• Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Pinterest
  • Snapchat
  • Twitter
  • YouTube
  • Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

MsMarmiteLover

  • Food
    • Recipes
    • Vegetarian
    • Vegan
  • Travel
    • France
    • Italy
    • Spain
    • UK
  • Wine
  • Gardens
  • Supperclubs/Events
  • About
    • Published Articles
    • Books
  • Shop
    • Cart

Margot Bakery: Queen of sourdough

April 15, 2019 2 Comments Filed Under: Baking, Food, London, Uncategorized

Michelle Eshkeri, pic:Kerstin Rodgers/msmarmitelover.com

I’ve known Michelle Eshkeri for almost a decade now. We fell out for a bit. It was stupid, and I missed her. She’s always been at the forefront of food trends and can talk knowledgeably about the subject. I also like talking to her about her conversion to Judaism, which took place a decade ago, to coincide with her marriage to Victor. Like many converts, she knows more about the religion than some people born into it.

We even did a Jewish inspired Barbra Streisand supper club together: starting with the Friday night Jewish prayer, passing the kiddush wine and breaking the challah, it was one of the most intense supper clubs I’ve ever hosted. I’m not religious, but I could see that prayer made a difference to the evening. Even if no one celestial was listening, it brought us together and formed a bond between strangers.

Michelle started out making cupcakes as Lavender Bakery. The cupcake industry was rife with competition; wars were waged over icing designs. The soggy bottom fell out of cupcakes: they were too sweet, too big, too blousy and became a byword for a certain kind of girliness that was a bit nauseating and entitled. Cupcakes became more than mere small individual cakes – they encapsulated a type of person, a kind of woman, ‘yummy mummies’, who became despised. Since then, clean eating has filled the same position. Funny how things women like to eat become clichés of hate. You could say that cupcakes were a female way of saying ‘fuck the diet’ that clean-eating reversed back into.

  • sourdough challah and egg sandwiches pic:Kerstin Rodgers/msmarmitelover.com

Michelle started to make her own challah, a sourdough version. Hours of testing in her small North London kitchen led to other sourdough bakes: croissants, bagels, babka, all very much influenced by Jewish traditional baking. I also tried one of the best egg sandwiches I’ve ever eaten (and I’m not an egg person).

Margot Bakery was a scary entrepreneurial thing to do, especially for a sole trader woman with two small children. She found a small shopfront in East Finchley, and borrowed around £130k, partly via credit cards, including £30k of equipment, to set it up. There were hurdles aplenty, some of which was caused by men ripping her off, selling her inadequate equipment. She’s had to learn electrics, plumbing and machine repairs.

“When engineers come here to fix something, I now know whether they are telling me the truth. I can talk to them in a language they understand.”

Today Michelle has her own book deal, due to come out this autumn. I visited her at Margot Bakery to chat about her progress.

When I last saw you this was just a dream, an ambition, and now you’ve done it.

I know. Every day I pinch myself.

You sacrificed a more ideal family house to set up this bakery. You wanted to buy a bigger home for your family.

We looked at a flat that we lost because of anti-semitism. At the time Israel was doing something and the owner said because of that he wouldn’t sell us the flat. They hold you responsible for stuff Israel does if you are Jewish. It cost us money for the survey and everything.

Did he pay you back?

No.

To make this happen, I had no trading history, so I couldn’t get a business loan, so we got personal loans.

No help from the family?

None. I wanted to do this by myself. I wanted to show people. It was a collision of things. The boys being a little bit older. I was in the hairdressers, this place was shut for 2 years, but the hairdresser, the wife of the estate agent, knew they were looking for somebody. There were a couple of other offers, so I had 24 hours to get the money together.

So you bought a lease?

Yes. The lease is 12 years.

I took pictures of Michelle. She’s rather shy.

I’m better at talking to people now. Not just one to one, but groups of people.

Why Margot?

I just liked the name. It was feminine and I wanted people to know this bakery was run by a woman. People call me Margot; they think it’s my name. It’s like having an alter ego. Quite useful. A bit like MsMarmite is your alter ego.

Yes, it’s easier to be public if you have another name.

I choose something to eat: there is bread and butter pudding, orange polenta, banana bread with walnuts, croissants….

I try the croissants.

Some people complain that they taste sour. But they are supposed to be that way.

I like the sourdough tang and the tearability.

Your upcoming book is about sourdough.

