New Bread and Jam making courses in Northampton

Today I put this advert into my local village magazine.  The last course I did was fully booked and went really well.  I'll do another how run a pop up bakery as part of the Sourdough in a Day on 11th December, as part of learning to cook in Northampton.

The Cambridge Cookery School Baking Course for Children

I’m often asked to review cookery classes.  It’s something I love to do, but when I was asked to review a fish class at the Cambridge Cookery School a few weeks ago I wasn’t able to attend.  I called quite dismayed at having to cancel. Not to worry said Tina Roche, the founder of the school.  She pointed out the children’s class, and asked if would I like to bring the children along in the summer holidays to one of the baking courses. She thought that my children might enjoy it..  they certainly did!

The school was started by Scandinavian born Tina Roche.  Tina originally trained at Leiths in London and as I flicked through the local glossy I read her columns about her passion for local food and passion for Scandinavian dishes. She formed the school in 2008 and her partner Liz just joined in May of this year. The school has been based at the old stone masons just outside the centre of Cambridge since 2010. It is beautifully designed with light from the huge industrial windows flooding in to a wonderfully open clean and easy space.

Oh the look on Isobel's face says it all !  

Of course I have taken the children to cookery classes in the past, and to be fair I include the children in so much of what I do. Cooking is second nature to them.  However there have been several occasions when they have been somewhat frustrated when on a children’s course.  Let’s face it kids cooking is always messy and some courses just don’t let the children go for it.  Yes cook, but really cook  .. get your hands in, mould, feel taste, prod, poke and bake.  That is what kids need to do to learn.

Well the Cambridge Cookery School course did just that.  The children got to weigh out ingredients, touch, taste, mix, knead, shape and bake. Every single stage was theirs to do.  I think that it was one of the best kids cookery courses ever.  The prices are also very reasonable at £31 all inclusive.

 Beautiful Scandinavian Ceramics. 

All three of my children were bursting with pride as they come home with armfuls of baked delights.  stomboli, beetroot and feta bread, sun dried tomato and olive rolls.

On the way homeI was listening to the children as they were chatting about the best bits.  My eight year old son just loved that they made a gazpacho soup for their own lunch and my eldest daughter really enjoyed relaxing in the sunshine in the amazing gardens.  She even spent her lunch break drawing one of the amazing garden structures.  They were dying to know when they could go again.

William loving getting hands on!

My youngest daughter Isobel, age 5, was literally bursting with pride as my poor husband was subjected to a no win breadathon tasting when we got home.  All three of them watching intensely, all wanting him to declare that their bread was best. It’s a good job he’s such a diplomat, because they all won. The course was fabulous. The venue was really spacious, light and airy and the people teaching really did seem to enjoy the day as much as the children.  I can’t recommend it highly enough.

Libiana said it was the best day ever. 

Orange and Pecan Sourdough

The perfect start to Valentines Day 

For me the perfect Valentines day is breakfast in bed. A cup of tea, some fabulous hot buttered toast, with marmalade and a great book!

However I had no sourdough ready in time to make my bread in time for Valentines day as my starter was ruined.  It's a long story but the short version is my freezer defrosted and yet still had a light so 9 days later my frozen stuff was well and truly disgustingly defrosted.  With so little time I was stuck and so I called an amazing baker who inspired and helped me to make my own bread again years ago ( 2006!)  called Andrew Whitley who wrote Bread Matters. 


Andrew kindly sent me  some of his starter in the post.  Unfortunately my dog got hold of the packet and chewed one half of it .. but I cut away the un chewed part and managed to rescue it and get it going !

Ingredients

200g of unbleached flour strong bread flour

200g of wholemeal strong bread flour

200ml of tepid water

1 tps sea salt

Zest of one large orange

75 g of pecans

1 tbs of polenta for dusting

2 – 3 tbs of olive oil

1 To make the bread add one nugget of starter to 200ml of tepid water.  You might need another 10 ml. Mix the nugget of starter with the water until a paste is formed then add the flour. Leave for about 20 minutes.

2 Gently knead on a lightly oiled surface for 2 minutes.  Leave again for about an hour or so.

3 Knead again adding the salt, orange zest, and pecans. Shape into a ball and leave to prove in a breadbasket, covered with a damp cloth.  There is no need to knead it lots! I leave mine for about 5 – 6 hours, until it is half raised. Check that the bubbles are formed by cutting a small slit in the dough with a sharp knife.

4 Score the bread with a pattern of your choice and put it gently onto a baking sheet dusted with polenta and transfer into a hot oven 190 with a pan of water underneath.  The steam encourages a crusty crust.   It’s that simple.

5 After 30 minutes check the bread is cooked by tapping the base.  It should sound hollow.

To make a starter

Use a glass jar or a suitable vessel with a lid.

