'Black Country People want Black Country bread, straight from the oven': Meet the traditional Tipton baker winning fans with his burnt top cobs, gorgeous cakes and more

It's a place in Tipton which harks back to a forgotten time, providing traditional baked goods which reflect the heritage of the Black Country.

Set in the middle of Great Bridge's high street, Bake My Day is like taking a step back in time, full of nostalgic cakes and pastries, as well as offering large and filling sandwiches and fresh bread.

It is also well known within the community for its burnt top cobs, a style synonymous with the Black Country, with cobs, tins and other types of bread being baked on site, as well as at a unit near Sandwell and Dudley Rail station.

The shop, alongside another shop in Blackheath, is owned and run by Nathan Hadley, who works with his team of five to start baking at 3am, and has proven so popular that even on a rainy Thursday morning, there was a queue heading out of the door.

The 33-year-old Nathan said he had previously worked as a police dispatcher, but said he felt the need to make a change and invested in running a baked potato business in Oldbury named after a popular saying by his late father David before the opportunity arose to take on baking.

He said: "I started up the jacket potato shop in memory of my dad, which was called 'Alright Spud' as he used to call us all Spud when we were kids, and I'd started that with £2,000 and was buying bread from this shop previously.

"The gentleman who owned it said he wanted to sell the business and I acquired the funds together and bought the place in 2022, selling the spud shop to accumulate the money for this.

"We made a few changes, including bringing back all the old items, such as old school apple turnovers, cornflake tarts, sprinkle cakes, Run Bar bars and the traditional old firkins, as this used to be an old Firkins building.

"We then started doing tastier bread, changing a few ingredients in the bread to make it a bit tastier, playing around with the weights, and we found our own little niche, because whatever comes out the ovens goes straight to the counter and whatever isn't sold is given away cheaper towards the end of the day, then either used for bread pudding or given to local horses."

Mr Hadley said that around 2,000 small cobs, 400 large cobs, 14 large tins and a wide number of other soft bread are baked each day and said it was the sort of shop he'd want to shop at and reflected on how providing a traditional shop had appealed to a lot of people.

He said: "I always favour local high street shops and I think the High Street is a dying trade at the moment, with a lot of barbers and other things we don't need and that's why I thought there was this niche here as people wanted traditional bread.

"I think that big businesses around here like Tesco and Sainsburys are coming away from baking on site now and are doing industrialised, freezing the bread and proving it on site, which loses a lot of the quality and taste.

"With us, I thought local people want local Black Country bread and they want it straight from the oven to the counter and it's tasty and warm and the dark top cobs go brilliantly.

"We call them 24 carat burnt and a lot of it is traditionally Black Country because, if you go back, a lot of it was burnt bread because of the old ovens that they used to do it in and they couldn't get it to a nice soft top.

"I think the rustic taste of the bread really resonates with some people around the Black Country as it brings back that memory of childhood."

Since opening, Mr Hadley said the shop had been constantly busy, with people loving the hot pork sandwiches and bacon and egg sandwiches and the hot cobs being the most popular item, as well as large eclairs, sausage rolls, beef and vegetable pastries and cronuts.

He said opening Bake My Day had been a life-changing experience for him as it had given him more chance to be involved in his community, having spent 12 years working in an office.

He also spoke about future plans for the brand, with one shop open in Blackheath and another soon to open in Oldbury.

He said: "I know it sounds silly, but I think bread on a table, sliced in the morning from your local bakery, makes the world go round, especially the local community, because they know they can get their fresh bread from a local source and pay into a local business, instead of big business.

"I've got the shop in Blackheath, which is important to me because of the location as there's a lot of footfall on an authentic high street, and Oldbury is close to my heart because it's my home town and I think the high street has been neglected from the retail park over there.

"If I can help local businesses around me, then that's great for everyone, like the chippy next to me which creates footfall for other businesses, and I'm proud to have created 19 jobs from my business, which is proper Black Country."