Category Archives: Food Industry

We love our Bakers’ Couches…

Food Industry, Organic stuff, , , , ,

….but what are they, and what do you use them for?

They are an essential but simple tool to help you produce stunning baguettes.

A couche (pronounced koosh) or baker’s cloth, is simply a “bed” or “resting place,”. It is a piece of thick canvas or linen that provides support for boules or baguettes during the proofing phase. Couche cloths are sometimes placed into baskets to support round boules, or they can be folded around baguettes.

Cloth is pleated to help shape the dough



When dusted and folded between lengths of dough it helps support and shape the dough. It also absorbs a little of the dough’s outer moisture to help develop a skin, hold the final shape and develop a crisp crust.

Did you know that Bakers’ Couches are best left unwashed. This way the yeasty, floury surface on the cloth is kept and helps to give the bread that unique crust that baguettes are known for.

We make our Baker’s Couches from 100% unbleached organic cotton, they are hand made to order by our skilled team in our farm-based factory.

Couche cloths can be branded


If you would like more information, contact our design team on 01908 290482 or email sales@cottonroots.co.uk

Amazing Grains

Food Industry, Organic stuff, Organisations Wearing Fairtrade, Uncategorized, , , ,

We recently embroidered some of our Fairtrade Organic aprons for a local bakery in Olney called Amazing-Grains.  Knowing that Olney was the home of the hymn Amazing Grace we were interested to know more about the bakery and its name.

Gareth the owner was made redundant after a 30 year career in IT, he realised that his heart no longer belonged in the corporate world.

Over the years, extensive travel had opened his eyes to the fact that most other countries held bread in high esteem unlike the industrialised products passed on as bread for the lowest possible price in the UK. So after dabbling in food distribution, Gareth decided to address this issue by learning to bake “real bread”, using good quality ingredients, and an honest approach. Sales began with friends, then from the local pub, to deliveries 5 days a week, all produced from a 30 Sq ft kitchen in a tiny 2 bed cottage in Emberton, just outside Olney in North Buckinghamshire.

Now baking 4 days a week from a converted workshop in East St in Olney, Amazing-Grains produces around 300 loaves a week, using only natural ingredients, time and no processing aids, to produce breads with a flavour, second to none.

The name of the bakery was based on the hymn Amazing Grace written by the curate of Olney, John Newton and published in 1779. It is one of the most recognisable songs in the English-speaking world.

We love supplying aprons to local businesses and particularly to one that has such an interesting story.