'I started my artisan bakery business in Staffordshire after my children bought me a bread making course'
From the moment Ruth Redgate began learning how to make bread by hand, she was hooked.
Now she is the owner of Hunnypot Cottage Bakery and creates a wide range of breads and pastries, from traditional white and wholegrains to more exotic treats.
“In 2013, my children bought me a bread making course – and I loved it,” says Ruth, who lives near Lichfield.
“When you take a baking course at a commercial bakery they use deck ovens which means you come back with loads of bread so I gave it away to neighbours and friends who asked for more and that’s how the business started.”
Ruth sells her breads and pastries through her website as well as at local craft fairs. They are also delivered to homes and farm shops in Lichfield, Elford, Tamworth and Sutton Coldfield.
“We offer 30 different types of breads – not all of these are on offer at every market – ranging from the simple white or 100 per cent wholemeal to our classics such as the rosemary, stilton and onion, and the continentals of the baguette, fougasse, ciabatta and focaccia.
“We also offer a range made without gluten, although customers are made aware we do not have a separate kitchen for this.
“And we will adapt recipes, so if you can’t have cranberries because you are on blood thinners then we will add another fruit to our hot cross buns and tea cakes,” explains Ruth.
All of the breads are freshly made to ensure each bake retains its moist and airy consistency.
“There is no such thing as a typical day, which I love,” says Ruth. “If we have a market, the prep starts about two days before with the ingredients being weighed out, then the breads have their first knead and prove which is a minimum of 12 to 24 hours.
“Then the second stage is the shaping and second prove before the baking, so a late night of 1am or 2am to bed, then back up at around 4am to finish the baking so that the breads are as fresh as possible for the markets.”
Hunnypot Cottage Bakery is a proud supporter of Slow Food and The Real Bread Campaign – which means its bread is made without the use of processing aids or any other artificial additives.
Each of the traditional recipes have been trialled and tweaked by Ruth, who was crowned West Midlands Bread Hero in 2021 by the Tiptree World Bread Awards.
“Before I became vegan, my favourite bread to make was the rosemary, stilton and onion, which is perfect for a bacon butty, but now it’s the Borodinsky rye sourdough.
“This is a taste sensation with the pop of flavour from the coriander and caraway seeds – try it thinly sliced and toasted to really accentuate these.
“It even made an ex-Russian soldier cry at an event at the National Memorial Arboretum as it took him back 20 years to his motherland.
“But they all have a special place in my heart including the Staffordshire knot that was created back in 2016 when we were invited to the Wedgewood museum for a market and event to celebrate the first Staffordshire Day.
“Followers assumed we would go down the beer route, but we went Marmite – which our family love – and yes it’s divisive but some of my best customers for this are Marmite haters and they get upset if it’s sold out at markets.
“There is also our banana bread – and yes it’s a bread not a cake – aka Minion that contains fresh banana and tropical muesli so have it toasted with lashings of butter for your breakfast but you can tell yourselves you’ve had fresh fruit and muesli,” says Ruth, who is supported by her two children and husband Ian.
Customers can also sign up to two subscription boxes as well as the recently-launched ‘bake at home’ box, which included the raw ingredients as well as access to a live “knead along” for the first stage of the process and a pre-recorded video for shaping and baking.
Ruth, who was enrolled as a Freeman of the Worshipful Company of Smiths Lichfield for her skills as an artisan baker in 2024, enjoys sharing her passion by teaching others through her in-person and online courses.
“We have individual in-person courses, which take place in the student’s home so they get to know their own oven and we can tweak the recipes to suit,” she says.
“We also offer group courses which we can tailor to those attending.”
For Ruth, the best thing about baking is being able to “create something so delicious from simple ingredients”.
“I also enjoy the simple joy it brings to people.”