BENEATH a railway arch in the East End of London, dough rises and forms under the blazing heat of a wood-fired stove. The smell of freshly baked loaves, crisp baguettes and well oiled focaccia wafts down the tracks, setting the stomachs of passers-by rumbling. For the past month the e5 Bakehouse, an “artisan” bakery, has been offering more than its staple sourdoughs: it has also been providing a future for enterprising refugees.

This summer the bakery teamed up with the Refugee Council, a charity, to launch a subscription-based bread-delivery service run by refugee women from around the capital. The e5 Bakehouse shares its ovens and ingredients with the refugees. They bake enough bread to satisfy the small number of subscribers who have signed up to the service for a fee of £35 ($55), which entitles them to a loaf of bread a week for seven weeks.

Many of the women in the project have been unable to find stable work in Britain, owing to a lack of qualifications or knowledge of English. Others are well qualified but have struggled to put their skills to use. Tamina, a refugee from Iran with a university degree who spent eight years in prison in her native country for her political activism, says that people sometimes don’t seem to understand the concept of an “intellectual refugee”.

After giving its recruits three weeks of training, the delivery service fired up its ovens on September 1st. At lunch while the bread is proofing, the refugees explain they have spent the morning gathered around a large wooden table learning the recipe for this week’s choice: a seeded bun. The afternoon involves moulding sticky lumps of dough into recognisable shapes, baking and then parcelling the finished product for delivery to one of three local pick-up points.

It’s service on a small scale, and at the moment Ben Mackinnon, the founder of the e5 Bakehouse, hopes to keep it that way. But it has instilled a businesslike mindset in the refugees. Seven of the eight trainees from a previous round of the scheme are now employed on one of the bakery’s mobile stands. Andrew Lawton, head of integration at the Refugee Council, hopes this tight-knit group will take the project forward, perhaps launching its own line of baked products or branching out to work with other companies. The swanky Goring Hotel in central London is considering lending its own facilities and offering pastry training from its chefs.

Tamina says she hopes to launch her own baking business in the future. But with the project still in its infancy, the proof for now is in the tasting.