About / Wild Bake
local – dough – saucey – oven – eco – less is more
Dough – all about the base
We’ve been experimenting with different types of flour over the years and, finally, we’ve found the best. The brand Lewis uses is Shipton Mill, from Gloucestershire. It’s organic, ’OO’ (zero zero) flour. To a pizza chef, that’s key. In case you were wondering, flour has different grades and ‘OO’ is the finest you can get. Its super high gluten content makes it durable, so that, when it is worked properly it makes for the best rise, creating a perfect, puffed up crust.
Keeping it local
When we planned this business, we wanted to become part of people’s lives; their weekly routine. Now, thanks to local people, campsite owners, event managers and a heap of hard work, we’ve realised our vision. With comments like: “Wild Bake saved Monday nights,” how could we not feel gratified and satisfied. And it’s been that way since we started. Also, we love the fact we can order ingredients from local suppliers, like Ray Davis Quality Meats, at 11pm, and get it delivered 9am the next day.
Oh saucy
After years of trying a bit of this and a touch of that, we’ve found the perfect recipe. It’s not like Lewis’ mother used to make, bless her soul, but it’s his own style, and it makes our pizzas moorish, sweet, sour, salty and satisfying – we’ve even thought about bottling it. Typically the Italians use tinned, peeled plum tomatoes (but only the best, of course) and everything that goes into the oven has to be raw. We use good tomatoes, salt and oil – simple. Yes, there are a few other top secret ingredients and, yes, we are keeping those to ourselves.
More than a pizza oven
It’s such a beautiful, natural and traditional way to cook. A communal pizza oven used to be the place where housewives took their meals to cook. They would drop it off in the morning and come back at tea time. There is no better way to cook a pizza in the wild than in a wood-fired oven, but the residual heat from this bad boy is enough to cook all sorts of other dishes, like a leg of lamb, pulled pork and bread. This is something we do for special occasions. Ask us about it.
Fired by nature
Lewis prides himself on being able to rock up, set up and trade without having to rely on an electric hook-up or generator. We run our lights and water heating off a leisure battery, and use local, sustainable, kiln-dried wood to fire the oven. By the way, it has to be hard wood, like oak, birch or ash, and cut into a uniform shape. And all our wood, just like our pizza, is prepared the old-fashioned way – by hand.
And finally, less is more
The fewer ingredients we put on the base, the better it cooks (and tastes, yum). Our pizza-eaters say they get the feeling of ‘nicely full’ but never bloated, no matter how many they polish off.
About / Our story
The best view from the office
Fired by nature
“I’ve been a chef since I was 15, working 70 hour weeks and helping to move other food businesses forward. Then, one day I thought, ‘enough is enough, now it’s my time.’
It took three years of researching and saving, but, in 2012, my wife, Claire, and I converted our vintage horse box and found a genius who made mobile wood ovens. One year later we had secured our first pitch at Padstow Touring Park.
We realised the opportunity was there, but it was because of other people’s reaction to the pizza, their enthusiasm for the business, and their support for us that made us think: ‘It’s not just us, other people agree, now let’s make it happen.’
That was a key thing, really, getting the first three pitches at touring sites. The owners’ faith in us and their feedback, that we were literally adding value and a feature to their site, that’s what’s been the driving force. Today they say Wild Bake helps them to increase repeat business and keep their pitches full, at no extra cost to them.
At the campsites we meet people from all over the world, and that just makes the job worthwhile, but if it wasn’t for our regulars at the town sites we just wouldn’t be here. We really love the fact that, within the last couple of years, the town spots have grown to capacity – which means we’ve nailed it.
It’s not been easy, but I’m not going to bang on about the incredible determination, faith and self belief which we needed, or the hours it takes to make the dough, cut the wood and book the sites (as well as all the other business-type stuff)…oh, hang on.
But what I am going to say is this: there is no better feeling than feeding hungry people, good, natural food.”
When he is not wild baking, Lewis Cole is also a retail food consultant. His clients include Cornish businesses like Sausage and Roll and the Open Oven Pizza Co (Cornwall Services), Bin Two (Padstow) and Trevisker Garden Centre.