It’s about sweet sourdough, which is relatively unusual, not many people are doing that. There are a lot of bread books, I’m not saying anything new about bread. I’m telling people the way we make it. We make it the way I like it. Bagels, sweet stuff, sourdough challah, and a bunch of Margot specialities.

How did you get your book deal?

The commissioning editor saw my stuff on Instagram.

She came to the bakery to meet me. I’d been working six days straight and was so tired I could barely articulate. She still gave me a deal! Then I got an agent, so I did it backwards.

Are you doing sourdough pannetone here?

Yes, at Christmas, but our Italian baker that did those has left so I need to get that back on schedule. I’d like to do them all year round. Actually, it’s easier to make them in summer as they rise better.

Is your kitchen not very warm?

No, it’s quite cool. In November we were really struggling to get things to rise in time.

How many staff do you have?

14 including three KPs with seven-day-a-week cover. One part-time baker, three days out of five. Three front of house staff.

What doesn’t exist here is the skill base. You end up paying people more but with less of a skill base. At the moment, there is a lot of competition amongst employers for the very skilled people. My solution is to train people from the bottom up. They stay a year, two years whatever.

Are you training British people, young people?

Yes, the people I’m training right now started as KPs. Training from one position into another position. Also front of house sometimes want to become bakers. I had a higher turnover of staff at the beginning, now it’s more stable.

How did you know how to run the business? Did you have someone advising you?

I started small and slow. We were open every day of the week, which was impossible. I started at six in the morning and didn’t come home till ten at night. I worked proper shifts and then went home and did all the invoices. I didn’t see the children for days at the beginning. I did that solidly for two and a half years. To get myself out, I had to pay more staff to do what I was doing.

To grow you need capacity to grow. If everyone is working at the edge of their hours, they are unhappy and there’s no extra room to take on more customers. I’ve had to scale up the staffing above current sales in order to grow. So I got myself out, so I could write the book, work on the business and see my husband and children.

Who was looking after the children?

My husband’s hours were at the end of the day. We had perfectly complementary jobs for a couple who never wanted to see each other (laughs). He did the mornings and weekends, cos I was at the bakery on the weekends, and I did the school pickup. So between us, we don’t have any child care now.

Do the kids come and work here now?

It’s like an extension of their home. They are 8 and 6. They can bake. But not here, too much equipment around. My husbands brings them after school on Fridays, I’m here all day on Fridays. They go next door and get sweets from the barber.

How many loaves a week?

Friday and Saturday, 200 a day, plus bagels, etc.

Friday and Sunday is about equal. People come from the challah on Friday. It’s a typical north London quality to it. That’s why I like Fridays. It’s sociable. My rabbi comes.

Do you give him a discount?

He wouldn’t accept.

You are at your limit with this.

I hit capacity last year. We cannot do anything more here. For instance, now we are mixing croissant every day.

Selling to restaurants

I notice you are selling to restaurants like ‘Ham’ in West Hampstead.

Have you been?

Not yet.

It’s very good. Also a vegetarian restaurant in Tufnell Park.

They get delivery every day. I use Brisqq to deliver. I also supply Panzers in St John’s Wood and La Fromagerie in Marylebone. They sell our challah. Plus a couple of other cafes, one in Southgate.

Brexit

Brexit has made staffing very difficult. There are less people applying for jobs. If you are an Italian pastry chef, maybe you won’t go to London, you’ll go elsewhere. There’s been a big difference from when I opened and then after the vote it tailed off. It’s pressure on wages, which isn’t a bad thing.

Brexit is really bad for me. I’ve started stockpiling. My suppliers are saying you won’t be able to get butter and chocolate. The problem is about uncertainty.

Everything will be okay in the end. But if there is two years with no certainly, a lot of businesses will go to the wall. If I have a gap in supply, if I can’t make bread because I can’t get flour, my business will go under. I’ve had this before.

When?

When the flour millers Matthews had a cash flow issue and couldn’t buy the grain, which is from Kazakstan. The UK grows most of the flour used here. But organic flour not so much. Organic flour is often grown in Kazakhstan or far away. Now I use Shipton Mill which is mostly UK. Grain is sold on big markets, I guess the Kazakhstan flour is through the EU. I couldn’t get it for eight months to a year. Matthews is really good. We use 500 kilos a week now. So there is only so much space we have to stockpile.

Also it’s a problem for artisanal bakeries, because Hovis or Warburtons can pay higher prices and buy up all the grain. Shipton do look after the smaller bakeries. There is something very lively about Matthews flour, something about the milling process.

