Miller's Thumb baker Steve Horton on why he grinds his own flour
Tonawanda owner-miller-baker and Beard nominee goes deep on flour and Wonder Bread inspiration on Four Bites Show
Steve Horton has made a living, and a name for himself, building bakeries that turn local grain into baked goods with great appeal. He and life and business partner Jill Colella opened Miller’s Thumb Bakery & Cafe in late 2022 at 258 Highland Ave., Tonawanda.
Click here for the introduction video that I biffed playing at the show start.
Wonderful Loaf is Horton’s homage to Wonder Bread, once produced in Buffalo for the Northeastern United States. A Minnesota native, Horton was looking for a new chapter when he visited Buffalo and was struck by the grain silos dominating the lakeside landscape. “I wanted to somehow embrace part of that history and culture of food, in terms of what Buffalo had represented,” Horton said.
Putting more work into more expensive ingredients can result in top-quality products few people are willing to purchase. At Miller’s Thumb, Wonderful Bread costs $5.95. Not much more than generic factory loaves.
How the hell did Steve Horton do that? With the help of Colella, he explained. Her business acumen helps Miller’s Thumb find the sweet spot where better bread is affordable enough to become a daily habit.
Horton started on the grind-your-own journey by realizing that commercial flour, produced for shippability and storability, didn’t taste like much. The process strips out parts of the wheat kernel that give it flavor.
Doing it yourself makes tastier flour, he said. The West Side’s Five Points Bakery & Toast Cafe has been grinding its own flour for years, but the practice is rare. “The average mill in the United States does a million pounds of flour a day,” Horton said. “We mill 200 to 300 pounds a day.”
Little by little, with better flavor on its side, Miller’s Thumb Bakery is trying to turn people on to the power of better flour, one bite at a time.
Miller’s Thumb Bakery
258 Highland Parkway, Tonawanda, millersthumbbakery.com, 716-364-6362
Hours: 7 a.m.-3 p.m. Wednesday-Friday, 8 a.m.-2 p.m. Saturday, Sunday. Closed Monday, Tuesday.
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Relying on inspiration from viewing this presentation, I decided to visit this bakery. Waiting for a table is the fun part, meeting folks while inhaling the precious perfume of this unique eatery. Just recently I baked dozens of paczki, Polish pastries using Horton's flour. The crisp texture was unlike any others I have baked in my veteran baking years. The group devoured them. Then I made another batch for another event. I purchased both the pastry flour and the bread flour with marvelous results. I suggest the Brunsviger Danish, a yeasted coffee cake with a caramel icing available only on Friday's. The expertly brewed Tipico cordova accompanies this very well. (At home, I couldn't eat the sourdough bread fast enough.) So grateful to have learned of this gem.