Our Bread Workshop
Posted November 25th 2009 at 8:55 pm by
Well, I’ve just got back from what was meant to be a relaxing weekend in Dorset, nothing but soaking up the fresh air, sleeping late and enjoying Mum’s home cooked food….
Unfortunately my plans for an over-indulgent, lazy Saturday were scuppered when Mum announced she was attending a local Bread-Making workshop at 9am Saturday morning and would I like to attend? Having not really done much bread making before, I simply couldn’t pass up the opportunity to learn more – in spite of the early morning start!
The workshop, organised by the Transition Network took place at a local bakery in Weymouth – Sergeant Buns. The baker himself has been in business for some 30 years and had a wealth of knowledge that he was only too happy to pass on to us.
Our 1st loaf was white bread, the ingredients for which were wonderfully simple – flour, salt, yeast and warm water (no sugar much to everyone’s surprise). It was hands in bowls, up to our elbows in dough, working the mixture until tacky but not sticky when the kneading began…!
The kneading was by far the thing that I found most difficult. You’re aiming to get the bread to “feel like silk” (in the words of Ian, our mentor) and working the dough takes a lot of elbow grease. You need to be strong but not rough and really push the dough away from you. After the white, we made wholemeal and soda bread and I think that by the third loaf I’d managed to get the hang of kneading and although my technique was far from perfected, it had certainly improved!
The end products were divine, light and fluffy white, soft wholemeal (slightly heavier but this is due to the difference in flour used) and a wonderfully spicy soda bread. Our morning of hard work and elbow grease was well worth the effort when we sat down to fresh bread for afternoon tea.
Back in Bristol, I’m on the lookout for similar workshops and would recommend these to anyone keen to learn more about baking with basic ingredients and local produce.
