Baking Lab Amsterdam

Baking Lab Amsterdam is a bakery, café and baking workshop on the Linnaeusstraat in Amsterdam that bakes sourdough bread and reuses old bread as an ingredient in new dough.

Their website says all their sourdough (desem) loaves are made from long-fermented dough, though not every loaf relies on sourdough alone: the boule and the 'Circulairtje' also contain baker's yeast. Three loaves rise on sourdough only: the Batard, a grey bread with 12% rye baked on the stone oven floor; the 'Zware Jongen', 100% wholemeal and full of roasted seeds and grains, baked in a tin; and a 100% rye sourdough, baked regularly but not every day, which their website describes as organic. Which flour and which mill they use, we couldn't confirm. They also bake cakes, canelés and financiers.

The shop and café are open from 9:00 to 15:00, from 10:00 on Monday, and closed on Tuesday. Fresh sourdough starter from the bakery is sold in the shop and in their webshop, and they run bread and sourdough workshops.

Old bread goes back into the dough together with the sourdough, which keeps the new loaves fresh for longer; Nederland Circulair selected the method as a best-practice example of cutting food waste.