else here. No delivery fee, no minimum, nothing to set up online.
These two live here permanently. Tap either one for the full ingredient list — there is nothing in there you cannot pronounce.
Dark, deep and a little tangy, with a close moist crumb and a crust that cracks. Rye and wheat, a long slow ferment, seven ingredients. It keeps four to five days and gets better on the second.
Real bread feel without the wheat: naturally fermented on our own gluten-friendly starter, psyllium for structure, a touch of honey. Soft crumb, golden crust. Gluten-friendly, baked in a shared kitchen, so not certified for celiac.
Three more loaves we bake every week. Say the word by Wednesday and any of them will be here on Friday. Retail prices, the same as anywhere, paid at the counter when you collect.
100% stone-milled New York rye with sprouted rye berries baked in whole. No wheat, no molasses. Cut it thin — it is dense on purpose, and it keeps four to five days.
Crackling golden crust, open airy crumb that catches butter in all the right places. Four ingredients: flour, water, salt, time. The loaf our kitchen runs on.
Plump juicy raisins and a warm ribbon of Ceylon cinnamon through a tender crumb. Most of the sweetness is the fruit, with a teaspoon of sugar to carry the spice.
24 hours of slow ferment, soft layers, frosting that stays soft.
Frozen butter folded into cold sourdough. Craggy edges, tender middle.
Real butter, dark chocolate, flaky salt. Soft middle, crisp edge.
Little hand-rolled bites with raisins, pecans and walnuts.
New to us? Ask for the three-loaf starter set — Whole Wheat, Cinnamon Raisin and European Rye for $26 instead of $38, one per household. Same Friday pickup, same register.
Tried it and loved it? Leave us a review, it really matters to us, and it helps other people find real bread. Then tell a friend.
Leave a Google reviewOne message on Friday morning: what we brought to the Collective this week. Nothing else, and one word stops it.
We will also send our bread care guide — how to keep a real loaf alive for a week, and how to bring it back on day three.
Dough at six in the morning, the mill, what came out of the oven, and the occasional supermarket label pulled apart line by line. That is all that is on there.
Cut side down on a board, or in a paper bag. Never the fridge — cold air stales bread faster than the counter does.
Slice it first, wrap it tight, press the air out. Up to three months, and it thaws back with the crumb intact.
A slice straight from frozen: toaster or oven, three to five minutes. A whole loaf: 350°F for ten to fifteen.