Photography by Kathy Tran.
Let’s just say Oak Cliff Bread Co. is milling the game.
Not only is its bread baked fresh in the neighborhood; it’s also made from heritage wheat grown in Lamesa, Texas.
All of the cottage bakery’s loaves and baguettes are made from yecora rojo wheat sourced from Barton Springs Mill and milled in Oak Cliff.
Tyler Rooney, 32, started the bakery with his wife, Chayanne, in 2020. A baker since 2015, he was laid off from Maccellaio after Texas restaurants were ordered to close last year.
“I just wanted to stay in the rhythm and stay with what I always wanted to do, which was bake bread professionally,” Rooney says.
So he started baking bread for the neighborhood.
In October, they formed an LLC and invested in a refrigerator that can hold 60 loaves as well as a compact bread oven. They do everything in their kitchen at home.
Now Oak Cliff Bread Co. has two bake days a week, offering $8-$10 sourdough and rye loaves, $5 baguettes and $4 croissants and other laminated pastries for porch pickup or local delivery on Fridays or at the Dallas Farmers Market on Sundays.
They sell about 150 loaves and baguettes a week and about as many pastries.
The Rooneys live near the Dallas Zoo. They’ve been married five years and have two kids, ages 5 and 2.
Why bread making
I’ve always loved how hands-on it is. I love the physicality. I love the tools. It’s become sort of an obsession at this point. You can have a good bake one day, but you always think you can do better, so it’s a constant rhythm and the repeating of the process. It’s also so simple. Coming from fine dining, sometimes it’s so complicated, and bread is so simple. It doesn’t have to be super impressive. It takes a long time, and most people don’t want to do it, but I love it.
How long it takes
Prep starts on Wednesday, and I also do all the laminating for croissants on Wednesday. I mix the dough the night before, and it takes an entire day for lamination. It’s a three-day process for laminated pastries. The sourdough has to ferment for six hours, and then I shape it and throw it in the fridge for 18 hours. Then we bake all day on Friday.
Milling grain themselves
We work with Barton Springs Mill to get 50 pounds of yecora rojo wheat delivered to our door every week, and we mill it ourselves. Not every city has a local mill and farmers who grow these heritage grains. But cottage bakers across the United States are making that link from farmer to mill to baker. Since the 19th century, no one has really been doing that. Milling doesn’t take very long, and it makes the bread more flavorful, more delicious, and we’re investing in the local grain economy.
Tyler and Chayanne met working in kitchens
She does all the packaging and delivering, and she’s the numbers person, but she’s also a kitchen person as well. She worked at Joy Macarons before we started the business.
They moved to Oak Cliff two years ago
We worked in kitchens in Austin, and my parents had lived in Oak Cliff for five-plus years. When our kids were born, they wanted us to move closer.
On working from home with two children
I get to be with them all the time, so it’s terrible and great at the same time.
Oak Cliff Bread. 711 Havendon Circle, Dallas. www.oakcliffbread.com
