Everything here has a time on it.
A bakehouse in Levenshulme with two ovens and no back-up plan. Here is what comes out, when it comes out, and roughly when it goes — so you can stop ringing to ask, and we can stop answering with a guess.
On the shelf — four things, and the buns went at half nine
the shelf as it stands, against your own clock — pastries are on the counter, not the shelf · three of today’s four fit here; the fourth is in the bake clock below
- Open
- Wed–Sun 07:30–14:00
- First bread out
- 07:40
- Loaves a day
- approx. 140
- Sourdough
- £4.60
- Telephone
- 0161 496 0733
The day
The bake clock
Two decks, four bakes, and a line for now against your own clock; the pale part of each bar is how long it usually lasts. Pastries come off the second deck at 07:30 and live on the counter, not the shelf — ring before 10:00 and we will put a loaf by until 13:30, no charge, no deposit.
05:45 first load · 14:00 close
solid: in the oven · pale: on the shelf
White sourdough 900 g · £4.60
Rye & caraway 800 g · £4.90
Seeded batard 750 g · £4.80
Focaccia, by the piece about 250 g · £3.20
A loaf put by no charge, no deposit
At 09:00 on a Saturday there is usually still white sourdough, rye & caraway and seeded batard on the shelf; the focaccia is not out till eleven.
Ring before 10:00 and we will put a loaf by until 13:30 — no charge and no deposit, and if you do not come for it, it goes out at half price like everything else.
The bit nobody publishes
Allergens, properly
Every one of our labels carries a full ingredient list with the fourteen allergens emphasised, because the law has required exactly that on food prepacked for direct sale since October 2021. What the law does not require is putting it on a website before you walk in, so here are all four of ours, set out as they are printed.
You should be able to find out whether you can eat something before you get to the counter and have to ask in front of a queue.
White sourdough
900 g £4.60
Ingredients
Wheat flour (wheat flour, calcium carbonate, iron, niacin, thiamin), water, wheat leaven (wheat flour, water), sea salt.
This bakehouse also handles rye, sesame, milk, egg, almonds, mustard and sulphites. There is flour in the air here from half four in the morning.
- Best before
- two days after it is baked
- Baked
- Barlow Road, the morning you buy it
- Storage
- Paper bag, cut side down. Do not refrigerate.
Two Ovens, The Old Joinery, 41a Barlow Road, Levenshulme, Manchester M19 3PL · 0161 496 0733
Rye & caraway
800 g £4.90
Ingredients
Rye flour, wheat flour (wheat flour, calcium carbonate, iron, niacin, thiamin), water, rye leaven (rye flour, water), caraway seed, sea salt.
This bakehouse also handles rye, sesame, milk, egg, almonds, mustard and sulphites. There is flour in the air here from half four in the morning.
- Best before
- three days after it is baked
- Baked
- Barlow Road, the morning you buy it
- Storage
- Paper bag. Better on the second day than the first.
Two Ovens, The Old Joinery, 41a Barlow Road, Levenshulme, Manchester M19 3PL · 0161 496 0733
Seeded batard
750 g £4.80
Ingredients
Wheat flour (wheat flour, calcium carbonate, iron, niacin, thiamin), water, sesame seed (6%), linseed, sunflower seed, wheat leaven (wheat flour, water), sea salt.
This bakehouse also handles rye, sesame, milk, egg, almonds, mustard and sulphites. There is flour in the air here from half four in the morning.
- Best before
- two days after it is baked
- Baked
- Barlow Road, the morning you buy it
- Storage
- Paper bag, cut side down. Do not refrigerate.
Two Ovens, The Old Joinery, 41a Barlow Road, Levenshulme, Manchester M19 3PL · 0161 496 0733
Focaccia, by the piece
about 250 g £3.20
Ingredients
Wheat flour (wheat flour, calcium carbonate, iron, niacin, thiamin), water, extra virgin olive oil (8%), wheat leaven (wheat flour, water), sea salt, rosemary.
This bakehouse also handles rye, sesame, milk, egg, almonds, mustard and sulphites. There is flour in the air here from half four in the morning.
- Best before
- the day it is baked
- Baked
- Barlow Road, the morning you buy it
- Storage
- Eat it today. It will not keep and we would rather you knew.
