Crackle, crumb and a baker named ‘Shoe’

Hsi-yun “Shoe” Hsiung with his signature paesano loaf. AMY SOWDER PHOTO

By AMY SOWDER

Hsi-yun “Shoe” Hsiung leans into the lever and hand-crank as the blade of his vintage-style rotary wheel slicer sweeps through the loaf with a dry, shattering crackle. 

The crust is crunchy, nutty, and the deep gold of toasted hazelnuts, stamped across the top with a delicate laurel pattern. Then the blade reaches the crumb, sweet and pillowy, the kind of soft that makes you want to tear off a corner before the slice hits the board.

The mustachioed man at the wheel is the baker-owner of Bear Breadworks located at 116 Highland Ave., Tarrytown. His last name, Hsiung, means “bear” in Chinese — both Mandarin and Cantonese — and yes, that’s where the business got its name.

Hsiung spent years doing IT on Wall Street, working a trading desk, before he walked away. Bread wasn’t on his radar. 

“I used to think bread was for the gods,” he said. 

Then, in 2023, an Instagram reel about baking bread changed his mind. He followed along, kept going and kept baking. 

“I baked a loaf every day for like 100 days, and my kids got sick of it after a while,” he said with a laugh.

Growing up in Larchmont set the template for Hsiung’s tastes. Hsiung ate Italian peasant bread during his visits to nearby Arthur Avenue in the Bronx, the kind the local delis carried. He encountered many good challahs that came with a large Jewish community in Larchmont. Those two loaves are “emblazoned in my DNA now,” he said, and they are the two Hsiung bakes today.

The first is his paesano loaf. Paesano can mean peasant, villager or country, so think of it as the local, no-frills daily bread you give thanks for when it lands in your hands. “A simple house bread,” Hsiung said. The second is challah, which he makes with or without raisins, though typically without.

Simple does not mean careless for this paesano bread. Hsiung uses King Arthur Special Patent flour, Redmond Real Salt mined from an ancient seabed in central Utah, a pinch of sugar, rice flour for dusting, and water he filters five times to strip out sediment and chlorine. 

The real magic is the ratio of flour to water. The more hydrated your bread is, the longer it's preserved and results in a thinner crust that's got that crispy, satisfying crunch, yet you can still bite through it. He mixes it all by hand with a dough whisk, about 20 loaves at a time.

“It’s kind of like driving stick instead of driving automatic,” he said of handling a dough that wet and slack. This is also not sourdough, which rises on wild yeast cultivated in a starter. Hsiung’s loaf uses commercial yeast, but he slows everything down with a final proof overnight in the refrigerator, "giving the dough time to slowly develop flavor," he said.

All that water pays off. Kept in the bag he provides, which folds shut with reusable metal tabs, the bread stays fresh on the kitchen counter for five days. That extra moisture in the dough keeps the bread from drying out and getting stale. At a private farmers market for Tarrytown-based Regeneron Pharmaceuticals employees, the former biochemistry major likes to tease the scientists that his secret preservative is “dihydrogen oxide.” (H₂O  for those less chemical-minded).

Planning ahead is easy, too. Slice leftovers, freeze them flat in Ziploc bags, and pop them straight into the toaster. For a whole frozen loaf, defrost it overnight on the counter, then bake at 300 to 325 degrees for 20 to 25 minutes, a process Hsiung calls “crispification.” The result is “as if I’m standing in your kitchen handing you a loaf,” he said.

Hsiung sells at the farmers market at Honeybee Grove Flower Farm in Somers from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Sundays through Oct. 25. He then moves to the Sunday Riverdale Y Market in the Bronx for November, then March through May. Hudson Milk + Market, which delivers glass-bottled milk and other foods, is working on a partnership to carry his frozen loaves so they can arrive at your door with the milk. “It’s in the works and coming very soon,” Hsiung said. He also takes orders for weddings, parties and other special events through direct messages on Instagram.

The hobby-turned-job of baking artisan bread was a “Shoe”-in for Hsiung, who loves to cook and create all sorts of other foods. The loaf took the lead, and he hasn’t looked back since. “If I’m in, I’m in all the way,” he said.