Giving Back With the Touch of a Button Lyon Bakery, like many, is committed to giving back wherever we can. Sometimes, we don’t have time to host a fundraiser or sit on a committee — time is precious and more often than not our calendars are full with things like our 9 to 5 job […]
Dear Friends It’s been quite the year! 2017 has been busy, exciting, and kept us all on our toes here at Lyon Bakery. We thank you for accompanying us on this journey and invite you to join us through 2018, too! Here’s a recap of our 2017: Our new Logo is up and running everywhere 🙂 Come and visit us: We hosted fun visits from our dear friends at St Ann’s Center for…
Last month, we welcomed a group of visitors from St Ann’s Center for Children, Youth and Families. You might recall that CNN featured a short piece on this marvellous organization earlier in the summer. Sister Mary, along with some of the current residents, spent an hour touring the bakery, seeing exactly where their bread comes from: how it’s made from the start of the process, right through to it being packaged. Perhaps we even planted…
There are two things that have existed from almost the beginning of time. Bread and Art. The earliest known cave paintings/drawings of animals are at least 35,000 years old and are found in Indonesia, according to datings announced in 2014. (1.) Ghosh, Pallab. “Cave paintings change ideas about the origin of art”. BBC News. BBC News. Retrieved 8 October 2014. That’s the serious stuff done with. Bread, as we’ve covered in a previous post, was first made around 8000…
Last year, we briefly mentioned a wonderful organization in Hyattsville, St Ann’s Center for Children, Youth and Families. Run by a beautiful soul, Sister Mary Bader who is ably assisted by her remarkable staff, St Ann’s is a safe haven for young mothers, pregnant and/or with families to live, learn and grow. St Ann’s has been healing and helping the vulnerable since 1860. Their work is of paramount importance and guided by immense love and…
Devotion to Children is “a non-profit organization dedicated to fulfilling the needs of children ages birth to six, so that they may become mentally, physically and emotionally healthy members of society. Founded in 1994 in Falls Church, Virginia, DTC has collaborated with many like-minded organizations in the provisions of childcare, health and educational services for needy families and their children.” The welfare of children is close to our hearts here at Lyon. For the 5th year…
The Origin of Bread bread bred/ noun noun: bread; plural noun: breads 1. food made of flour, water, and yeast or another leavening agent, mixed together and baked.”a loaf of bread” the bread or wafer used in the Eucharist.”altar bread” the food that one needs in order to live.”his day job puts bread on the table” So, what is bread? Basically, it’s a paste of flour and water, cooked over or surrounded by heat….
Below is a simple recipe for making your own Sourdough Starter at home: Ingredients To begin your starter 1 cup whole wheat flour 1/2 cup cool non-chlorinated water To feed your starter 1 cup plain, unbleached flour 1/2 cup cool water (if your house is warm), or lukewarm water (if your house is cool) Method Day 1: Combine the whole wheat flour with the cool water in a non-reactive container. Glass works very well. Mix gently…
Today’s post is about The Starter, also known as The Mother and sometimes The Chief. There are other names too but those aren’t nearly as grand. For those wanting to make homemade, traditional sourdough bread, it’s the most important ingredient. So, what is The Starter? Well, the starter is what helps dough to rise. In addition, the flour type, humidity, air temperature and altitude all affect the way a bread dough rises, and ultimately how your bread turns…
Lyon Bakery is sincerely grateful for its success and we believe strongly in not taking this for granted. Giving back is a large part of what we believe in. Below is a list of some of the corporations to which we have donated breads this part year: The Gaylord National Marriott Hampshire Greens Levy Restaurants at Nationals Park Dogfish Head Alehouse Gaithersburg Ruth Golf Park Hyatt Washington Central Resto In addition to corporate donations, we donate…
At a certain time every day, the headphones go on and everybody knows not to disturb them. Them being Order Processing. Order Processing, or OP for short, is where some might say the critically important stuff takes place. For an hour every day, OP takes and makes phone calls. Our customers call in with daily, weekly, monthly orders, sometimes the orders are one-offs, sometimes they’re revisions — some in advance, many last minute. OP is tasked…
