The Forest Bakehouse

Meet the loaf that in going wrong went rather right. This is our spelt sourdough, a tray of which went undetected in the proving room over night. The yeast culture in our sourdough starter ate the sugars in the flour causing the bread to rise, at which point the bacteria that lends this bread its sour taste started to grow and condition the dough. All going to plan so far... Ordinarily it would then go in the fridge to halt the process and keep the acidity in check, but hidin...g in our proving room the bacteria was warm and active and multiplied left right and centre, eating into the structure of the bread. So upon baking, we end up with a collapsed loaf BUT an exceptionally potent one. Supercharged with bacteria, this wonky batch is superb for your gut!! Come down and buy a loaf - only available today and tomorrow - and let your food be thy medicine!
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We’d like to say a huge thank you to all our incredible customers that made our pizza evening this past weekend such a brilliant success. The party was in full swing with a delicious array of pizza, focaccia, salads and desserts, bunting, music and a cheeky behind the scenes swig of Penny’s bootleg rhubarb gin. We couldn’t do what we do without your support and feel very proud to be able to hold events like this that bring the community together. Until next year! (I had every intention of taking a photo of a full plate of food but it smelled so good I entirely lost my mind until I’d eaten half of it...)

Apprenticeship WE ARE HIRING � Our business is growing as more people seek out healthy, good quality hand made bread and food that they can trust. We are a busy community bakery and cafe in Longhope. We make everything by hand from scratch using organic flour and carefully sourced ingredients. As our apprentice Katie is about to qualify and become a fully fledged baker with us we seek our next young apprentice to train in the art of "real bread" making and professional cookery. If you would like to join a team that feeds its community with a passion then pop in and see us or apply now. Our vacancy is advertised on the National Apprenticeship website. gov.uk/apply-apprenticeship. We look forward to meeting you.

The ever popular Forest Bakehouse Pizza Evening returns. Put the date in your diary and book a place now as we always sell out. Saturday 14th July 6 til 8.30pm. Same as previous years: £12 per adult £6 for under 14yrs. Lots of gorgeous stone baked pizza, italian breads and fresh home grown salads. BYO and lets hope the sunshine stays with us! let's party. 🤣Book now!

It’s really important to us that we look after the environment as much as we can as we go about our baking business. The milk we use in our tea, coffee and custard for our delicious pain aux raisin is locally sourced and comes from free-range, grass fed cows. Thanks to Bartonsham Farm for keeping us well supplied!

We are in the bakery preparing dough for a busy week ahead and to speed things up, Penny has turbo-charged her pitta moulding. Oh we do have a good laugh in the Bakehouse!

One of our clever customers brought her cake tin in to fill it up with goodies for the weekend. What a brilliant idea. Saves packaging and keeps the cakes even better protected. Have you got a cake tin that needs filling up?

This week we have a delicious toastie special with Charles Martell single Gloucester, roasted tomatoes and homemade pesto with rocket and basil from our gardens. Our soup is chunky summer vegetable served of course with freshly baked sourdough. A lunch fit for a king and queen!

The sun is shining again and if you haven't any lunchtime plans, come and join us outside the bakery for a delicious bite to eat. Here we have our summer Greek salad with a basket of sourdough, finished off with a slice of pain au chocolat bread and butter pudding.

We are back open for the week and it's gloriously sunny. Our tables and umbrellas outside have spawned babies so you can come and join us for some delicious lunch. Our savoury tart always features something seasonal growing in our gardens and our guest stars today are asparagus and spinach. And some feta, but we had no part in making that.... Can be served with a lovely side salad picked from our gardens and a basket of our scrumptious sourdough. Amen 🙏🏻 More lunch photos to follow this week to unashamedly lure you in...

A busy week already! No going home when the bake is done.....gravel to shift. Thanks to all of those locals who have been helping to smarten us up this summer. You know who your are!! And a special thank you to our landlord who has really tarted us up with new cladding. Good job I'm sure you will agree!

