The ‘absolutely fantastic’ Aberdeenshire bakery home to best bread in Scotland
An Aberdeenshire bakery’s sourdough bread was recently crowned the supreme champion at the annual Scottish Bread Championships. Rosalind Erskine spoke to the owner to find out how the business went from a lockdown project to being loved by locals.
Spring 2020 was not, with the benefit of hindsight, the best time to take on a new hospitality business. But it’s where Dougal Stonebridge found himself with Courie Courie bakery, which began at the height of the first lockdown.
Founder and baker, Mr Stonebridge had taken over the cafe but was soon forced to rethink operations, as the restrictions pushed him to start making and selling cakes from a table in the cafe doorway. “I sold them to a guy who paid for them on Paypal as we didn’t have internet or anything” he recalled. “We made £2.50 the first day we were open, and we were really up against it – it felt very lean and very quiet, definitely not the best time to open a bakery and café.”
Despite the challenges, local support quickly became the power behind Courie Courie. People walked or cycled miles out to this “wee friendly place on the Deeside way” to buy bread and cakes to picnic in the forest, or drove down once a week for a coffee and a cake to have a break from isolation The team couldn’t get baker’s yeast, so Mr Stonebridge - who started baking as a teenager - grew the sourdough starter from scratch which they still use today.
It was navigating the pandemic and restrictions and the more recent cost of living crisis that saw the business transition from a cafe to a dedicated bakery. Mr Stonebridge explained: “By transitioning away from the café and focusing on expanding as a dedicated bakery, we were able to channel our efforts into what mattered most: maintaining high quality products, using clean and additive free ingredients, growing our community, supporting other local businesses, handmaking everything from scratch, working as a team, and ensuring ‘local’ truly means local.
“In 2022, we took the next step by relocating to Aboyne, where we established a larger production bakery and opened a new bakery shop.”
This refocus has now paid off as Courie Courie were named Supreme Champions at this year’s Scottish Bread Championship held at Bowhouse in Fife in early March beating over 200 other entries.
The bakery’s Sourdough Miche loaf was awarded Supreme Champion, a result Mr Stonebridge described as: “a real testament to how much work we have put into the flavour and eating experience of our bread.”
The Miche is a traditional French pain de campagne-style large, rustic sourdough wholemeal cob loaf. The recipe originates in the days of communal village ovens where the community would bring their dough to be baked together.
The loaf uses predominantly Aberdeenshire-grown grain, with wholewheat and rye flours milled in Lapwings Community Mill. Designed to be affordable and accessible, Courie Courie Miche has won gold awards at the Scottish Bread Championships two years running. The loaf sells as a whole or half in the shop and at farmers markets. “It’s a really lovely wholemeal sourdough with great flavour and fibre content,” said Mr Stonebridge. “A great way to get used to sourdough without being intimidating.”
This year’s competition attracted 265 individual entries, ranging from passionate home bakers to well-established bakeries including Soderberg in Edinburgh, Mhor Bakery and Company Bakery.
The announcement was a real surprise, said Mr Stonebridge. “As winners were read out alphabetically, nothing beginning with “C” appeared, and we assumed it wasn’t our year. Then they announced the reserve champion, and we thought we could wave goodbye to a championship award,So, it was a huge shock when it turned out we were wrong.”
The team’s success has brought a deep sense of pride. “We’re a pretty down-to-earth bunch” said Mr Stonebridge. “It feels amazing to have this win, and it’s great to be recognised for the quality of bread we can produce, the amazing ingredients we use, and the skill of our team”.
Baker Brynn Faulk described the moment as surreal, saying: “You never really believe you can achieve something like this until it happens. It still feels a bit unreal.”
Ms Faulk added that baking, like many trades, has often been undervalued. After leaving university, she found her path through an apprenticeship. She said: “It was never mentioned as a possible career choice in school, similar to other trades it was looked down on. The consistency in baking is a discipline, and you’re always growing, making small improvements all the time. Even though we have won the Supreme Championship there are always little changes to be made and growth to be had, and you still have to wash the same scraper twenty times a day.”
Mr Stonebridge added: “A village bakery is a timeless idea, and there’s an impression that it must be a pleasant way to work, and it is. I love seeing the progress in the products. What I am making now felt like a fairy tale to me a few years ago. It’s really motivating to be recognised like this, and it really helps me to keep improving, grow the business, and support like-minded community bakeries to get set up and grow”.
‘We wouldn’t be here if we didn’t enjoy it. I do it because I love doing it. I can go home after baking all day and do more baking. Before we won the Supreme Championships at the Scottish Bread Championships I felt confident in our bread, but you never believe in your ability to achieve something like this until it happens. It’s kind of surreal, we feel like pinching ourselves because it’s crazy.
“But at the end of the day it’s all about our bread and the Courie Courie community”.
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