Can you get local flour?

Whatever you do, you are going outside of London. The flour I use is fairly local. I need a consistent product, a consistent flour. When I train up new bakers, I can’t keep changing supplier. When you change flour you have to change everything, you change the water, you change fermentation times, everything.

So you have to retest when you have a new flour?

When we got a different croissant flour, a few months back, it took us a few weeks to work through the issues. You give yourself a headache, the customers complain, you have more waste product.

Passover

Passover is when you have to get rid of all the flour in your house?

Yes. Passover is a festival of unleavened bread. It’s not actually about flour but about leavening. Which is a bit at odds with having a sourdough bakery. So Hebrew slaves had to leave Egypt in a hurry and they had to take their bread unleavened. So you can eat flour, matzoh, if it’s been in contact with water for less than 18 minutes. So production of matzoh is rabbinically supervised as having no chance to ferment. Someone is literally watching it, to make sure there is no chance of water having gone near the flour, that’s it’s not even possible for it to ferment. So it’s the antithesis of what we are doing here. So once it hits the water, within 18 minutes it has to go in the oven.

Why 18 minutes?

I have no idea. It’s tradition. It’s just flour and water with holes docked in it. When you eat it you realise how good bread is. If slavery is about going to freedom, you realise that when you are free, you can enjoy good bread.

Jews tell each other stories about this. Unleavened bread is the bread of affliction, of poverty, of fear, of running away. It’s not supposed to taste good.

Surely it fermented en route? if they took dough away in a bag?

The tradition developed later for the retelling of events. It’s unleavened bread because they had no time to let it rise and bake it, they had to leave in a hurry.

Would you take some dough with you if you were escaping? Wouldn’t it be just flour? I’m just interested in the logistics of it.

Food would have been scarce, you just grab anything you have. What would you grab? Marmite?

Definitely.

Margot Bakery

121 East End Road

London, N2 0SZ

East Finchley

020 8883 6741

sales@margotbakery.co.uk

passover matzoh crunch recipe pic:Kerstin Rodgers
Print

Caramel and chocolate matzoh crunch

Matzoh isn’t supposed to taste good, but it does with this recipe. It’s a kind of Jewish Millionnaires biscuit. This is adapted from Marcy Goldman’s recipe. 
Course Dessert
Cuisine Jewish
Serves 10

Ingredients

  • 6 sheets matzoh
  • 250 g salted butter
  • 200 g golden caster sugar
  • 100 g milk chocolate, broken into pieces
  • 200 g white chocolate, broken into pieces
  • 50 g pistachios or other nuts (optional)

Instructions

  • Prepare a baking tray (30 x 30cm), lining it with foil and parchment paper. Fill it with sheets of matzoh.
  • Preheat the oven to 180ºC.
  • Melt the butter and sugar together in a heavy bottomed saucepan until both the sugar and butter are melted. Keep stirring.
  • Pour the caramel over the matzoh and spread with a rubber spatula.
  • Put the caramel covered matzoh in the oven and bake for 15 minutes.
  • Remove from the oven and scatter the chocolate over the top. Add the nuts, say pistachios, if so desired. Wait until cooled and eat with a cup of tea.
  • Matzoh crunch pic:Kerstin Rodgers

Recent posts

Competition to win a Master series Microplane gift set

September 29, 2023

Dutch Baby apple and cheese pancake

September 17, 2023

La bomba paella rice

August 25, 2023

Previous Post: « Caceres, Extremadura
Next Post: Wasabi farm, Winchester »

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Michelle

    June 4, 2019 at 6:02 pm

    I only just saw this! Love that video so much!! xx

    Reply

Trackbacks

  1. Best food books 2019 – the London collection says:
    December 17, 2019 at 9:34 pm

    […] is the book of the East Finchley bakery that is possibly the best in London. The endsheets (inner papers) are embossed with the encaustic […]

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Recipe Rating




Primary Sidebar

MsMarmiteLover aka Kerstin Rodgers.

Chef, photographer, author, journalist, blogger. Pioneer of the supperclub movement.

This is my food and travel blog, with recipes, reviews and travel stories. I also stray into politics, feminism, gardening.

Subscribe to my mailing list

msmarmitelover

Kerstin Rodgers/MsMarmiteLover
Apple rose blossom tarts with rose jam. Rose Appl Apple rose blossom tarts with rose jam.  Rose Apple Blossom Tarts

Serves 8

Equipment: 
Microwave
Cupcake or muffin tin

I use a red-skinned apple to make these, to get a hint of blush at the edges of the ‘petals’.

