The Great British Bake Off is back and we’re all once again craving the irresistible aroma of newly baked bread.
When it comes to travel, an in-house bakery is the ultimate hotel welcome package, dispensing an alchemy of wholesomeness and indulgence with every delicious croissant or golden roll.
Whether they’re venerable establishments or new to this hotel trend, here’s where you can use your dough to really loaf around.
Hotel Rival, Stockholm
Local flavour: Home-baked goodies on display at Stockholm’s Hotel Rival in Stockholm
When the Rival opened in 2003, owner Benny Andersson of Abba told me having a bakery would help the hotel connect to the community. And sure enough, on any day of the week, you’ll see the only-in-Scandinavia sight of a rank of prams outside, all with sleeping babies, while parents catch up over a coffee and a straight-from-the-oven pastry inside.
The rest of the hotel is as thoughtful as its bakery, 99 spacious rooms, some with balconies, in the trendy area of Sodermalm.
Signature bake: Cinnamon rolls.
B&B doubles from £150, rival.se.
Babylonstoren, South Africa
South Africa’s foodiest hotel doesn’t have far to go to get the ingredients for bread; the wheat and rye comes from its own farm. This is also one of the country’s most beautiful hotels; a white-washed, gabled series of buildings in the Cape Winelands near Franschhoek.
The heart is the bakery; all guests get the chance to join the baking team for a session.
Signature bake: Pear and gorgonzola bread.
B&B doubles from £350, babylonstoren.com.
The Angel Inn, Abergavenny
A baker hard at work at The Angel Inn, Abergavenny. It has 35 rooms spread between the hotel and its nearby Michelin-starred outpost, The Walnut Tree restaurant
A coaching inn since 1829, a posh foodie hotel since 2002, The Angel has 35 rooms spread between the hotel and its nearby Michelin-starred outpost, The Walnut Tree restaurant. Since 2016, it’s also had the Angel Bakery next door.
Open at 8am from Tuesday to Saturday, it’s an uplifting blend of organic flours and French butter and the pick of the baked goods go to the hotel guests, as well as providing key elements of an award-winning afternoon tea.
Signature bake: Welsh cakes.
B&B doubles from £119, angelabergavenny.com.
Le Bristol, Paris
A slice of the high life: Le Bristol hotel in Paris has its own working flour mill to produce bread for its three-Michelin-star Epicure restaurant
One of Paris’s most luxurious hotels has gone one step further than its Michelin-starred competitors. It has installed a working flour mill to produce bread for its three-Michelin-star Epicure restaurant. It mills a selection of ancient seeds, grown near Corbieres, including spelt, emmer and khorasan, designed to taste fresher and cause less bloating than wheat loaves (important in fashion-minded Paris).
Guests at the hotel can visit the mill as well as taste the results. If you eat at Epicure, you’ll go home with a loaf.
Signature bake: Epicure Living Loaf.
Doubles from £1,000, room-only, oetkercollection.com.
At The Chapel, Bruton
In this beautiful Somerset town, a former Baptist chapel has been turned into a bakery with rooms. A wood-fired oven is the basis for baker Tom Hitchmough’s products, alongside stone-ground organic flour and long fermentation periods. Upstairs, the seven rooms follow the same principle, with clean designs and a touch of luxury; each morning freshly baked croissants are brought to your room.
Signature bake: Gluten-free flaxseed bread.
B&B doubles from £125 a night, atthechapel.co.uk.
Hotel Sacher, Vienna
Some cakes are worth a 50-year legal battle to protect the recipe. Sacher torte – a chocolate cake with a layer of apricot jam and chocolate icing – has been made at the Hotel Sacher since 1876.
It’s Austria’s most famous cake, indulgent and historic in equal measure and the hotel that surrounds it doesn’t disappoint either, with gilding and grand rooms overlooking the Vienna Opera House.
Signature bake: Sacher torte.
Doubles from £449, room-only, sacher.com.
Mouthwatering brownies at Hambleton Hall in Rutland
Hambleton Hall, Rutland
When this Michelin-starred hotel wanted to ensure its guests got the perfect breakfast in the morning, the owner started his own bakery business.
Now, with five branches of the bakery in local towns, it specialises in quintessentially British-baked goods, including English muffins, eccles cakes and, most recently, a reinterpretation of the Second World War National Loaf.
Hambleton has created its own culinary classic, too – the Rutland Pippin, an apple-shaped pastry with ham hock, sausage meat, apple and quince, which also appears on the afternoon tea menu in the hotel.
Signature bake: Rutland Pippin.
B&B doubles from £325, hambletonhall.com.
Hotel Praktik Bakery, Barcelona
They don’t pipe the smell of the bakery into the rooms but this hotel in the classy Eixample district is small enough to make it feel that way. The first thing guests see is the glass-walled kitchen where the bakers are kneading away under the eye of watchful owner Anna Bellsola. Speak Spanish? You can also take a baking class. The 74 rooms upstairs are as practical as the hotel’s name suggests, simple and white with tiling and wafty curtains.
Signature bake: Fruit bread.
