Hey Reader!

I’m writing this week’s newsletter from a pretty incredible place: Fogo Island, Newfoundland.

I was invited out to Fogo Island Inn for Shore Fest, where I’m spending the week baking alongside the culinary team and creating two different breads each day for the event.

If you’ve never heard of Fogo Island Inn, this place is incredibly special. It sits on the edge of the North Atlantic on Fogo Island and is one of only a handful of hotels in Canada to hold Three MICHELIN Keys — MICHELIN’s highest hotel distinction.

But what makes this place even more remarkable is the story behind it.

The Inn is owned by Shorefast, a registered Canadian charity, and operates as a social business. There is no private financial gain — 100% of the Inn’s operating surpluses are reinvested back into the community through Shorefast’s work. More than half of every guest dollar stays on Fogo Island, supporting local employment, businesses, culture and the long-term future of the community.

Being invited here to bake for Shore Fest has been incredibly special.

I’ve been working with the chefs, building breads around their menus and pulling inspiration from what grows right here on the island. And honestly, I’m loving every second of it.

So for this week’s newsletter, I thought I’d bring you along and share a few of the breads we’ve been baking here at Fogo Island Inn.

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Juniper Berry Multigrain Sourdough 🌾

One of my favourite breads from the week has been a whole wheat multigrain sourdough with foraged juniper berries.

For the grain mix, I used Red Fife, cracked rye, cracked wheat and flax — but the ingredient that made this loaf really special was the juniper.

My oldest daughter’s name is Juniper, so whenever I see juniper growing somewhere, I immediately think of her. And here on Fogo Island, it grows all over the place.

We foraged some of the berries right outside the Inn, dried them, blitzed them into a coarse powder and added them directly to the grain soaker. The flavour is subtle, but you get this beautiful aromatic, slightly piney note running through the bread.

It felt like the perfect bread for this place: local ingredients, whole grains and a little connection to home.

If you want to make your own version, I’m linking my Multigrain Sourdough recipe below. Use the base recipe as your starting point, and if you can get your hands on juniper berries, try adding a little to the soaker.

Get the Multigrain Sourdough Recipe

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Caramelized Honey & Brown Butter Oat Porridge Sourdough 🍯

Another bread I was really excited about this week was an oat porridge sourdough made with local Fogo Island honey and brown butter.

I love using porridge in sourdough. It gives you an incredibly soft, moist crumb while letting you incorporate more whole grains without making the loaf feel heavy.

For this version, we took the honey a little further and caramelized it, then paired it with nutty brown butter before working everything into the oat porridge. The combination gave the bread this deep, almost toffee-like flavour while still letting the flavour of the grain come through.

It was one of those breads that just made sense here — simple ingredients, treated with a little extra care, with the Fogo Island honey tying it back to where we were baking it.

My oat porridge sourdough is one of the recipes in Bread, Etc., but I also have a version of the technique over on YouTube if you want to give it a try.

Watch the Oat Porridge Sourdough Video

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One More From Fogo... 🍎

I said I was baking a lot this week, right?

We’ve also been playing around with some sweet knots using ingredients from the island.

For one batch, we used apples picked from the property of someone we met here on Fogo Island. For another, we used partridgeberries that we foraged ourselves.

Both ended up folded into soft, buttery knots and baked until golden. I’m not going to give you the recipe for these ones just yet... mostly because I’m still here baking and I’m absolutely exhausted 😂.

But they turned out too good not to share.

More on these soon.

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This Week on Fogo Island 🌊 I managed to get out of the kitchen for a few hours today and had an incredible four-hour tour of Fogo Island. We hiked all over the island, including out to a beach where we searched for wish stones — stones with a band of quartz that runs all the way around them. The tradition is to hold one, follow the line around the stone and make a wish. Naturally, I picked a couple to bring home for my girls. ❤️ Other than that little escape, I have basically lived in the kitchen this week. Most days I've been in there from around 8 AM until 10 PM, baking, testing, collaborating with the team and getting everything ready for Shore Fest. I'm having an incredible time, but I am officially wiped. 😂 So this week's newsletter is a little shorter than usual. I'm going to get some sleep, get back into the kitchen tomorrow morning and enjoy the rest of my time on this incredible island. Next week, once I'm home (and hopefully a little more rested 😂), I'll give you a proper recap of the trip and share more of what we baked here on Fogo Island.

Happy Baking,

MJD

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