Bakery duo provide a taste of the Caribbean
KJ Bakery, Kingsthorpe Road. Kenny and Jenny Heath outside their new Caribbean bakery.
WHEN Jenny Heath went back to Jamaica to learn the secrets of Caribbean baking, she was surprised to find she had more of a connection with her teacher than she expected.
Jenny and her husband Kenny decided to open a Caribbean bakery in Northampton without any experience at all of the business so they went back to Jamaica to find someone who could teach them what they needed to know. They asked around and found someone who would teach Jenny all about baking bread.
The baker’s wife remarked on a family resemblance between her husband and Jenny and they soon discovered that he was one of Jenny’s cousins.
The couple have spent a year getting their idea off the ground and today the KJ Bakery opens its doors at 44 Kingsthorpe Road, Northampton.
Caribbean breads have a different consistency from traditional English loaves. They are a heavier, denser bread and this is all achieved through a very different preparation process. Whereas bakers in this country tend to prepare the dough in a way to introduce as much air as possible, Caribbean style bakers knock the air out with a machine called a miller which grinds the dough.
Eating it is such a flavour of home for anyone from the Caribbean.
She said: “It’s because that’s what you were brought up with, that’s all we know from a child growing up, that’s what our parents had and we are accustomed to.”
Jenny came over to this country from Jamaica more than 40 years ago, but although she would eat English bread, she said: “You start to crave what you are used to.”
She said: “I lived in London for 40 years and in London every corner you go there’s a West Indian bakery so we didn’t have to go far.”
But when she got married to Kenny and moved to Northampton she realised it was not so easy here.
Finding freshly baked traditional Caribbean breads such as hard dough bread in Northampton is difficult and those who want it would normally have to head for Birmingham or London to buy some, said Jenny.
It gave them an idea for a business so Jenny spent eight weeks in Jamaica last year learning how to bake cakes and breads, finding out about the methods and the ingredients.
It was not plain sailing when she came back to this country to put it into practice though.
She said: “We didn’t have much experience but after going to Jamaica and getting the experience I thought it would be easy. But we found out the flour in Jamaica and the flour here is different.”
The flour available here required much less water, Jenny said: “When I came here I wasn’t getting the same results.”
So she had to experiment to get her recipes just right.
She said: “I had to get advice on the flour and then we had to go through the whole process of keep trying and see what worked best. Now we are ready.”
They did their market research by sending cases of bread to various churches around town for them to try after services and it went down well with the churchgoers, many of whom were from Caribbean backgrounds.
She said: “They were quite excited to see it.”
But she added the wider community are also keen on this style of baking and there has been a lot of interest in recent months while they have been getting the shop ready. She said: “A lot of English people have come to the shop and knocked on the window and said they can’t wait for us to open. They have probably travelled or know people and like the Caribbean food.”
The couple have done most of the work on the shop themselves and are ambitious to supply other shops and supermarkets too. They also plan to do takeaway food in future.
Jenny has had plenty to learn over the past year, but she said: “Cooking and baking was something I was always interested in. It wasn’t really hard.”
To find out more about the shop visit the website at www.kjbakery.co.uk
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