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Flaxseed bread

Time1 hour 10 minutes
YieldsMakes 2 loaves
Flaxseed bread
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One morning I headed south from the Union Square farmers market thinking life could not be much better. The sky was that unbelievable blue. I had just bought fresh asparagus and even fresher fluke. And I was on my way to one of the best bakeries anywhere, an Amy’s Bread that had recently opened in the West Village, on a block that has now become almost Parisian in its assemblage of high-end fish dealer, world-class cheese shop and old-style pork butcher.

I picked up a mix of chewy, satisfying whole-grain, olive and semolina loaves and twists from the dozens of varieties on display in the gleaming tiled shop, then decided to push my luck by searching out lunch nearby. And not three blocks away I came across a whole new shrine to the risen food: Blue Ribbon Bakery Market, a restaurant with a 140-year-old wood-fired oven in the basement, had just opened a retail shop with shelves lined with Pullman loaves, whole-grain rounds, baguettes and more. I couldn’t leave without a perfect flaxseed loaf and a flatbread filled with bacon and onions.

Only three days later I was heading for a different farmers market, in Tribeca, when I found another new bakery in the throes of opening -- this one from David Bouley, whose four-star restaurant is just across the street. Electrical wires were still dangling and the walls weren’t all painted, but neighbors and tourists were already lined up for pistachio-walnut bread, huge miches, cheese bread and pepper bread. I walked out with a small oval of saffron-walnut bread and half of a Viennoise baguette packed with chunks of dark chocolate, and with a wallet $11 lighter.

This city has always had an embarrassment of yeasty riches, especially with the rise of artisanal bakeries in the last 10 years, but now the bread scene feels extraordinary. While most of the rest of the country has to settle for squishy Italian or “baked on premises” La Brea in supermarkets, here, in what is virtually a European satellite, we can walk into Dean & Deluca and take our pick from no fewer than 17 bakeries. Or we can sit down in a good restaurant and face more choices in bread than water. Bouley the restaurant serves two types of rolls, then dispenses a variety of sliced bread from a cart for the cheese course. And at brunch at Balthazar, the excellent basic bread is served at every table, but patrons can also order a mixed basket for $14 (the price of a burger); on Saturday many tables had done exactly that.

And, always, we can make our way to a fragrant shop in any number of neighborhoods and choose our own daily bread, a different one for every day of the week, sometimes even every hour of the day.

The best bakeries -- especially Amy’s, Sullivan Street and Tom Cat -- turn out good bread at its most basic, with crust worthy of the name and a core that has substance and texture and true bread flavor. But now Blue Ribbon’s bakery has taken bread to an even higher level. Essentially it’s a bread cafe, the floury equivalent of a coffeehouse, where patrons can choose to have slices of any bread toasted and spread with any of an array of toppings: butter and honey; Stilton; smoked trout and cream cheese. There are no tables for lolling with a laptop, but a bench outside on the leafy sidewalk is a perfect place for tearing into the greatest thing since sliced bread: toasted and cheese-covered sliced bread.

The shop also sells top-shelf accouterments for breads, including butter made in the restaurant down the block; salmon and trout smoked there; and house-cured artichokes and olives.

Bouley Bakery, a reincarnation of the retail shop the chef had at one time inside his restaurant, is also a market, with ice cream, roast chickens and soups for sale alongside the breads. (A bar and cooking demonstration area are up a flight of stairs.)

New Yorkers have always taken their bread extremely seriously. Maybe it’s because even newcomers cut their teeth on sturdy bagels, or because fad diets can never compete with a lifestyle that involves StairMasters at every subway stop. But no real restaurant could get away with offering cotton, and even neighborhood grocery stores sell bread with real heft. Bread is New York’s chocolate. Or at least its cheese.

(The unstoppable trend toward cheese connoisseurship has also fueled the city’s appetite for bread: a creamy French Chaource, after all, has to be served on a different platform than a firm Spanish Idiazabal.)

