An Atlanta baker on the rise

In 2014, the General Muir team of Todd Ginsberg, Jennifer and Ben Johnson and Shelley Sweet snatched Alexander from Alon’s Bakery. Alexander’s breads have been making devotees of the General Muir and its sister restaurants happy ever since. Now, Alexander has partnered with Ginsberg and company to open TGM Bread next door to the flagship deli in Emory Point, and things just got even better for those of us who can’t fathom Atkins anything.

Until now, Alexander has been working in the General Muir’s cramped pastry station, which has exactly one oven. Out of that tiny space, Alexander and his baking team have managed to supply the bread for all of the group’s restaurants as well as wholesale accounts like Ticonderoga Club.

In the newly renovated 2,000-square-foot spot that formerly was home to a frozen yogurt shop, Alexander will have fun with kitchen toys like a Revent rack oven that has the capacity to make 350 hamburger buns every 15 minutes. Then there’s a multi-deck electric German oven with quadruple the capacity compared with the one at the General Muir. Among its fancy features, this commercial oven allows for baking on the surface for crusty bread or on trays for soft, airy bread. It also has good steam injection, critical for a richer colored crust, surface shine and favorable volume, otherwise known as oven spring.

Bread making starts with the mixer, and Alexander has a Hobart, a standard mixer among restaurants, as well as a large spiral mixer for big batches. There’s a molder, which shapes dough into baguettes, bagels and challah. There’s a divider, also referred to as a rounder, for cutting dough destined become buns, bagels or pita into 36 equally sized pieces. Think of it as a huge biscuit cutter.

Alexander is especially enamored with this machine, because it can be used with dough of varying viscosity. “That translates to flavor, shelf life and physical appeal,” he explained.

“The best machine works to serve the baker’s qualitative desires,” Alexander said. That is baker-speak for: “I want to bake my way.” His devices will help him do just that, when he’s not shaping sourdough loaves or ciabatta by hand, that is.

But what Alexander is really excited about are the special projects that he finally can embark on now that he has the space and equipment to experiment. While he currently uses King Arthur flour, he plans to add Anson Mills products to his inventory and is weighing getting his hands on heirloom wheat flour from mills in North Carolina, Colorado, California and even as far away as France, using the same flour as world-renowned Parisian bakery Poilâne. Ancient grains like kamut and spelt are ones he wants to use, because they enhance the flavor profile of a loaf, he said, comparing a baker’s use of these grains with a chef’s use of salt and pepper.

Commissary kitchens aren’t exactly sexy for the general public, but we can get in on the action at TGM Bread. Once the bakery settles into production around February, it will open for pop-up style weekday lunches, serving an abbreviated menu of grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup, with light fare like hummus and salads added in the spring. Another part of the evolving spring plan involves limited weekend retail hours, making TGM Bread an option (instead of the various area farmers markets where TGM Bread will have booths) for freshly baked baguettes and even croissants.

Croissants, ciabatta, boules, brioche, croissants … the list goes on and on.

“This business started with the bagels,” Alexander remarked after ticking off the numerous breads in the offing.

My, how far the General Muir has come in its three short years.

But the same can be said of Alexander. The Chattanooga native figured out that making bread was his true life’s calling on a four-month hike north along the Appalachian Trail all the way to Vermont. That was 1996. He went on to apprentice with Lionel Vatinet at La Farm Bakery in North Carolina and with master baker Didier Rosada (a name of note for the artisan bread movement in the U.S.) at the now defunct National Baking Center in Minnesota, once considered the best baking school in the country. Twice, Alexander went to France, spending a total of 18 months learning French ways with the staff of life.

Thinking back on the journey that led him from student to head baker — a short stint in 2006 with Thomas Keller, and later in Atlanta at H&F Bread Co., then Alon’s Bakery and now as a partner with TGM Bread — Alexander commented on the rarity of his craft, noting that bread baking is one of the least explored career paths.

“It’s hard to find skilled bakers,” Alexander said, attributing that to both low wages for bakers in the early stages of their career and to work hours desirable to few but night owls or early risers.

“It’s a hard sell,” he said.

He paused to look around the spanking white, sparkling clean production space filled with appliances that would see their first day of action the very next morning, then added, “There is hope for seasoned, skilled bakers.”

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