Keeping it real

In the heart of downtown Jozi, Babette’s Bread is spearheading a return to authentic, no-nonsense loaves. What’s more, this artisanal bakery offers workshops to those who appreciate the time-honored art of making classic French bread like an epi-baguette, as is masterfully demonstrated here by owner, Babette Kourelos

- ROBERTA COCI

For artisanal bread baker Babette Kourelos, there are few things in life that beat the feeling of pulling a perfect loaf out of the oven. “People often don’t realise what goes into baking bread,” she tells me, as we sit together in her Maboneng-based kitchen in Johannesburg. “There’s nothing romantic about getting up in the middle of the night to feed your sourdough and make sure it’s happy. But when you end up with a nice loaf of bread at the end of the day, it’s worth it.”

While bread-baking has become both her passion and livelihood, it was never on the horizon for Babette, who in fact pursued a BA LLB at Wits University in Joburg. “During the final two years of my law degree, I randomly came across baking. Something just clicked,” she reminisces. “I loved the simplicity of the ingredients and the different stages of bread-making; how such simple components can be combined to become a dough, how it rises, how you knock it back, and how it becomes something new and fascinating at every stage. It’s safe to say I fell in love.”

Babette tried every recipe she could get her hands on, and found baking a useful way to distract herself from “tedious legal cases”. While at the time she presumed she would continue with law, a fateful conversation with an acquaintance in the industry would steer her in another direction. “I told him I had graduated but that I wasn’t sure law was everything I lived for. His answer was clear. He told me that if I didn’t eat, breathe and live the law, I’d be miserable, and that if I had other interests, I should pursue them.”