Bill the Baker

Baker / Teacher / Mentor

Bill has been baking bread for over 50 years and, although most of his working career was spent in many different facets of the technology industry, his passion has always been baking bread. Along the way he tried baking other products but always kept coming back to breads. He enjoys that the same four simple ingredients of flour, salt, yeast and water can produce an endless variety of bread products. Not only does each variation of bread look different, but each truly has a different taste as well. Bill loves the smell of his fresh bread baking in the oven and the look on people’s faces when they taste what he has created. He is currently an active member of the Bread Bakers Guild of America.

When Bill and his wife were raising their two sons they found that they, too, also enjoyed the baking process at a young age. Bill would be baking breads while the boys pretended to bake in a toy oven alongside of him in the kitchen. They would mix the flour and water and then roll and cut the dough over and over just like their father. When the boys started to participate in team sports baking stopped for all of them. But through the years Bill would occasionally bake bread, bagels, cookies, or a cake, just not as frequently or on the same level.

Later on in life when his children moved away from home Bill and his wife visited Napa Valley. (Bill loves wine as much as he enjoys baking bread.) During that trip Bill had the opportunity to enjoy the many fine variations of bread available in the Napa Valley region and was inspired to once again start baking. Bill’s wife purchased a new bread cookbook for him and he discovered that the bread baking process had gone through much advancement through the years. He enrolled in several bread baking classes and learned that not only has the baking process changed, but the quality of the bread that could be baked in your own home had also been greatly improved.

Bill has also discovered that he loves to teach other people how to make his same quality of bread. Baking with yeast is very often misunderstood by the home baker. Bill looks forward to the opportunity to dispel those myths and to make you confident in your own bread baking skills.