Friday Bread Basket 7/17/26
Bun on bun
Table of Contents
Hello from the Wordloaf Friday Bread Basket, a weekly roundup of links and items relating to bread, baking, and grain.
German precision
Miles Klee at Wired just wrote about Germanbreadcutter, the guy who has made it his life's work to cut a machine-perfect slice of bread by hand. (Hat tip to the MANY people who sent me a link to this story, I guess you know my wheelhouse.) He shares his progress daily on Instagram and elsewhere:
Jan, who requested that WIRED withhold his last name to avoid having coworkers learn of his social media presence, was inspired to launch his channels after one breakfast when a friend cut a particularly magnificent slice of bread and held it up for him to admire. “I was deeply impressed,” he recalls. “Since that moment, life hasn’t been the same. Every single time I cut a loaf of bread now, my ultimate goal is to make the cut as perfect as I possibly can.”
The challenge is simple and undeviating. Every day, Jan places a loaf of bread on a cutting board, wishes his fans a “good bread-cutting morning,” then says he is going to “see how accurate we can slice today.” Next, using either a Piklohas or Hoshanho bread knife (German and Japanese brands, respectively), he attempts to cleave a slice of totally uniform thickness. Once the slice is separated, he measures it around the edges with a digital caliper tool made by Kynup, a manufacturer owned by a Chinese company. His goal is as little deviation as possible between measuring points, and he measures fluctuations in his accuracy with a continuously updated “breadsheet.”
He's amassed legions of fans, including this fellow (RIP):
As a commenter summed up in their reply to one of Jan’s best slices: “I’m on life support in the hospital. After watching this, I think I can say it’s my time to go. Thank you for these precious final moments you gave me.”
Miles Klee
Jaffle house
Eeveryone was talking about Uncrustables—a bread product I've never had—for some reason on Bluesky the other day, and the conversation led to a discussion of "jaffles," the Australian DIY toasted version of the portable sandwich-dumpling hybrid. They are made using a cast-iron contraption that can be packed away for use on camping trips, as described in this Guardian story:
My grandmother’s jaffle iron weighs about 2kg. It was made (forged might be a better term) in the 1950s, possibly by some sort of blacksmith. The wooden handles have been buffed smooth by generations of jaffle-making hands. It’s the one thing in my kitchen I’ll never throw away.
It’s also circular. None of your newfangled square jaffles here, thank you very much. Over the years it’s built up a lovely patina of scorch marks, scratches and unidentifiable grunge – the ghosts of toasties past. Bread emerges UFO-shaped, covered in golden, concentric crop circles. The fillings inside reach the approximate temperature of the sun, guaranteed to sizzle tastebuds at 50 paces.
You don’t see jaffle irons around much any more. Breville’s electric variant hunted them to near extinction in the 1970s. When it launched the Snack n Sandwich in 1974, Breville claims to have sold 400,000 units and reached 10% of Australian households in this first year. But modern camping stores are still keeping the tradition alive: jaffle irons are the only toasted sandwich machine that can fit in a backpack and won’t melt in a campfire.
I don't go camping, but I kind of want one now. (I'm also curious about that Breville "Snack n Sandwich" device, which sadly is unavailable in the U.S. market for some unknown reason.)
Guardian staff reporter
Fire on the mountain
I loved this video from Boulangerie Pas à pas on a day in the life of
Fournil Resistance, a bakery in the French Pyrénées run by Tulip Santène, who left a career in the fashion industry to bake sourdough breads and pastries in a wood-fired oven:
Have a peaceful, restful weekend. See you next week.
—Andrew
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