Blend I cup of warm water and I cup of unbleached strong flour

Place in jar and keep at between 28 and 32 degrees. Do not exceed 38 degrees.

This comes to life. Every 24 hours or so for up to seven days half the mix, throw away one half and add half a cup of flour and half a cup of water again, repeat for at least three days, it will start to cake and bubble. This is normal.

Really the longer you feed it for the better, but look after it! You can store it after the first week in the fridge, keep feeding though and make sure there is a hole for air to vent, if a brown liquid appears either pour off or stir in, stirring in will increase the sourness.

Then that’s it - you have the sponge.  What baker Dan Lepard taught me was to batch freeze nuggets of this about 45 – 50g to and use them, as you need them.  From one of these you can restart your sponge to make the next lot to freeze.  Use wholemeal flour to get the best results!


Anyway I must say that between Andrews starter and Bakery bits dome and Dan teaching me the bread was delicious!

Sourdough Workshop with Dan Lepard

I’ve got back into baking sourdough, having discovered several years ago that I am not actually allergic to wheat, but I am intolerant of either commercial yeast or some of he preservatives or enzymes in commercially produced bread.  I have no idea which it is .. but I do know that my own sourdough is delicious, inexpensive and I have no problems digesting it. It's a huge relief to discover I can eat wheat again, especially as I spent years baking sourdough in the village I grew up in. ( in the Dordogne.) 

I've found baking in a domestic situation a challenge. It is easy in the bakery - it is always the same but in my domestic set up my loaves are not the exact texture I have been looking for.   Perhaps is the lack of a wood fired oven, or the flour, or the water?  It is frustrating, as translating commercial baking into my kitchen should be straight forward. 

I’m a huge fan of Dan Lepard’s work and it was his book the Hand Made loaf that really inspired me to start baking again. So when  Dan invited me to his mater class I took my eldest daughter with me and spent a happy day refining my own technique.

We were made so welcome with tea and muffins for breakfast and met the other lovely bakers attending. We got to have a good look at Dan's brilliant new book Short and Sweet and  I met a lovely lady called Azlia who wrote this account of her day here and a great chap called Chris chap from The real bread Campaign  who you can listen to below talking about the course.

Dan covered all the stages of making and keeping a healthy leaven, we all got he chance to talk individually about our loaves and baking with him and the course made everyone feel that they can make bread exactly how they want to. The explanations the Dan gives means that not only do you make the bread you can touch, feel, taste, smell and experience the dough in a way

We have the most fantastic day and left with two sourdoughs’ each.  My daughter loved every minute of it we have both been totally inspired by Dan.   She leant so much about making sourdough that I now let her make her own and  I refined my knowledge to the point where I am now turning out the best bread I have ever made in a domestic kitchen. Hurrah. 

I can’t recommend doing this course enough and of course you must take a look at Dan' new book Short and Sweet 

To find out about more about the next course on 26^th of November click here.

35p for Beautiful Sourdough Loaf

I lived in the south of France every holiday since I was nine. Every day I would run round the corner and buy the  sourdough bread from the village bakery.

By the time I was eleven years old the smell of the first batch would waft through the pigeon holes in the roof where my bedroom was every morning.  I would listen to the bells from the church to ring four and creep downstairs. The smell of the smoke mingled with the baked bread on the cold air was magic. I would charge down the alleyway in the dark to a floury warm bakery where I would help make the bread, eat hot croissant and drink sweet dark coffee.

As a teenager worked in the bakery full time for a summer aged 17 and, a year later, went on to work in another bakery in the local town. As I got to about 19 years old I was busy at university and didn't go to France for several years...

As I went to university my health deteriorated. I have a virus and had dreadful fatigue and tiredness.  I discovered that I couldn’t eat bread. It bloated me and left me exhausted.  So for years I avoided bread.

Just 4 years ago I went back to stay in France. I woke in my bedroom to the smell of bread.  I was a child again and the wood smoke and fresh baked bred  drew me like the pied piper's song to the bakery doors. It was irresistible and before I knew it I was in the bakery spreading butter over warm crusty sourdough and sinking my teeth in. Oh, familiar joy! The crunch of the crust and the yield of the soft bouncy inner. Exquisite. I didn't give a fig. There was me.. and the bread - and that was all there was to the world.

I waited for the inevitable symptoms, but they didn’t come. As it turns out I am not intolerant of bread. I am intolerant to either commercial yeast or one of many enzymes or additives in commercial bread. 

When I got back to daily life I’ve only ever bought sourdough.  It’s not cheap I’d been buying this sourdough weekly at £3.85 until I came across a book by Dan Lepard called the Handmade loaf.  My sister recommended that I read Dan’s column in the Guardian and I a huge fan of his recipes.

