It is not difficult to imagine Beatriz Echeverría (Madrid, 1972) as a child, smiling and lively, a bit of a demon, too, why not say it?. Today, at 51 years old and with five businesses in charge, he continues to radiate that same character, lively, happy and alert.. Echeverría is one of those bakers who love what they do, she puts the same passion into talking about the pH of the dough as she does when describing how the crust of one of her countless breads should crunch; His favorites are the loaves with seeds. “I recommend that you try it, if you haven't tried it,” he advises me: “It's really very good, because we make our own seed mixture, which is exquisite.”.

He set up his first bakery just a decade ago, in the fall of 2013, in the Peñagrande neighborhood.. Next to where he still lives. “There is nothing that can match walking to work. “I'm five minutes away,” he confesses with his small appearance.. The first winner of the Madrid Golden Crumb, back in 2016, is aware of everything that has changed in the sector in ten years. Also about the bakeries that offer a good product: “I really like Panadario, Obrador San Francisco and 180 Obrador”.

From Lancaster to Madrid

“I started making bread in 1999,” he reveals, while laughing at the time that has passed. She did it in England, while studying History and meeting her future husband, a Hispanicist, like her. He spent 12 years there. “First in London, and then in Cardiff and Lancaster,” he lists. “The first breads were a bit churro. I mean, it was a very strange thing. I don't really know how I got it. And then the bug bit me, and I continued making very simple bread at home: focaccias and soda bread, mostly, which is an Irish bread that does not contain yeast, sourdough, or anything, which is made with baking soda.

In Lancaster a neighbor gave him sourdough and everything changed. “That was the difference, mind you, because I liked to make bread the way I liked to cook, but when I started making bread with sourdough, it's another world, it's exciting, because you have your own live ferment in your house,” he continues explaining.. Then came the courses.

And there he found the key to what he would do next: “I had studied, I had done my doctorate, I had spent a year at the university, and at first I still didn't know what was going to become of me. But I thought, the truth is that “I would like to set up a school.” Between 2008 and 2013, Echeverría became one of the most renowned bread teachers on the Peninsula. Not only because of the courses he gives, but also because of the bakers he invites, some of the brightest minds in kneading and fermenting.

“In fact, at my school, Iban Yarza taught the first course of his life,” he reveals. Javier Marca, who would later set up Panic, was already there as an audience. “And this was in 2008, although everything else was still everyone's imagination. What we were going to be able to do or not do. I didn't plan to open a bakery back then either”. In New York, and especially at Sullivan Street Bakery, she discovered that she wanted to be a baker. “I loved how they worked,” he recalls. “Normally, in slightly more conventional bakeries, one person is in the oven and is a baker and that's it. But here they were in the complete bread process. I liked that, because they were proud of what they did. It was very stimulating. I found it. another, in the end, you're almost a pawn in a line of work.”

Babette's first oven

His first workshop, a secluded space, small in size, which was also placed behind a hedge, did not allow him to be very visible. The neighborhood, in the northwest area of Madrid, did not help either due to its remoteness. And yet, it worked.. These were the beginnings of sourdough bread. A few months later, in December, Panic will open. Something was moving on the Madrid soil, we were leaving the ostracism of the frozen loaves of bread that were heated to the minute.

“It was all a learning experience,” he clarifies. First with the workshop itself and then with the training, which he continued whenever time allowed. “I went to Switzerland to take a course, I joined the Richmond Club. I was also at the Ecole Internationale de Boulangerie, in the south of France. I have gone everywhere. I have done all the courses I could. And then, also , I continued bringing teachers to Madrid, people I admired”.

The result of those visits was the founding of La PEPA, “which was a collective of like-minded small bakers.”. A group of 15 bakeries spread across Spain with which to share ideas. The fever for sourdough bread spread throughout the different corners of the Spanish geography. Madrid also joined this flurry of openings, including El Horno de Babette and Panic, followed by Panadario and La Miguiña, among others..

— Today we have a sourdough bakery on every corner?

— It is not true that there is a bakery with sourdough bread on every corner. There are many who say they have sourdough bread and it is not true..

– What happened?

—The Bread Law came out, which in theory was going to protect those of us who really work with sourdough bread, but the reality is that it has not been like that. There are many bakeries that claim sourdough bread and it is not.. This is a bit frustrating, and I would say there is some unfair competition. Nobody watches him.

—Can you find good bread in Madrid?

— It is true that Madrid right now has a significant handful of good sourdough bakeries. I would tell you that there may be 15, even 20, good sourdough bakeries, but they are not all the ones you see on the street..

The Golden Crumb and the pH of the doughs

In 2016, El Horno de Babette won the award for best bread in Madrid. “When we won the Golden Crumb, it was not like now. Now you have a piece of bread that you decide to present to the Golden Crumb.. But when we won, three judges came to you incognito and tried your bread, they saw the attention of the public and decided there who won,” he says of that first edition.. The only one, according to the story, that was done like this. “It's different, because you can make better or worse bread, but you present what you want and it doesn't necessarily reflect the bread you make”.

And he ends by saying: “That does not mean that the following were bad, in fact Panadario and La Miguiña later won, which are fantastic. But it is true that I believe that the bakery must be judged on a day-to-day basis, not on a bread that one presents at a specific moment.”. In this decade, Babette's Oven has evolved tremendously. These are the words of Echeverría who comments how “we have greatly improved our process control and we have begun to control all aspects of bread making; they are the two main things that I would tell you, control of the temperature and pH of the dough. “.

This bread making, with a crunchy dough, spongy, almost elastic crumbs, well-controlled alveoli and a tasty and nutritious bread, is what has made El Horno de Babette always be in the top positions when it comes to excellent bread. sourdough.

Pastries and sweets

Also in the sweet part, where their cookies, their croissants, their muffins and their flaky palmeritas stand out widely.. “I think that in the end, since you go to the bakery, it should be accompanied with authentic products,” he says of his bakery pastries.. “What we do is very simple. The cupcake has extra virgin olive oil, has egg, has lemon zest. “It's a little bit what you would do at home, a little more professional, but it doesn't take anything more.”. A basic pastry, but excellent in the raw materials. “Since you have a sweet, at least it doesn't have substitutes, that the butter is real butter, that the chocolate is real chocolate”.

Among their recommendations for these months to come, you cannot miss the Three Kings roscón. “It is another recipe that I have been working on since I opened the school, and I am improving it year after year. I think that the one we have now is quite the definitive one. Very different from the roscones that are on the market, because in format it is a bit alternative, but then it is very purist in flavor”. And then there is the chocolate cookie, “it's soft, with good chocolate, which is the key.”