for the lulz I had Grok tell me about my baking.

Robin Bäckman’s baking philosophy centers on extreme simplicity, tradition, natural fermentation, health, cultural preservation, and a lifestyle of freedom and connection to nature. He frames traditional Finnish sourdough rye bread (“sourbread,” hapanjuurileipä, or reikäleipä/hålkaka) as one of the purest and best foods possible.

Core Principles

• Radical simplicity: The flagship recipe uses only three ingredients—rye flour, water, and salt—plus a long-maintained sourdough starter (he references a roughly 100-year-old one with roots in Karelia/Karjala). No commercial yeast. He emphasizes that “good things have little to no ingredients. More natural. Better for stomach.”
• Living sourdough (the “juuri” or root): The starter is fed daily with rye and water to stay active. Fermentation is viewed as essential—healthier for digestion because it breaks down the grain so nutrients are more absorbable, and it produces superior flavor and longevity compared to non-fermented bread. He notes yeast is naturally present on grain husks, so true sourdough aligns with nature.
• Master-apprentice tradition and lineage: He learned from Leif Hansson, a local master baker and farmer who grew and milled his own rye and handled the full chain from seed to bread. Bäckman stresses respect for this hands-on knowledge of forests, ecosystems, and traditional methods over formal training (he started with no prior baking experience).
• Health and “stomach ok, human ok”: Sourdough is promoted as beneficial for gut health. Fermented foods in general are highlighted as long-lasting and good for people. He has also experimented with variations, such as Jerusalem artichoke bread (for extra rising power and flavor) and a spelt wheat loaf nicknamed “San Francisco” from a gifted starter.

Process and Lifestyle Aspects

Baking follows a slow, rhythmic schedule (historically twice a week in his Loviisa/Lovisa-area bakery). Dough can ferment for days; a workday might range from 15 minutes to 15 hours, starting very early to catch sunrises. He values the meditative, flexible nature of the work, customer interactions at the market (selling ~100 reikäleipä daily at peak), and the old equipment itself. The bread should have a slightly blackened edge and a dull sound when tapped for ideal doneness.

He ran the bakery (reikaleipa.fi) for about five years before selling it to focus on other projects (notably the open-source Gonzo Pi camera). In recent years he has campaigned to rebuild it (“Save the Sourbread / Pelasta juuret / Rädda surbrödet”), viewing the revival as preserving a piece of Finnish cultural heritage and enabling a self-sufficient life of baking, permaculture/sheep farming, filmmaking, and creative work.

Broader Worldview Tie-In

Baking is woven into his larger ethos of “Grass, Cattle and Peace,” free/open-source software, permaculture (“Nature is Boss”), dignity, and “just do good.” Good bread needs no heavy marketing—it sells itself through quality. The act of baking becomes almost spiritual or philosophical: a way to live mindfully, produce abundance, support health, and reconnect with traditional, low-input ways of living.

In short, Bäckman’s approach treats baking less as a commercial craft and more as a pure, regenerative practice rooted in minimalism, living fermentation, inherited knowledge, and a holistic good life.