Ingredients:
4 Pink Lady or Royal Gala apples, cored, cut into quarters, sliced thinly into half moons
1 lemon, squeezed
1 pack all butter readymade puff pastry 320g, on a roll, cut into 8 strips about 6 cms long
100g of melted butter
1/2 jar of rose jam
1 or 2 tbsp cinnamon or cardamom, ground 
Pinch maldon salt
2 or 3 tbsp icing sugar

Instructions

Prepare a bowl of acidulated water (cold water with lemon juice) to prevent browning.
Core the apples, and cut them in quarters. Slice thinly into half-moons (a mandolin is useful for this). 
Put them into a large bowl of cold water with the lemon.
Microwave the bowl of sliced apples for 5 minutes until soft enough to bend slightly but not cook them.
Preheat the oven to 180ºC.
Roll out the puff pastry. Divide into 8 sections by cutting the roll into quarters then halving each quarter. You will end up with 8 approximately 6cm strips.
Brush the strip with melted butter then paint with a layer of rose jam. You can then dust with either ground cinnamon or cardamom.
Lay the apple slices along the top of the pastry strip, overlapping them. Fold up the bottom half of the pastry strip to make an pleat with the skin side of the apple half moon poking over the top.
Roll up the folded pastry strips until they look like a rose made of apple at the top
Place ‘rose’ side up, in a buttered cupcake tin
Repeat until all are done and bake for 20 -30 minutes.
Using a tea strainer or small sieve, sprinkle with icing sugar.
A lovely vegetarian recipe from @lulugargari - a g A lovely vegetarian recipe from @lulugargari - a green bean and basil pesto with Italian lemon 🍋 pasta. Fresh, light. This was at an Italian cooking class/demo @eatalylondon hosted by @ilovefruitandvegfromeuropecouk @flickflock #london#italy🇮🇹
Digital chefs came from Italy yesterday to teach h Digital chefs came from Italy yesterday to teach how to make pumpkin, chilli, taleggio fondue Paccheri pasta- warming and filling for autumn days. Thanks to @ilovefruitandvegfromeuropecouk @flickflock @eatalylondon @danielerossichef @lulugargari for the event. We then got to go shopping in Italy with a £50 voucher. I spent it on mostardi di frutta, burratta, carciofi, cheeses,. My sis in law @bro0907 spent it on two bottles of wine. 😂 #italianfood #italianingredients #cookingclass #campaniafood
Inspired by @kathybrownstev’s book on edible flo Inspired by @kathybrownstev’s book on edible flowers I did an edible flower supper club featured in my first book ‘supper club’ This weekend I briefly visited her garden. Decades of work and creativity went into creating this English oasis. It’s an hour and a half out of london near Bedford. It closes at the end of September: open Tuesdays and this coming weekend. It was odd to go on holiday so near to where I live! We had a beautiful Airbnb in Pavenham. The countryside starts nearer to home than I thought. #uk #england #gardens
Visited The speciality fine food fair today for th Visited The speciality fine food fair today for the first time. So many tastings! Great to see new products. Particularly impressed by @lamiriharissa which is smoked and delicious run by Jo Lamiri’s children and @quirkymonkeycoffee which is mushroom infused coffee and hot chocolate run by an autistic guy Darwin setting up his own business. Good for him. #foodexplorer
Bones and all. Just made tomato sauce pasta from m Bones and all. Just made tomato sauce pasta from my home made sun dried tomato concentrate made @tenutacammarana in Sicily last summer. It’s the taste of sunshine. Plus my English home-grown tomatoes. #Tomatoes 🍅 🍅 🍅 #dinner #babyledweaning
I’ve made a South African/ Botswana dish that is I’ve made a South African/ Botswana dish that is creamy samp with chakalaka. Samp is corn like hominy or pozole a native Indian or Mexican food. It’s strange that it’s a staple food in Africa. Corn is a new world food I think. Samp itself is quite bland, often eaten with beans. Chakalaka is delicious with peppers, Piri piri seasoning, ginger garlic onions tomatoes and carrots and baked beans.
Samp from Botswana. It’s husked corn and makes a Samp from Botswana. It’s husked corn and makes a porridge like carb- creamy samp. I’m rinsing, soaking and cooking today and will combine it with chakalaka tomorrow. #southafrica #botswana #samp #newworldoldworld
Did my living room floor with @woca_denmark_uk_ire Did my living room floor with @woca_denmark_uk_ireland natural floor soap yesterday which smells lovely. But high traffic areas need rewarding. This is a Scandinavian technique- regularly waxing pale wood floors. I did this floor during the first year of lockdown. I prefer waxed floors to varnished. #interiors #woodfloors
