Brown Bread is a family run artisan bakery stall which features at Ely Market. It is a stall which I have been visiting for years now and I find almost impossible to walk past without spending a fortune.
The team at Brown Bread pride themselves on using traditional methods and shuns what they call ‘industrially manufactured produce’. Everything is hand made, fresh, and with twenty years experience under their belt.
The range is vast, starting with humble snack items, such as scotch eggs, pastries, and samosas, to more substantial foods like sourdoughs, breads, and one of my personal favourites, foccacia. They even offer desserts, cakes, and muffins, so watch out!
I am just going to come out with it and apologise from the start, my photos of Brown Bread over the years have been terrible, so please visit their Instagram page to see what they offer. With that said, the photos I have taken give you a good idea of what they are about and the quality they offer…It all looks so so good!
One thing I want to make a big ‘song and dance’ about is their croissants. I have always disliked croissants, even during my time visiting Paris and Carcasson numerous times. I have often found them to be very unfulfilling, small, and mostly full of air. That was until I saw these absolute beauties at Brown Bread the other day!
Their almond croissants are absolutely huge! Not only are they big enough to fill up a man my size but they are substantial on the bite. Historically, with my experience with croissants, they mush down into nothingness and it feels like you haven’t eaten anything at all. The ones at Brown Bread feel like actual pastries. After sampling this monster, my opinion on them is entirely turned around.
They have a great range of desserts, taking up several tables. They do a mean cheese cake but also offer a selection of brownies.
Speaking of brownies, I am quite partial to their Ultimate Brownie. They are quite steep at £3 each but you can get them for £2 a pop if you buy 4. I think this is a fair deal, considering they are hand made, Belgium chocolate, and consist of 70% cocoa. In my opinion, it certainly pays off to buy in bulk.
Brown Bread is growing in popularity and is now at dozens of locations across Essex, London, and Cambridgeshire. Their Ely stall visits on Thursdays and Saturdays and their Cambridge stall opens on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays, and Sundays.
The Brown Bread market stall really adds to that wholesome afternoon walking around with the family, especially in historic Ely with the cathedral looming over us and the river a short walk away. My son always likes to pick himself out a little treat which is why it’s important to know that such love and care has gone into making everything here.
One of my guilty pleasures is their foccacia olive bread, which is one of my favourite foods on the planet. Freshly baked that day, I will take some home after picking up some Black Bomber cheddar from the Cheese & Pie Man (who I have lovingly dubbed ‘the most dangerous man in Ely’). These two compliment each other perfectly. So many half hearted diets have been utterly shattered by this combo!
Make sure to get yourself down to one of their stalls the next time you are in Cambridge or Ely. For those of you who haven’t tried Brown Bread yet, I know you will love it!
Thanks for reading!
The Cambridge Foodies 