Log In

Reset Password

Lucinda's 'dynamite' bread

Photo By Akil SimmonsLucinda Worrell-Stowe mixes up a new batch of her specialty breads

As a child, Lucinda Worrell-Stowe watched and learned how to make bread from her 58-year-old grandmother, Mary Simmons.

Back in the 1960s it was her job to take her grandmother's fresh bread from Pond Hill to Noel's Variety Store on North Shore Road.

"We just had to transport the bread. We didn't have taxis or cars so we just used to carry it in little laundry bags down the hill," she said. "So my interest in bread came when I was like eight or nine years old."

Bread is now Mrs. Worrell-Stowe's own bread and butter as she juggles the art of bread making with her full-time job with teaching and other responsibilities.

In the past few years she has mastered and improved on the old-family recipes and built up a fan base for everything from her prickly-pear bread to her "absolutely delicious" hot-cross buns.

"It's a family recipe that I have added or subtracted to my taste. I've definitely improved upon it," she said of the in-demand delicacy. "I think mine is better than my grandmother's now, my aunt Brenda said my grandmother's bread was a little more dry."

When talking to The Royal Gazette about her bread business, Mrs. Worrell-Stowe admitted that 'Lucinda's Bread' is different from everything else on the market. "I am a dynamite bread maker," she said with a laugh. "That makes my bread different from everybody else.

"I just think that I am always trying to improve my bread making that makes me pretty successful.

"I take a lot of pride in making the bread because I know that people are going to eat it, sometimes that bread can be breakfast, lunch and dinner."

Mrs. Worell-Stowe explained she has been making bread for holidays and special occasions for the past 20 years. But it wasn't until she began selling at the Farmer's Market, at the Bull's Head car park, that business really started taking off.

"I've been doing the market since last November and the amount of people that have been coming and looking for the bread is off the chain," she said. "It's quite overwhelming. It's a lot of work, but bread making is extremely easy for me. I like making it, I like trying new things.

"I made a bread out of prickly pear and let people try it outside at the Farmer's Market and people were ordering it up.

"I probably picked all the prickly pears in Bermuda to make this bread because it takes at least 200 pears, and I'll probably get 20 loaves out of it."

In addition to her more-traditional breads like multigrain, white, spelt, rye and raisin, Mrs. Worrell-Stowe has also experimented with making mango, onion and zucchini bread to keep her customers coming back for more.

She said: "I'm just always trying to do something different. I'm in the grocery store and saying what can I put in bread?

"You can put zucchini in bread, you can put onion in bread, you can basically put anything in bread, but the consistency is what is really, really important. If it tastes good than it goes on the market," she added.

Though business has been going well, it is not without its hiccups. This past Good Friday, there was a horrible mix-up between regular and spelt (gluten-free) hot cross buns, which left many customers disappointed.

"I've since learned how to deal with that. People who like spelt or gluten-free breads will get theirs on a different day," she said.

There are also times when business can get extremely hectic; once she had to prepare 104 loaves of bread for the Farmer's Market being held the next day.

"I don't do bread like two days before," she said. "I want to take it as fresh as possible, so the night before I spend continuously making the bread and dough and baking it."

It wasn't until 8 o'clock the next morning that she was finally taking the last batch out of the oven, she admits. When it comes to her bread she uses nothing but the best ingredients, that includes using soy oil instead of Crisco and raw sugar cane sugar instead of processed sugars.

"I don't use any pork or animal fat in my bread," she added. "I don't like it for me so I don't put any of that in there, so I can sell it to anybody simply because it has a lot of organic ingredients.

"It's definitely a passion. I want to expand it. I don't know how far it can go, it would really depend on the time I can donate to it, but I would be happy making bread every day for anyone that wants to spend $5 a loaf for any bread they want.

"And if they have any suggestions for what they want to put in bread than I will go with that too, because I'll try anything.

"I would say it took me about five years to go from where I've learned to a comfort zone.

"So it's been about 30 years that I don't need anyone to tell me it's good, that it tastes good or that it's good bread, I kind of know it, I have seen the improvement from the years."