The holiday season is well underway, we are done with Thanksgiving and now moving steadily towards Hannukkah, Kwanzaa and Christmas. More family time and food awaits us (if everyone survived Thanksgiving ;-p). Lyon will be doubling up and more on its orders for Challah, possibly the prettiest of our breads. Like braids of buttery goodness, they look as beautiful as decoration as they do in pieces on a plate. Too much Challah to eat at supper? Fear not, we…
A few weekends ago, Lyon hosted a Thanksgiving lunch for all of the bakery staff and families. We were thrilled that almost every family was able to join the fun that began with a pig roast out in the car park and ended with a piniata party in the loading dock! Several of the bakers have been with us since the very beginning, and we’ve been able to watch their families grow and prosper. For many…
The signs are here… Fall has arrived. The leaves aren’t the only things dropping, the temperatures are too. It’s at this time of year, we switch out the salads and outdoor grilling, and our culinary thoughts turn to warmer, more comforting foods. Whilst, we’re not yet in the grip of Old Man Winter, Fall climes definitely call for some heartier cuisine. As well as our food choices changing, Fall is a time to think about…
Every single item that leaves the bakery has been packed in one way or another. We use different packaging depending on the types of bread, the best way to preserve the integrity of the product, and the needs of our customers. Nothing leaves here naked. So, this week’s behind the scenes snoop is in the Packing department. Working in shifts throughout the day and night, our packers are the last to receive the bread before…
October 2016 It’s been a busy month… Washington DC was named a Michelin Guide city this month, and 12 restaurants have received 1 or 2 Michelin stars. This is wonderful news for the newly-starred establishments, and great news for the city. With our 12 stars, we equal Chicago. Lyon Bakery is proud to supply some of the newly-starred establishments. In August, DC was named as the Bon Appetit Restaurant City of the Year. Supplying many…
flour (ˈflaʊə) n 1. (Cookery) a powder, which may be either fine or coarse, prepared by sifting and grinding the meal of a grass, espwheat 2. (Cookery) any finely powdered substance Many of us think that flour is flour is flour…except it’s not. Like with olive oil and wines, there are many grades of flour. These include some of the following: low-gluten, high starch, high protein, gluten-free, grain based, wheat based, phosphated, and the list goes on. Today’s post is about flour, in case you’d not noticed, ahem… Specifically, we’ll talk about Lyon Bakery’s custom-made flour. Custom Flour What is it and…
Behind every great woman, man, organization is a team of one or more supporters. The analogy of the swan swimming serenely with its legs paddling furiously below the water…well, in Lyon Bakery’s case, we have many indispensable staff members helping us to stay afloat and move forward. Lyon operates 364 days of the year, 24 hours a day. Over the next few months, we will be introducing different departments and key staff members who…
Woot Woot, Washington DC restaurants and foodies alike – Bon Appetit names our city the Restaurant City of the Year!! What an honor it is to provide our breads to many of the city’s finest dining establishments. Congratulations to all the restaurants mentioned in the article, as well as all of our wonderful customers throughout the Greater Washington DC area!
Back in the beginning, there were less than 10 of us… the photo below was taken circa 2001. Note the fashion from our management team (insert muffled laughter). Today, some 15 years later, we employ the same artisan methodologies as when we had just 1 customer: the same attention to detail and the highest level of care.
Dear Breadsters We have new branding, a new website and now….a blog! The eagle-eyed among you may have noticed a few typos on the website — please bear with us, they are being fixed right now. Our bakers, packers, drivers, sales team et al are working hard 364 days of the year, ensuring you get your delicious, freshly baked carbohydrates. We’re already halfway through 2016, and are well settled into our new home in Hyattsville,…