Two Ovens, The Old Joinery, 41a Barlow Road, Levenshulme, Manchester M19 3PL · 0161 496 0733
This is a demonstration. It is a reproduction on a website of the label we print and stick on the bag — it is not that label, and it is not a substitute for reading it. Recipes change with the seasons and with the miller, and a website changes more slowly than a bakery does.
The label in the shop is the one that counts. If this page and the label ever disagree, the label is right and we have been slow. If you are ordering for somebody else and you are not certain, ring us on 0161 496 0733 — a person who has made the thing will answer.
the one we will not pretend about
We cannot do gluten-free, and we are not going to try. This is one room with two ovens, a mixer and a sieve, and there is flour in the air in here from half four in the morning. It is on every surface, in the extractor, and on us.
Nothing we sell is safe for anyone with coeliac disease, and no amount of cleaning between bakes would make it so. A bakery that tells you it does a gluten-free loaf in the same room is telling you something that cannot be true — ask them where they mill and where they prove it, and watch what happens.
If you need genuinely gluten-free bread we will tell you who does it properly, in a separate building, and we will not be funny about it.
| Made here | Allergens | Also in the room |
|---|---|---|
| Tin white | Wheat (gluten), milk | rye, sesame, egg, nuts |
| Almond croissant | Wheat (gluten), milk, egg, almonds | rye, sesame |
| Cinnamon bun | Wheat (gluten), milk, egg | rye, sesame, nuts |
| Sausage roll | Wheat (gluten), milk, egg, mustard, sulphites | rye, sesame, nuts |
| Sold loose over the counter, so it is written on the ticket rather than printed on a bag — ask and we will read you the card. Kept with the recipe cards and initialled R.A. whenever a recipe changes. | ||
The ceiling
Two ovens, and that is the whole business
The name is not a brand, it is a measurement. Here is the loading plan the decks are chalked to, drawn to scale, and the sum that comes out of it.
Two Ovens · loading plan
deck one & deck two · drawn to scale
ref BR–01 · chalked every morning
Deck one — twelve boules. Four across, three deep. A 900 g boule wants 300 mm of floor to itself, and 1.20 m by 0.90 m gives you twelve of those and no thirteenth.
Deck two — twelve batards. Six across, two deep. The cells are a different shape and exactly the same floor, which is why the number does not change when the shape of the loaf does.
The ceiling, worked out
- Each deck
- 1.20 × 0.90 m
- Chalked at
- 300 mm
- Loaves to a deck
- 12
- Decks, and no third
- 2
- Out of the two together
- 24
- Loads before 14:00
- 6
- Which is
- 144
- What we say
- about 140
Flour A mill in the Peak District that stone-grinds and names the farm the wheat came from. It costs about a third more than the commercial stuff and it is the single decision the whole shop is built on, so we would rather put the price up than change it.
Unsold Half price from 13:30. Whatever is left at 14:00 goes to the food club at the community centre on Barlow Road the same afternoon. Nothing here is thrown away and nothing is sold the next day as fresh.
R. A. baker — the board is rewritten at 04:30, and the plan above is what it is rewritten from
The number of loaves is decided by the ovens, not by how many people want one. That is the only honest thing a small bakery can say about running out.
I’m Ruth. This was a joiner’s workshop until 2019 and the floor still has the marks. Two Ovens is three of us — me on bread, Sam on pastry from half four, and whoever is on the counter, who will be one of us.
The sourdough is twenty hours in cold proof before it goes anywhere near a deck, so tomorrow’s bread was mixed today and the sum above was settled last night. There is no way to make more of it between now and lunchtime, and anyone who tells you otherwise is baking somewhere much bigger than this.
Coming in
The order book
Open
- Monday, Tuesday
- shut
- Wednesday to Friday
- 07:30 – 14:00
- Saturday
- 07:30 – 14:00
- Sunday
- 08:00 – 13:00
- Half price from
- 13:30
- Half price, Sundays
- 12:30
Half price runs from 13:30 until we shut — 12:30 on a Sunday — on whatever is left.
Two Ovens
The Old Joinery, 41a Barlow Road
Levenshulme, Manchester M19 3PL
0161 496 0733
Step-free from the street, and there is room for a pram inside if
you come before nine or after twelve. Ring for anything urgent
— the phone is next to the mixer.