Derbyshire Times tries award winning bread from Kuma-San Bakehouse in Matlock

We visited Kuma-San Bakehouse in Matlock to try Britain's Best Loaf 2025.

Transcript

00:00Can you tell me a bit more about the loaf which won Britain's Best Loaf Award this year?

00:05This is lemon and earl grey loaf.

00:10So basically this is a soft brioche dough and I mixed it with earl grey tea and also

00:23Italian peel soaked in a limoncello so it smells fruity and to make a little bit of an accent

00:33I put some white chocolate inside too and I flavoured this loaf with a lot of lemon juice

00:41and butter and sugar so it was very streng and lemony.

00:48The combination of earl grey tea, the fragrance of earl grey tea and lemony flavour combined

00:55very good complement each other and make a lovely fragrant flavour.

01:01What was the hardest part of making this loaf?

01:04This most difficult bit is to make the dough softer because I put a lot of lemon juice in

01:10this bread meaning the dough becomes very very hard and tighten.

01:18That's why I made a lot of effort to make sure the dough is soft like a fluffy brioche loaf.

01:26We are at a Kumasan bakehouse today trying Britain's Best Loaf.

01:31So it's lemon and earl grey loaf with some bit of sugar on top.

01:36So I'm just going to try some of this.

01:39Hope you like it.

01:42It is very fluffy as you can see.

01:44Yeah, that's a brioche, Japanese brioche.

01:52That's really lovely.

01:53You like it?

01:54Yeah, I love it.

01:55It's a very floral because of the earl grey but it's also quite lemony and it's so soft

02:04it basically melts in your mouth.

02:07It's amazing.

02:08That's Japanese technique, making the soft fluffy bun.

02:12So it's infused with tea when you make it?

02:16Well, basically I put the tea leaves into the dough.

02:20That's why the fragrance is very strong and, you know, not overpulling but, you know, you

02:26can taste and smell of the fragrance of the tea.

02:30Yeah, it's really nice.

02:32I've never tried anything like this before but it's absolutely amazing.