Making baguettes and ciabattas: a collaboration with Markus Färbinger

I was introduced to the world of artisan breadmaking about twelve years ago, when Markus Färbinger, an Austrian baker coming from a 300 year old family tradition of breadmaking - together with his partner, South African Liezie Mulder - opened the now widely acclaimed café and bakery, île de païn, in Knysna. Knysna is the picturesque town where I live, situated along the southern coast of South Africa. Markus, also a master pâtissier and chocolatier - and a passionate teacher - was Dean for Curriculum and Instruction for Baking and Pastry Arts at the Culinary Institute of America, in Hyde Park, New York, in the 1990’s.

My partner and I, being filmmakers, dreamed of capturing Markus the person, with his extraordinary knowledge and reverence for bread, and the beauty of his artistry, on film. (In thinking about filming him, we had been inspired by the approach taken in the documentary film about the British sculptor, Andy Goldsworthy, Rivers and Tides.) Markus, with his intense commitment to “knowledge sharing”, persuaded us to take a different approach and to make detailed instructional films instead. And so we found ourselves on a fascinating and ever-extending trajectory.

After our first collaboration, Bread: One-on-One with Markus Färbinger, was well received, we embarked on a more ambitious and exacting project. Markus wanted to share the principles and techniques involved in making classic artisan breads at a high level - while also showing how loaves of an unusually high quality can be baked using a domestic oven. We decided to focus on two southern European wheat breads, and the result is a double Blu-ray Disc set titled Baguettes & Ciabattas with Markus Färbinger. Baguettes & Ciabattas takes the viewer through the entire process of making each of these breads, in what I believe to be unprecedented detail in terms of filmed demonstrations. It is aimed at serious baking enthusiasts as well as culinary professionals. Should you wish to find out more about it, you can visit the following website, and click on “Must Haves”: www.iledepain.co.za

You can also view the trailers at the following links:

youtu.be/IoRgu4izVMM

youtu.be/yDq2DGdp3dY

(To get as much of a sense of the High Definition quality of the images as possible, adjust your viewing setting to 720p on YouTube.)

Just an aside: I asked Markus, some years ago, why he “double-dotted” the “i” in “païn”. He was aware of the phonetic implications, and said that it had been simply a whim of his. I think, perhaps, it visually distinguishes the French word for “bread” from what it means in English. :-)