Our Daily Bread: Dougal Muffet

Bread has us in a chokehold. We’re spending weekend mornings queuing for sangas on suburban streets. We’re making travel plans around far-flung bakeries. We’re even ferrying select loaves all over the globe. At its simplest, salty butter spread thick on (the right) bread delivers a trifecta of ease, deliciousness and sustenance. At its peak, it’s a religion.

Sampling AP Bakery’s goods is seen by some as a divine experience. In its humble three-and-a-half years of operation, the Sydney bakery has embedded itself in the city’s carb-loaded habits. Deeply aromatic sesame and fenugreek loaves with seed-speckled crusts, bitey Aleppo pepper scrolls and espresso-brown buttermilk croissants have a cult-like following. But true worshippers know not to skip the fruit-studded brioche buns, ricotta-laden danishes and bubbly flatbreads that dazzle with zucchini flowers and fresh cheese.

“There was not even a desire or dream of it to go where it has,” head baker Dougal Muffet shares from his Marrickville warehouse-bakery. “AP’s been left to form its own path, we let it go where it will – riding a horse without holding the reins, for a poetic way of saying it.”

AP might have begun at a slow trot, as a rooftop bakery at Paramount House Hotel and super-limited cafe supplier. But the
brand quickly galloped across the city under the ownership of hoteliers Ping Jin Ng and Russell Beard, Ester chef Mat Lindsay and Muffet. Today, that flagship’s still perched in Surry Hills, there’s a kiosk down the street, and outposts in Newtown, the CBD and Circular Quay. Plus, a bakery-slash-wine-bar in Darlinghurst.

Up at 3am, Dougal’s in the bakery 45 minutes later – welcomed to the flurry of a restaurant-like service with a team of about 24. “We’ve always got music playing, we’ve always got coffee brewing. And when you’ve got six or seven people around a baguette bench shaping, it’s never boring.”

Baguettes and ficelle (aka the skinny baguette) are shaped until 4.30am. Focaccias and flatbreads are next. And then the pastry team starts captaining the ovens. Each morning’s a hard-to-pull-off ballet. “We’ve talked about it a lot – bringing in different pieces of equipment to roll the baguettes,” Dougal says. “One of my favourite things to do at the bakery is shape baguettes and sit around and talk shit while we do it. When that comes together, working in a team of bakers, it’s just such a beautiful symphony.”

Whole grains are sourced directly from producers, including Wholegrain Milling in Gunnedah and Rutherglen’s Woodstock Flour, who go all-in on sustainability and champion heritage, lesser-known varieties. Flour, which is milled on-site in Marrickville, is dialled in on flavour, just like the ferments, bake times and ingredient selects.

“We put a lot of love into it – we definitely don’t take any shortcuts, and that’s obviously critical to making anything of quality. We try our best to work with the best sources of flour and grain, and the milling that we do for our bread program is what really sets it apart,” he explains. “That extra step, and all those extra variables, it makes us better bakers – we’re talking and analysing and more reflective of what the end product is every day.”

While Dougal is a self-proclaimed ficelle obsessive, the fan favourite is the fenugreek and sesame loaf, which has tripped all over Oz and across a few oceans. “That was just supposed to be a special loaf that we made once and forgot about ... but we’ve just never stopped making it. I’ve flown that loaf of bread to Singapore, I’ve touted it around – it’s definitely travelled.”

A baker through and through, Dougal – like many of us – finds endless joy in breaking bread. “It’s so foundational to people’s habits. You wake up in the morning, it’s probably a subconscious decision to slice some bread and make that a part of the first thing you eat.”

“The loaf of bread is the daily requirement.” He clarifies: “Well, not a loaf a day – that would be amazing for me.”

The Sydney chef behind Poly and Ester – and co-founder of AP Bakery – offers up an umami-packed butter recipe that’s a cut above the rest. Simply swipe it across a slice of fresh (AP) bread.

Place eight thinly sliced garlic cloves into a saucepan and cover with vegetable oil. Cook over medium–high heat, stirring constantly, until the garlic is lightly golden. Remove the garlic from the oil immediately, straining and transferring to a paper towel. Once cool, crush the garlic and pop into a mixer along with 240 grams of unsalted butter, two teaspoons of ground shio kombu*, 1.5 tablespoons of brown rice vinegar, 3 teaspoons of white soy sauce, 1 teaspoon of finely ground white peppercorns and 1 teaspoon of sea salt flakes. Beat to combine, seasoning to taste and store in the refrigerator or freezer.

*Shio kombu is available in most Asian grocers.

Featuring DOUGAL MUFFET & MAT LINDSAY HESTEHAVE OF AP BAKERY
Photography by HUGH DAVISON
Words by GRACE MACKENZIE