Birds Bakery set to bring back 20 favorite treats from the past

The bakery is celebrating its centenary by reviving some old favorites.
The bakery is celebrating its centenary by reviving some old favorites.The bakery is celebrating its centenary by reviving some old favorites.
The bakery is celebrating its centenary by reviving some old favorites.

Birds, which has 62 branches across the East Midlands, will bring back one treat every month throughout 2019.

Bosses made the decision after running a poll over Christmas, asking customers what treats they wanted to see brought back.

The first product to make a re-appearance is the orange Danish.

The glazed pastry comes with an orange filling and is now available in all stores.

Other items that have also been rumored to come back include walnut creams and liver pâté.

Mike Holling, head of new business development at Birds told the Notts Post: "Unfortunately bakers kept it all in their heads.

"No-one wanted to write their recipes down, so we’ve had to go back to some of the bakers.

"For example, our night bakery manager’s father was the night bakery manager before him, and his father was the manager before him.

"So we have quite a few families within Birds."

Mr Holling said some products from the past, such as the Birds "speciality chocolate lines", were far more complex than most modern recipes

He added: "For example, our chocolate ganache products are not impossible but a little bit difficult.

"The process we’d need to follow in this day and age would make it prohibitive. A lot of these items would take three or four days to make – in the modern day people are very time poor."

The bakery has become an institution since its humble beginnings.

Birds began when three brothers - Frank, Thomas and Reginald Bird - returned from the First World War and invested their military gratuities to buy a bakery at Upper Dale Road in Derby in 1919.

By the 1920s Birds had opened several more shops.

By 1961, more and more branches had been opened, in towns throughout Derbyshire and in the centre of Nottingham.

The increasing demand meant that Birds outgrew their original premises and, in 1971, the company moved production to a £1.4 million state-of-the-art premises at Ascot Drive in Derby.