Alliums in a purple pot. Note to self: plant more Alliums in a purple pot. Note to self: plant more bobble headed alliums. Love the colour and shape. This is in a neighbours garden who I met on Saturday while working in the front garden. Traditionally the British have front gardens but now they are turned into driveways and building are developed into flats. Only very rich people in london can afford houses. But the front is very important for the community- it’s how you meet your neighbours. On Saturday I visited 2 different sets of neighbours gardens- the first time since I moved to this street 23 years ago. Our front garden is communal and has been an unloved space- I’m trying to change that. Tonight I cleaned all the wheely bins. A yucky job but otherwise they smell so bad in summer. I was thinking about all the terrible dirty jobs that someone has to do- clearing up after a road accident, or sorting out sewers, or unblocking toilets. The stuff that nobody likes to think about. #frontgardens #neighbours #londoners
What I’ve been up to: awning from @victorianawni What I’ve been up to: awning from @victorianawnings which has transformed our al fresco eating possibilities. Also been working on the front garden of our building using talented work men I found on fb marketplace: railings by @lincsecproducts ( the gates were bought by me some years ago and I’ve scraped off the rust and repainted), the arch, which took me 3 years to find on fb marketplace for the right price and size. The wisteria which will grow over the arch planted by @christina_erskine ( I’ve always wanted a wisteria and they apparently add to the value of your house), the Swiss style bike/buggy shed. Needs to be painted dark green to match the walls. My friend Jim repaired the walls, the coping, and laid the  concrete plinth. Now need to find coping for the pillars or perhaps urns for more plants. 47cm2. #interiors #exteriordesign #gates #railings #bikeshed #awning #design
Made a vegetarian paella with La bomba rice from @ Made a vegetarian paella with La bomba rice from @brindisaspanishfoods I used red and green peppers, saffron, sherry, Nyora peppers, smoked almonds and green olives #vegetarian #vegetariansummer #paella
Quick snap of my bedroom chimney wall with the @sa Quick snap of my bedroom chimney wall with the @sanderson1860 wallpaper - finally done. Never wallpapered before. By the way I’m totally open to interiors collaborations email me: marmitelover@mac.com #interiordesign #wallpaper #london
Cooking powders or flavour bombs: two of my favour Cooking powders or flavour bombs: two of my favourite are ‘chaat’ which you can buy in Indian shops- here I’ve sprinkled yoghurt with lime/achaar chaat and decorated with day lily petals. My other favourite culinary powder is @tajinuk which gives instant mexicanness to any dish. #tajin #chaat
Me and my beautiful granddaughter Ophelia. I look Me and my beautiful granddaughter Ophelia. I look a mess ( really need to dye hair but it’s sooo expensive) but I don’t care because my heart just bursts when I cuddle this little being who has been in my life for 8 months. Babies are a blessing. #granfluencer pic: @clairebelljar
Made arepas last week with masarepa, a precooked m Made arepas last week with masarepa, a precooked maize meal, topped with Wensleydale cheese which isn’t too dissimilar to a fresh Latin American cheese. I also added fresh corn kernels for texture. #colombia #venezuela #arepas #vegetarian
Quinoa salad cooked in a mushroom stock cube solut Quinoa salad cooked in a mushroom stock cube solution with hazelnuts & preserved lemons, home grown curly parsley. I’m not cooking most of my grains in a rice steamer. Turn out fluffy & perfect every time. #quinoa #grainbowl #summerfood
I took this photo of Jane Birkin when she performe I took this photo of Jane Birkin when she performed at @theroundhouse in 2008. Shabby chic with a sweet voice. #RIP #janebirkin #concert #london #rockphotographer
Oxford food symposium 2023 lots of talks, meals an Oxford food symposium 2023 lots of talks, meals and drinks
‘Soft serve’ ice cream. Easy! Add condensed mi ‘Soft serve’ ice cream. Easy! Add condensed milk & vanilla to whipped cream and freeze! Pipe out. Buy a flake if you want a 99. #nochurnicecream #99 #icecream #summer23
Load More... Follow on Instagram

Archives

Copyright © 2023 msmarmitelover