Forging an Ancient Loaf

Craig Hurlbut opened Clemente Baking Company on the premises of the former Sticky Fingers Baking Company in midtown Ventura in spring of 2024. The name of the business comes from nearby San Clemente Street, where he once lived, and, more specifically, the definition of clement as something merciful.

Saint Clement is also the patron saint of blacksmiths, and Hurlbut fittingly found mercy in making something with fire—in his case bread instead of metal.

Hurlbut had a history of baking prior to opening Clemente Baking Company, starting with running a local pizza chain near his hometown of East Haddam, Connecticut. After moving to Ventura County with his now-wife, Carly, Hurlburt continued his pizza experience working at Ventura pizza stalwarts Tony’s, the late Jimmy’s Slice, and Fluid State. He also spent time in fine dining at Water’s Edge in Ventura Harbor before moving full time into baked goods for the local chain from the same owners, Honeycup Coffee House and Creamery.

When Carly first asked Hurlbut to help her make sourdough bread, he was burnt out from his run in hospitality and the onset of the COVID pandemic.

Initially avoidant, once he got going, Hurlbut found comfort in his new hobby. While he was certainly not alone in this—cue the sourdough-starter memes of the COVID-quarantine era, when everyone and their brother started baking bread—Hurlbut is likely one of the few who made it into a full-time business once COVID lockdowns dissipated.

“I jokingly say, ‘That’s why I now have a sourdough bakery, because she [Carly] wanted to do sourdough,” Hurlbut says.

Hurlbut began selling his bread at local farmers’ markets, each loaf painstakingly made one at a time in a lone Dutch oven the night before. He eventually bought a bigger European deck oven for home use that allowed him to bake a dozen loaves at a time, then started thinking about a permanent storefront of his own. That’s when he happened upon the Sticky Fingers Baking Company premises. Its owner, baker Katherine Glassman, was ready for a change after a 12-year run in retail, and it was kismet.

“So, we met with Katherine. It seems within the first few minutes we were both kind of convinced, like, ‘OK, this was [a] meant-to-be kind of thing.’ She was excited about what I was doing.”

In the fall of 2023, Hurlbut bought the Sticky Fingers Baking Company assets from Glassman, and,with the support of Stephanie Caldwell and Meredith Hart from the Chamber of Commerce
and the City of Ventura respectively, was up and running in April 2024.

Craig Hurlbut (left) owes his grand sourdough experiment to his wife Carly (right). Together with local sign painter and early customer Nathaniel Buckner, they designed the art that now graces the store window in Midtown

Now, Wednesday through Sunday afternoons, you can find three varieties of bread on offer at Clemente Baking Company: country sourdough is a constant, and there are two rotating options. Recent examples include rustic rye, a Scandinavian-style multigrain and a freeform seeded table loaf, which Hurlbut describes as somewhere between focaccia and a loaf of bread.

All Hurlbut’s breads are made with flour from Central Milling in Utah, which he says is one of the oldest mills in the country, and are enlivened with ancient grains. His country sourdough is about 30% einkorn flour, made from wheat with a lineage that goes back over 9,000 years. Hurlbut takes the connection with something much older than us to heart. He reflects that “we kind of take for granted this bread culture [that] has been with us for thousands of years. But when you go to the grocery store, and there’s just a wall of bread, it kind of disconnects us from that.”

Despite his reverence for the past, Hurlbut is a consummate experimenter. The previously mentioned rustic rye uses nigella seeds, often found in Middle Eastern and North African cuisine, instead of classic caraway seeds, adding a toasty onion flavor to the bread. He also explains that he’s “always trying to change up the grain bills, so that each bread has a different flavor profile, and all of them do stuff different texturally.”

To go with his bread, Hurlbut sells a choice of house-made compound butters. He uses Plugra butter mixed with combinations like chive and edible flower; lemon zest, cracked pepper and sumac; and aji amarillo, manzano and cascabella peppers with black-lime powder.

In addition, he offers a selection of baked goods, with which he is “always trying to dance that line of sweet and savory.” For example, his chocolate chip cookie gets an umami boost from tahini, and his spin on the classic oatmeal-raisin cookie includes pistachios and blueberries. He also makes a buttermilk scone with golden raisins and currants tossed in sugar flavored with pulverized black-lime powder.

Hurlbut gets visibly animated as he speaks about his discovery of black limes. He finishes by acknowledging, with a laugh, “Sometimes I have to rein it in because I start drawing way outside of lines.”

Since I was speaking with a professional baker, I couldn’t resist the opportunity to ask about something that had made it into my Internet feed of late—a purported method for rehydrating a stale baguette that involves running it under the tap then heating it in the oven for a few minutes. Hurlbut vouched for the approach with any kind of stale loaf, but explained the best method is to simply store his bread cut side down in the paper bag it comes in, which should get you about four days out of the loaf. He doesn’t offer to pre-slice bread at his bakery because it decreases longevity, and he recommends against the temptation to store bread in zip-top bags for the same reason.

Should you want a taste of Hurlbut’s take on ancient grains without thinking about the nuances of storage, you can also find it on the menu at downtown Ventura restaurant Model Citizen. Regardless of where you get it, Hurlbut’s aspiration for his bread is the same: “I want people to walk away with something that that is not only sustenance but satisfying.”

• Clemente Baking Company is located at 2016 E. Main St., Ventura, CA.; clementebaking.com