No wonder the bread selection at Dean & Deluca, one of several upscale markets in the city that gather breads rather than bake their own, has expanded into an artisanal cornucopia. One recent day there were rye and other breads from Nebliskey, cheesy Italian bread from Bruno Bakery, incomparably chewy Tom Cat breads in several shapes and styles, Old World types from Orwasher’s, Italian loaves from Policastro, ciabatta from Tribeca Oven and crusty French loaves from Pain d’Avignon, not to mention a brioche loaf from Petrossian, the legendary caviar dealer. Dean & Deluca even carries an array of the superb pane Pugliese and sesame loaves from Sullivan Street Bakery, which is no more than a five-minute walk west.

A combination of the essential and the indulgent is what makes bakeries almost better than candy stores. At the new Bouley Bakery & Market, you can take home a wholesome and very Eastern European whole-grain loaf and feel simultaneously virtuous and pampered. Or you can pick up a brioche-like cheese bread, olive bread or pepper bread. Balthazar sells dark chocolate bread and cranberry-raisin as well as chewy sourdough boules, ciabatta and baguettes. Amy’s deals in semolina-raisin, Picholine olive, dense prosciutto-black pepper and surprisingly airy potato-onion-dill.

Blue Ribbon’s breads are a class apart, with an emphasis on Pullman loaves that are the antithesis of Pepperidge Farm’s sandwich white. These have integrity, not to mention texture. All are baked from formulas developed by the owners, who trained at the famed Poilane in Paris before opening their restaurant/bakery eight years ago.

Bread was always sold at the restaurant, but you had to know about it. Now the shop gets deliveries fresh from the oven twice a day, at 11 in the morning and around 3 in the afternoon.

The market is directly across the street from a famed sandwich cafe, ‘Ino, where Blue Ribbon supplies the bread. It says something about the city right now that patrons could finish a bruschetta or panino on the south side and cross over and buy fixings for another at home.

Amy Scherber, owner of Amy’s Breads, said patrons were increasingly interested in investing in high-end provisions to replicate a restaurant experience at home. They might not be able to saute foie gras with the best chef, but they can at least pair an organic baguette with an artisanal cheese. The demand is for top products. “Everything is high end,” Scherber said.

She located her latest outlet, with cafe tables for eating in, one door east of Murray’s Cheese partly at the instigation of that renowned shop’s owner, Rob Kaufelt. Now buyers can get nut bread, cheeses, sausages and more on one short block of Bleecker Street. A sleek new Wild Edibles seafood store has also opened there, joining Faicco’s Pork Store, which opened in 1900. Even as more food halls such as Whole Foods open, the allure of going shop to shop for specialties never fades in Manhattan.

What may be most impressive about bread here is that it thrives in spite of diet fads and nutritional or economic trends. “Good bread is a boom business,” said Bruce Bromberg, a partner with his brother Eric in Blue Ribbon Bakery and its new shop. “Carbs come and go. But if people are going to go out on a limb and eat bread, they want to eat good bread.”

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Starter

1

In a large bowl, mix thoroughly the flour, yeast, honey and water. Cover with plastic wrap.

2

Let the mixture stand in a warm location for 24 hours. (It will double or triple in size so make sure the bowl is large enough.)

Dough

1

Heat the oven to 350 degrees. Place the flaxseeds on a baking sheet. Lightly toast in the oven until fragrant, 7 to 8 minutes. Let the flaxseeds cool to room temperature.

2

Mix the starter with the flour, yeast, flaxseeds, salt and water in a large metal bowl until combined, being sure to add the salt and water last (you can use an electric mixer with a dough-hook attachment). Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and knead for 10 minutes. Put it back into the bowl and cover with a damp towel and let rise until double, about 1 1/2 hours.

3

Spray two Pullman loaf pans (4 1/2 -by-12 1/4 inches, 2 3/4 inches high) with nonstick cooking spray. Remove the dough from the bowl and beat it down by folding it in half a couple of times. Cut the dough in two pieces, shape them into loaves and place in the pans. Let them rise until double, about 1 hour.

4

Heat the oven to 425 degrees. Bake for about 40 minutes, or until done.

5

Remove the bread from the pans and let cool on a wire rack. Cool completely before slicing.

Adapted from Blue Ribbon Bakery in New York. The bakery uses King Arthur Special Unbleached Bread Flour and fresh yeast; we used the more readily available unbleached bread flour made by the same company and active-dry yeast. If you can find fresh yeast, use 1 ounce for the starter, 2 ounces for the dough.