B&B doubles from £49, hotelpraktikbakery.com.
Muehlpointhof, Salzburg
High in the mountains around Salzburg in Austria, this hearty, sporty hotel has grown up around its bakery. It started in 1865 and has been turning out bread and rolls ever since, using local flour, water from the Steinberg spring, yeast and salt (there are mines nearby too).
It’s a hotel that you’ll be able to work up an appetite for; in summer, guests have the opportunity to swim in the lake and go hill-walking, rafting and canyoning, while in the winter, there’s skiing.
Signature bake: Five-grain curd cheese bread.
B&B doubles from £378 for three nights, muehlpointhof.at.
Hotel Josef, Prague
A selection of loaves at the Hotel Josef in Prague. It’s signature bake is a dark rye bread with dates and figs
This severely modernist hotel in the Czech capital has a warm heart, thanks to its bakery which was placed at the centre. Guests can look into the ovens to watch the croissants rise – the butter comes from the Czech hills, the flour is imported from France.
Signature bake: Dark rye bread with dates and figs
Doubles from £104, room-only hoteljosef.com.
…and a baker’s dozen of courses to turn you into the next Nadiya
Northcote, Lancashire
At this Michelin-starred hotel outside Preston, chef Lisa Goodwin-Allen also presides over a cooking school. There’s a wide variety of baking courses and October sees both breadmaking and cakes, including Swiss rolls and Sacher torte. It costs from £210, including tuition, lunch with wine and a cream tea (northcote.com).
Trinne Hahnemann, Copenhagen
Butter, and lots of it, is at the heart of Danish cooking. Trinne is Denmark’s most famous cook and she opened her cooking school last year. Courses are taught in Danish and English. September sees bread take centre stage with courses on rye and crisp bread. Classes cost from £135 a day, hahnemannskoekken.dk.
Civic Kitchen, San Francisco
San Francisco kickstarted the US sourdough revolution and you’ll learn how to make the Civic Kitchen’s famous naturally leavened bread on this one-day course. It costs £118, including lunch, and you’ll go home with a special batch of starter dough (civickitchensf.com).
Bettys, Yorkshire
Yorkshire’s most famous cafe – currently celebrating its centenary – also runs cookery schools from £185
Yorkshire’s most famous cafe – currently celebrating its centenary – also runs cookery schools. Most of the classes centre around baking, including making some of Bettys classics, including Yorkshire tea loaf and fondant fancies. They’re often booked up far in advance – and there are gluten-free baking courses, too. From £185, bettyscookeryschool.co.uk.
Denman College, Oxfordshire
The WI is famous for its baking, and you don’t have to be a member to take one of the courses at the college it runs from a stately home near Abingdon. Every form of baking takes place, from meringues to vegan breads and cakes. From £50 for non-members, denman.org.uk.
Ballymaloe House, Ireland
This hotel in County Cork has been a place of foodie pilgrimage since the 1960s. The house is garlanded with Michelin stars and surrounded by its own farm, and the hotel started a cookery school in 1983. Baking is a speciality. Prices from £145 for the day, cookingisfun.ie.
The Bertinet Kitchen, Bath
In England’s most beautiful city, a cookery school that specialises in baking, head by anglicised Frenchman Richard Bertinet. Courses include pies, Nordic- style doughnuts and Christmas cake. Prices start at £40, thebertinetkitchen.com.
Limewood, Hampshire
Chefs Angela Hartnett and Luke Holder have their own cookery school at this New Forest hotel. This month, it’ll be macaroons that take centre stage. A session costs £75pp – and you’ll head home with plenty to share, limewoodhotel.co.uk.
Inspiration: Nadiya Hussain, who claimed the 2015 Bake Off title
Domaine L’Ancienne Ecole, Provence
On a wine estate near the village of Vinsobres, British cooking course specialist Panary has a four-day session that promises to bring classic French baking to life, including brioche and pain au raisin, using a wood-fired oven. From £1,045pp including accommodation and all meals, but not travel (panary.co.uk).
Ca de Memi, Padua
A Palladian villa in the middle of a town near Padua is now a very food-minded B&B. It’s family-run and families can make pizzas together, as well as more complicated breads and pastries. From £60 a night, with breakfast (cooking classes cost extra, cadememi.com).
Bedruthan Hotel, Cornwall
Outside, there are waves pounding the shore, but inside, you’ll be whipping up focaccia and doughnuts, or as winter approaches, Christmas cake and stollen. Baking courses start at a £85pp and you’ll take plenty home with you, bedruthan.com.
P&O Cruise Britannia
In 2015, P&O introduced cookery classes on board Britannia. Master patissier Eric Lanlard is one of the chefs who regularly come on board to give masterclasses in everything from bread to cakes. A 15-night cruise from £1,229pp, not including flights, pocruises.com.
Rome
The cooking specialist company Tasting Places can arrange sessions with top Rome baker Carla Tomasi, who helps guests whip up some of Italy’s best regional breads and cakes, including torta caprese, almond and walnut biscotti plus apple and olive oil cake. Prices from £150pp, tastingplaces.com.