Back at Langdon Hall 🌿
We spent Mother’s Day weekend at Langdon Hall with the girls, and honestly, it felt pretty special being back there. It’s one of Canada’s best luxury hotels and restaurants, part of Relais & Châteaux, tucked away just outside Toronto with beautiful gardens, forest trails, and an incredible restaurant and spa.
We even foraged ramps on the property with the kids, which somehow felt very full circle.
I worked there from around 2006 to 2010 on both the savoury and bakery sides. One night, the chef at the time, Jonathan Gushue, told me the baker was going on holiday, and they didn’t have anyone to cover the position. I told him I could do it since I had some baking experience from Restaurant Rundles and from working in Italy at a Relais & Châteaux hotel, and he gave me the shot for two weeks.
That honestly changed the trajectory of my career.
At the time, Langdon Hall was rated the number one hotel in Canada and was on the World’s 50 Best radar. Suddenly, I was responsible for the bread program for dinner service.
What started as two weeks turned into a full revamp of the bakery program. We brought in proper bread deck ovens, a mixer, and really started taking the bread program seriously.
This was before Instagram, before YouTube, before online baking everywhere. Most of what I baked came from Jeffrey Hamelman’s Bread book and formulas I had learned at Rundles. I had a lot of creative freedom and always tried to bake two or three breads for service every night. I also worked on pastries and croissants.
What I remember most was the mornings.
I’d get there around 5 a.m., and slowly the whole property would come alive. First the breakfast cook, then the rest of the kitchen team, then front of house. The smell of bread and croissants baking through the hotel was honestly one of my favourite parts of the job.
It was such a special time in my life, and really cool getting to go back there now with my own kids and experience it from a completely different perspective.
100% Whole Wheat Sourdough 🌾
I revisited my 100% whole wheat sourdough this week for the first time in a while and honestly forgot how good this bread is.
I used a flour called “Claire Rudy” from Moulin de Charlevoix, a stone mill in Charlevoix, Quebec. They gifted me a bag at Bakery Showcase, and I immediately wanted to test it in this loaf.
The flour was incredible. I started the dough around 84% hydration and ended up adding another 10–12% during mixing because it just kept absorbing water.
That’s the fun part with whole wheat. Every flour behaves a little differently depending on the grain and the milling.
This recipe has actually been one of the most visited on my blog for years. The photos definitely need updating 😂, but the formula still works really well, and it’s a great place to start if you want to bake more with whole grains.
Sourdough English Muffin Pizzas 🍕
I made sourdough English muffins this week because Juniper requested eggs Benedict for our own little “Fancy Friday” at home.
During the summer at work, I usually cook a bigger Friday dinner service that we jokingly call Fancy Friday, and now, somehow, the girls want their own version at home too. Ours is a little less formal though 😂
No champagne and caviar… well, not every week anyway.
The unexpected hit though, was using the English muffins for mini pizzas. The ones in the photo were actually made by the girls, which honestly makes them taste better somehow.
This is such a game-changer for busy weeknights. We just split and toast the English muffins, add tomato sauce and cheese, then broil them or throw them in the air fryer for a few minutes.
Super simple, super fast, and the kids absolutely love them.
The sourdough English muffin recipe itself is also one of those really solid staple recipes worth having in your back pocket.
Walnut Raisin Sourdough 🍇
A lot of people asked for the walnut raisin sourdough after Bakery Showcase, and while I didn’t get the full blog post updated in time (photos, editing, all the fun stuff 😂), I still wanted to share the formula.
This is one of my favourite loaves for cooler mornings, toasted with butter, or alongside cheese and coffee. The walnuts bring richness, the raisins add sweetness, and natural fermentation ties everything together really nicely.
A few quick tips:
- Toast the walnuts first
- Soak the raisins if they feel dry
- Trust the fermentation, the dough can feel heavy from the inclusions
The formula makes 2 x 900g loaves.
Happy Baking,
MJD
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