Thinking of something to do this weekend? The National Open Garden Scheme is running this weekend with 3 beautiful gardens set in the valley of Longhope - 3 Church Road, Springfield House and Woodbine Cottage. Each garden has its own style and delights for you to discover with sweeping views across the valley to May Hill and the Forest of Dean. 3 Church Road is a long garden divided into rooms with a large collection of hardy geraniums. Springfield House: a large enclosed ga...rden with terraced lawns, a wide variety of shrubs and trees mingling with sweeping herbaceous borders. Woodbine Cottage: a tranquil garden with a natural pond and unusual plants.
The gardens are open from 12-5pm on Saturday and 2-6pm on Sunday (and the same again on 9/10th June). Combined entry is £5 and children go free. We are open for lunch so come and join us after you've had a peek!
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Raising dementia awareness is close to our hearts at The Forest Bakehouse. We would like to take this opportunity to remind everyone that we are a dementia-friendly establishment and always welcome those who may be experiencing memory problems, their families, and carers. With it being Dementia Action Week we would like to invite all of our customers, old and new to the bakehouse this Thursday for tea and coffee. We would ask that instead of paying us for your drinks you instead make a donation to the Alzheimers Society or our local Forest of Dean Dementia Action Alliance. Please call in and perhaps bring a friend who would really appreciate a trip out! Please share this post. Thank you, The Forest Bakehouse Team.

We are in full swing of royal wedding frivolity and even our rustic loaves have been graced with crowns. Penny's donned a fascinator, Chris was lucky enough to be invited and we are following the somewhat overly in depth pre-wedding lead up. Feel free to bring your own prosecco for lunch! We've already started...

Emma Pugh you've left your purse here! Keeing it safe for you. We will be here until 4.30pm otherwise back open tomorrow.

Last week we experimented with some activated charcoal and were pretty impressed with the results! The charcoal ciabatta rolls and charcoal pizza flew off the shelves. They taste pretty much the same as our regular ciabatta rolls but with the added benefit of activated charcoal which helps to trap toxins and chemicals in the body, allowing them to be flushed out so the body doesn't reabsorb them. This magic stuff alleviates gas and bloating, lowers cholesterol and prevents hangovers. Perfect than as you prepare to celebrate the royal wedding. We will have some royal wedding-related merriment happening at the bakery tomorrow and more of our little charcoal wonders, perfect for adding a fun twist to summery BBQs.

We are very proud to be donating sourdough to a charity dinner hosted by Toucon for Children tomorrow evening. Toucon for Children is a play therapy service based in Mitcheldean working with children in the Forest of Dean that are experiencing emotional/mental health difficulties. Their aim is to improve children's lives by reaching them at an early age when they are at their most receptive to resolving their emotional difficulties and to prevent mental health crisis for chil...dren as they reach adolescence. They are striving to expand their service to reach as many children suffering emotional difficulties in the Forest of Dean and surrounding areas as possible and ensure they have access to the available funding. The 3-course meal, live music and auction this evening is their first charity event. Please do take a look at their amazing and much needed work and keep an eye out for their future charity events - www.toucanforchildren.co.uk
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If you're at a loose end this morning, head on over to the Longhope Big Brekkie at the Latchen Room where you can thoroughly enjoy a full English breakfast (£6, £4 for children) or a breakfast roll (£2.50). Vegetarian options available. All proceeds go to Refuge Crisis Appeal by Christian Aid. In support of this incredible cause we've donated our ciabatta rolls (here's Sue packing them up) so please do head down anytime between now and 11am and offer your support by enjoying some breakfast!

The last of our wild garlic has spruced up our pizza today and is currently proving in some dough ready to become one of tomorrow's special loaves - a wild garlic rustic loaf. We will also have Albert's cyder and apple loaf, and a potato and rosemary loaf. And last but not least, we've been experimenting with pitta bread and Rahel has created a very delicious hummus, falafel and salsa pitta as a lunch special. Come in and see us!

This is Katie our apprentice at the bakehouse. Katie has been with us for just under a year now. She today did the big Saturday bake solo. This is no easy task. We are just so extremely proud of her. Katies bake today I think you will agree was stunning!! A very enthusiastic and skilled artisan baker in the making! Well done Katie. Katie will be qualifying soon and becoming part of our team as a full time hand craft baker. We will therefore soon be looking for our next apprentice. Do you have what it takes? Call in and see us!!

What an incredible and beautiful place!!

The staff all look so happy whether they are serving on the till or preparing food in the background.



I just popped in to get my sister's favourite bread and thank goodness for the £10 minimum card spend. I then bought a rhubarb and custard cruffin, a brownie and some vegan treats! They were all amazing (sampled some of all of them before even leaving the car park!!)



We will definitely be coming back! Look forward to seeing you again.

What an amazing place! Me and my family called in for breakfast and even though the queue was out of the door we were served quickly and got seats inside. I had the granola, Greek yoghurt and fruit compote which was excellent, the compote was tart which went really well with the sweet granola. We also ordered a bacon sandwich which came on beautiful fresh bread and the croissant and jam we also ordered was light and very tasty; better than any we've had in France! They had soya milk too, which I prefer in coffee. All in all, a fantastic place with delicious food. Very much worth a visit!

