At the end of her shift at Ciao Bakery, Susie Knepp starts all over at the beginning, of the bread making process that is.
While she might arrive early each day to bake the bread, the process commences the day before. The dough must sit overnight to ferment. In all, it takes 22 ½ hours from the time the flour, yeast, water and salt are mixed together until the loaves emerge from the oven.
Knepp wanted to study art. She researched several art programs and different colleges, but decided it wasn’t the route for her due to the lack of available jobs. Instead, she went with her second choice, baking. Knepp, a resident of Duncannon and a self-described homebody, chose to attend Harrisburg Area Community College to study baking. The curriculum contained only a small portion on bread making, but Knepp really liked it.
Bread has been around since the time of the Egyptian pyramids and Knepp appreciates that bread is still made the same way today.
“Plus, it’s also really fun to work with your hands and use pure ingredients,” says Knepp, part of a fresh bread renaissance in Harrisburg that now includes Alvaro Bakery in Olde Uptown and Yellow Bird Café in Midtown. “And it tastes really good.”
While still in college, Knepp accepted an internship with Ciao Bakery. On her first day, she met with Executive Pastry Chef Casey Callahan and explained that she wanted to learn more about bread. Callahan was excited since most people who work in the bakery are not too interested.
“They might love bread, but making it is not their idea of a good time,” says Knepp.
On the second day of her internship, Knepp worked the entire bread shift alongside Callahan. By the third day, she did the bread shift herself. Upon completion of the 180-hour internship, Knepp was hired full time.
For nearly three years, Knepp has been working the bread shift at Ciao Bakery, located on Chestnut Street in Harrisburg. Her day begins at 5:30 a.m. – she doesn’t start with bread, but with breakfast. The day before, a co-worker will prepare the breakfast foods consisting of croissants, muffins and scones.
“I just take it out, proof it and bake it – and make it beautiful,” says Knepp.
Her entire day is a sequence of tasks. Next, she moves on to the bread. The dough is placed on a floured surface, divided into six equal parts and shaped into tight rounds, known as boules. Then each one is put into the proof box, where it will rise for two hours. During the proofing process, the dough nearly doubles in size. Steaming is an optional step. During this process, air and moisture are added to the proof box creating an environment in which the dough rises more quickly.
Following the proofing step, the dough is dusted with cornmeal, scored depending on the type of bread and placed in a 450-degree oven, where it will bake for 30 minutes. During the baking process, the bread is steamed twice in order to create a crispy crust. Without the steam, the bread would appear pale and hard.
On a typical day, Knepp bakes nearly 50 loaves of bread, as well as an assortment of rolls. To a novice baker, this might sound like a bounty.
“It’s not a lot of bread. It’s just that, since it’s by hand and in small batches, it takes a long time,” says Knepp.
Most of the bread she bakes is used at Bricco and the Hilton Harrisburg, as well as sold at Ciao Bakery. At the end of the day, any white loaves that did not sell are used by the kitchen at Bricco. The restaurant usually gets five loaves each day and uses it to make panini sandwiches, grilled cheese and croutons.
The bread is just as good the second day. “It’s just easier to use,” says Knepp. “The inside is very soft and fluffy the first day, so it’s very hard to make a sandwich out of. Really good for soup the first day and sandwiches the next.”
As her bread shift draws to a close and all of the bread has finished baking, Knepp will begin by preparing the dough for the following day. “It’s all just a big cycle,” she says.
After a full day of bread making, “I get very lazy when I go home,” says Knepp. She will venture into the kitchen to make sugar cookies or cook something like curry, but it’s usually never bread.
For now, Knepp doesn’t aspire to open her own bakery. “I like working for someone else,” she says. “I like not having to take any work home.”
From time to time, she does get “bread homework” from Chef Jason Viscount at Bricco. Recently, he added a new burger to the menu and needed a bun for it. Knepp suggested brioche. “He’ll come up and we’ll have a chat about bread, and he’ll tell me what he wants,” says Knepp. “He usually gives me free rein.”
Knepp’s abilities have earned her a small following of bread aficionados. Sometimes, her customers come into the bakery to tell her about bread they purchased elsewhere that was not as pretty or as tasty as the loaves she makes. Knepp isn’t sure how to feel about such distinction. “It’s a little strange, quite humbling actually,” she says. “It’s very sweet.”
For the novice bread baker, Knepp’s advice is to start out simple. The key is repetition. Continue to work with the same recipe until the bread comes out right. “Keep plugging along,” she says. “You’ll get the hang of it eventually.” In addition, she says, “Always feel what you’re making. You can tell if something is off by the way it feels.”
Knepp enjoys baking other things, but bread is her beloved. “Pastries are really fun, but I really adore bread,” says Knepp. “I’ll probably just keep trying different types.”
In order to broaden her horizons, Knepp plans to eventually travel to other countries to try out different kinds of bread. From time to time, she’ll visit bookstores and peruse pictures of bread, thinking, “Wow I wish I could make bread that looks like that.” But she kind of already does.
Ciao Bakery, S. 3rd and Chestnut streets, Harrisburg. Open Monday to Friday, 6:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. Contact 717-724-0236 or visit www.briccopa.com/ciao-bakery.
