Sourdough workshop

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A couple of months ago, Jane and I attended a pasta-making course, and it proved to be a huge success. In view of this, our expectations were high yesterday when we attended a Sourdough Workshop at Bread Ahead at Borough Market, London. Cutting a long story short, we were not disappointed!

Our attendance on this course confirmed our opinion that here is no substitute for real hands-on participation, facilitated by a good instructor with a depth of experience. Our instructor was Manuel – not, as you might think, Spanish, but French – a baker with 26 years of experience, a calm, relaxed and friendly manner, and a very evident passion for baking bread. Under his direction we all (10 students, ranging from complete novices to competent home bakers) produced four completely different breads, and a pizza for our lunch too.

We “began at the beginning”, as they say, with Manuel telling us a bit about the history, principles and basic concepts of sourdough bread, before going on to begin our own Starters. Making a sourdough Starter is incredibly easy (50g Rye flour and 50g water added every day for six days), but it is certainly the “magic ingredient”. We of course used some Starter that had been prepared earlier – taken from the bakery downstairs in fact. At the appropriate moments we also learned about “Poolish”, pre-ferments and “Hard Starters”. Significantly, none of the starters were remotely like the ones I have been using, which probably explains why my results to-date have not been stellar! Perhaps the biggest eye-opener though was the method of kneading that Manuel taught us – really energetic and rough (plus very messy). We certainly learned very quickly what a useful tool a small flexible plastic scraper is!

From start to finish we were very impressed with how well organised our class was: Manuel had the assistance of one lady (Fran) who dished out the ingredients and equipment as required and coped with the washing-up, whilst he himslef demonstrated, explained and helped the students where necessary. In his unhurried yet energetic style he inspected, adjusted, finished-off and occasionally rectified everyone’s efforts, so that everyone ended up with competent, and in some cases outstanding bread.

Baking with sourdough requires lots of pauses for dough to rise or rest or prove, so parts of one recipe were “interleaved” with parts of others to avoid long periods of inactivity. I have to say that except for during the official breaks the pace was fast. There was a lot to do, so never a dull moment. As an ex-instructor myself, I was very aware how nice it was to have a group of people who were all so keen to learn. In my work I often had students who really did NOT want to be there! Our group yesterday was good – everyone got on well together and helped each other to learn.

The breads we made were:
A classic White Levain
A French-style Baguette
A no-knead white loaf with raisins and Fennel seeds
A “Borodinsky” Russian-style Rye loaf flavoured with molasses, Coriander seed and Caraway seed
And of course, our lunchtime pizza. [NB: probably the best pizza I have ever eaten!]

Naturally we got to bring home the bread we made, (paper bags and carriers provided) so between us Jane and I had 8 loaves. Some of it has had to go into the freezer, which will probably reduce its attractiveness a bit, but we just can’t eat it all at once. I always want to eat bread like this as soon as possible. I’m usually standing over it as it cools, with my hand poised on the butter-knife, waiting for it to be the right temperature for us to start eating it.

In addition to the bread, we also brought home our Starters, which now have to be fed daily for the next five days before being ready to use. Bread Ahead thoughtfully provided each student with a bag containing just the amount of Rye flour they need to complete their Starter, so that they didn’t have to rush out to the shops straight away to buy some. Little things like that make a big difference to people’s perception of a course, and don’t cost a huge amount of money. At this point I should perhaps mention that a place on this course normally costs £160, but we had ours for free since Jane won them as a prize in a competition. (I’m hoping she’ll win a butchery course next!). Thankfully, we also received a booklet with all the details of what we had covered, and the recipes. Without this I think I would struggle to remember everything, because there was a lot to take in.

This course was great fun and massively inspirational. I would recommend it to anyone. I’m just dying to get stuck in and make another loaf now!

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