The whole family love the forest bakehouse, my son has soup every time we visit, the bacon rolls are lovely, the cakes are Heavenly and the bread delicious. And to top it off everyone is so friendly.

The best bakery! Great range of bread and lunch time meals (brie & onion marmalade is a personal favourite) - friendly team always happy to help. Highly recommend a visit!

My friend and I drove past The Forest Bakehouse on Saturday afternoon, after a long walk... did a u-turn and called in. Sadly the cafe was closed, but the shop was open. I asked a few questions about the business (the smell of fresh bread was delicious). To my surprise, not only was the lady I spoke to more than happy to answer my questions... but as I turned to leave she handed me a loaf of sourdough bread, urging me to take it home and try it. I did - and it was delicious! What the lovely lady didn't know, is that I am (amongst other things) a weight-loss consultant and when my clients have reached their target weight and start to introduce foods such as bread into their diet, I always encourage them to buy 'real bread' without additives or dough improvers...and if possible made with organic flour. Guess what? The Forest Bake House ticks all of these boxes! I'm more than happy to recommend it.

Thank you Forest Bake House :-)

Exceptional sourdough.

Phenomenal rye.

Best croissants I have had outside of France and better than many I had there. I'll be back �

Delicious food and not over priced. Made by a wholesome hardworking team... Just wished I lived nearer to get a weekly supply however looking forward to my next visit. Lou xx

Awesome bakery and cafe in the Forest of Dean. Well worth visiting. Lovely food and staff so accommodating even when you turn up too early.

An amazing range of real bread and delicious cakes in a great place !

Amazing toasties to warm us up today followed by the most delicious coconut & lemon curd cake EVER!! Now time to snooze it off! Delicious. Thank you.

What an incredible and beautiful place!!

The staff all look so happy whether they are serving on the till or preparing food in the background.



I just popped in to get my sister's favourite bread and thank goodness for the £10 minimum card spend. I then bought a rhubarb and custard cruffin, a brownie and some vegan treats! They were all amazing (sampled some of all of them before even leaving the car park!!)



We will definitely be coming back! Look forward to seeing you again.

What an amazing place! Me and my family called in for breakfast and even though the queue was out of the door we were served quickly and got seats inside. I had the granola, Greek yoghurt and fruit compote which was excellent, the compote was tart which went really well with the sweet granola. We also ordered a bacon sandwich which came on beautiful fresh bread and the croissant and jam we also ordered was light and very tasty; better than any we've had in France! They had soya milk too, which I prefer in coffee. All in all, a fantastic place with delicious food. Very much worth a visit!

The whole family love the forest bakehouse, my son has soup every time we visit, the bacon rolls are lovely, the cakes are Heavenly and the bread delicious. And to top it off everyone is so friendly.

The best bakery! Great range of bread and lunch time meals (brie & onion marmalade is a personal favourite) - friendly team always happy to help. Highly recommend a visit!

My friend and I drove past The Forest Bakehouse on Saturday afternoon, after a long walk... did a u-turn and called in. Sadly the cafe was closed, but the shop was open. I asked a few questions about the business (the smell of fresh bread was delicious). To my surprise, not only was the lady I spoke to more than happy to answer my questions... but as I turned to leave she handed me a loaf of sourdough bread, urging me to take it home and try it. I did - and it was delicious! What the lovely lady didn't know, is that I am (amongst other things) a weight-loss consultant and when my clients have reached their target weight and start to introduce foods such as bread into their diet, I always encourage them to buy 'real bread' without additives or dough improvers...and if possible made with organic flour. Guess what? The Forest Bake House ticks all of these boxes! I'm more than happy to recommend it.

Thank you Forest Bake House :-)

Exceptional sourdough.

Phenomenal rye.

Best croissants I have had outside of France and better than many I had there. I'll be back �

Delicious food and not over priced. Made by a wholesome hardworking team... Just wished I lived nearer to get a weekly supply however looking forward to my next visit. Lou xx

Awesome bakery and cafe in the Forest of Dean. Well worth visiting. Lovely food and staff so accommodating even when you turn up too early.

An amazing range of real bread and delicious cakes in a great place !

Amazing toasties to warm us up today followed by the most delicious coconut & lemon curd cake EVER!! Now time to snooze it off! Delicious. Thank you.