details

This course is for aspiring bread bakers who have little or no experience of using sourdough.

You will discover what sourdough is, how to look after it and how to prepare it to produce wonderfully natural and tasty bread.

Classes are kept small to maximise learning and to ensure lots of hands-on across every stage.

This is a one day course. Participants will enjoy a pastry breakfast on arrival at 10:00 AM before starting on a busy but informal schedule.

We break for lunch around 13:00 before the afternoon session completes at approx. 16:00

Students will take away their final produce from the day, full course notes and recipes as well as some 30 year-old french sourdough culture to get them started.

There will also be the opportunity to purchase baking tools (scoring knife, dough scrapers and cutters) and proving baskets.

agenda

10:00 Welcome and breakfast

10:15  Introduction

10:30 Chalk & talk: Sourdough culture

10:45 Practical – creating the dough part 1

11:15  Practical – creating the dough part 2

11:45 Chalk and talk: Fermentation

12:00 Practical: 1st fold

12:20 Chalk & Talk: Proving

12:45 Practical- 2nd fold

13:00 Lunch

13:30 Practical- 3rd fold

13:45 Chalk and talk: shaping and baking

14:15 Practical- Shaping & proving

15:00 Practical- Baking

15:30 Wrap-up session, Q&A

16:00 End

details

The French breads course is for both novice and experienced bakers who would like to understand the methods involved to create several classic doughs with perhaps an ambition to create authentic French produce at home… it is perfectly possible! (with a little practice).

In summary you will learn the techniques for producing:

• High hydration dough for traditional baguettes
• Laminated dough for croissant
• Enriched dough for butter-based brioche loaves
  
  

This will be an extended day, due to the amount of work we need to get through, but we will finish no later than 17:00.

agenda

09:30 Registration and light breakfast

10:00  Baguette  – autolyse (hand or machine)

10:30  Croissant – learn to mix dough (this will be demo only)

10:45  Baguette – complete mix and then knead

11:15 Croissant – prepare the butter 

11:30 Croissant – prepare the dough and introduce the butter

11:45 Croissant – 1^st fold,

** coffee break **

12:00 Brioche – mix the dough, gentle knead and leave to prove

12:30  Croissant – 2^nd fold

13:00  Croissant – 3^rd fold and 1^st retarded prove

13:00 – 13:30  – Croissant shaping (using pre-prepped dough)

***  13:30 – 14:00 Lunch  ***

14:00   Baguette – shaping & final prove

14:45   Brioche – shaping and final prove

15:30   Bake off baguettes

16:00   Bake off croissant

16:15   Bake off brioche
16:45  End

details

The Sourdough plus course is for bakers with some basic experience of using sourdough in their bread baking. The beauty of sourdough is that it can be used to enhance the structure and flavour of almost any bread.

We take the opportunity to deepen our knowledge of sourdough whilst producing a wide variety of produce with different types of levain, grain and inclusion.

In summary you will learn the techniques for producing:

• sourdough baguettes
• sourdough crackers (both wheat and rye)
• Nordic style rye loaves using high hydration rye starters
• Super fast wheat-based sourdough boules with low hydration starter and ‘Bertinet slap’ kneading method.
• Dough with Inclusions – choice of marmite/cheddar, walnut/olive or multi-seed

agenda

10:00 Registration and light breakfast

10:30 Mix the doughs for the baguette and wheat boules

11:15 Create the Nordic rye dough and ‘tin’ up

11:45  kneading techniques – stretch, coil-fold, traditional and French (‘Bertinet slap’)

12:00  knead the baguette dough – by machine and by-hand (French or trad)

12:20   knead the boule dough – bertinet slap or machine

12:40  Add Inclusions to wheat and/or baguette doughs

13:15 Lunch

13:45 Create the cracker dough

14:00 Roll-out crackers

14:15 Bake off crackers

14:30 Bake off baguettes

15:00 Bake off wheat boules & Nordic tins

15: 30 Wrap-up, Q&A

16:00 End

details

The Sourdough express course is aimed at both complete novices and those that have tried sourdough baking but found it too onerous to fit into their lives.

The workshop will demonstrate (with practicals) that you can create excellent sourdough bread with very little hands-on and almost no preparation.

The main challenges with the traditional sourdough baking are starter preparation (this can take days) and the modern kneading technique of multiple ‘stretch and folds’ or ‘coil folds’ spanning several hours.

Well, what if we can reduce the starter preparation to zero? So absolutely no timeline planning, just start whenever.

And how about replacing the folding technique with a rapid knead; either by hand or machine? That way we can reduce the kneading to less than 15 minutes.

And don’t think that the bread you produce will be compromised by these accelerated techniques,it won’t.

This course also honours your time. It’s only 3 hours long and goes through the process, end to end.

In summary you will learn the techniques for:

• Maintaining and using a low hydration sourdough culture
• Mixing and the autolyze process
• Kneading using a stand mixer
• Kneading using the French slap
• Bulk ferment in the basket
• Retarded or ambient prove
• Shaping and baking.

agenda

10:00 Registration and light breakfast

10:15 The sourdough process – explained

10:30 How to maintain and use a low hydration starter

11:00 Practical: autolyze

11:30 A lesson on shaping

12:00 Practical – knead and leave to prove

12:30 How to score and bake in a domestic oven (demo)

12:45 Wrap up session, Q&A

13:00 End