I followed the instructions and made my sourdough using plain bread flour, and my utter delight they turned out beautifully.  So the cost of the flour is currently about £1.50 for a bag .. and even less of you go for a supermarket own brand.

Now My bread costs me just 35p  What a saving!

Mothers day Sourdough loaf

It’s mother’s day today and Thank goodness I am feeling in somewhat better health. So I for one shall be making my mothers day gift. It’s not a cake, nor is it chocolates or flowers. It’s much more down to earth. I’m making her a loaf of bread, but it’s not just any loaf. I’ve been inspired by a visit to Hambleton bakery ( more on this later in the week ) to make my own sourdough made with wild yeast and to find out more Jeremy Medley of Oundle Mill offered to share his recipe below and demonstrate his techniques with me.

Ingredients

About 1kg of flour ( or so )

2 tps Sea salt

2 tsps Sugar

Tepid water.

To start with you need a cure.

The starter cure “pet”

Use a glass jar or a suitable vessel with a lid if possible.

Blend I cup of warm water and I cup of unbleached strong flour

Place in jar and keep at between 28 and 32 degrees. Do not exceed 38 degrees.

This is the pet! So every 24 hours or so for up to seven days half the mix, throw away one half and add half a cup of flour and half a cup of water again, repeat for at least three days, it will start to cake and bubble. This is normal.

The longer you feed it for the better, but look after the pet! You can store it after the first there days in the fridge, keep feeding though and make sure there is a whole for air to vent, if a brown liquid appears either pour off or stir in, stirring in will increase the sourness. This is the fermented beer smelling liquid. (Don’t drink it!)

Then that’s it - you have the sponge.

To make the bread add one cup of starter and 3 cups of unbleached flour that has 2 teaspoons of salt and two teaspoons of sugar mixed in well. Mix this and knead to a smooth dough, adding a drop of tepid water as needed. This will make two medium sized ball loafs. It’s that simple.

The retained half of the sponge becomes your cure and you must re feed it again for your next batch and keep dividing. Remember you must feed with half water and flour as before. Clean and sterilise your container often. You only want the Pet growing - and nothing else. Leave your bread on the baking tray to prove in a warm environment covered in lightly oiled Clingfilm for about 8 hours. Remove the Clingfilm and pop your two loves into a preheated oven 190 gas mark 5 for about 30 minutes. Check the bread is cooked by tapping the base. It should sound hollow.

(Any cup is fine as long as you use the same cup each time. However I use an American cup, which hold 336 ml.)

You can listen to Making this sourdough recipe on www.prepped.co.uk or listen to BBC radio Northampton 104.2 FM 103.6 FM at 10am this Sunday Morning

See the full gallery on Posterous

Bread and Breakfast with Dan Lepard and Jo Pratt

I still can't quite believe I am on the radio every Sunday. So today’s BBC radio show I nick named Bread and Breakfast. I shall be talking to Jo Pratt the Food Editor for GLAMOUR Magazine. We prerecorded the interview earlier in the week and talked about children and the fact that parents are facing such a battle to get children to eat healthily in the morning. Reasearch shows that a third of them are going to school on an empty stomach as their parents simply dont have time to argue!

The research carried out by a leading bread manufacturer showed that a quarter of families row nearly every day about eating well, with children resorting to crafty tricks to avoid food that is good for them. I can certainly agree it’s hard - even my three try to avoid their crusts and hide their greens under their forks Jo is just lovely - with 2 young children of her own and having just written several recipe books she’s got some great tips and has worked with the likes of Jamie Oliver, Gordon Ramsay and Gary Rhodes in the past and Jo and her recipes have appeared on a number of TV programmes such as Daily Cooks Challenge and Saturday Kitchen, and I think we both agreed it takes very little effort to to make a slice of toast in the morning.

Taking about bread with Jo lead me on to looking into making bread so I’ve invited Wendy in to talk about the Artisan bread making course about to start in the new Shires Cookery School in East Haddon. She's kindly offered a day's bread making course in June to a Prepped reader who can correctly tell me on the comments below what bread they will learn to make on the course and why they would be the best person to send on this day. The winner will be picked at random on the 25th of February (please be sure your details mean you can be contacted by your login)

In the mean time I was slightly star stuck as I got to interview one of my food heroes Baker and food writer Dan Lepard. To me Dan is one of the most fabulous food writers on the UK scene. He has a weekly column in the Guardian and is one of the most delightful people I have spoken to about baking I can ever remember.

I used one of Dan’s recipes from his book The Handmade Loaf to make my bread pudding with. It’s a super book and whilst I know that Dan is writing another fabulous book at the moment I really love this one!

Star Anise and Orange Bread Pudding

I don’t suppose we often think of bread pudding as a glamorous dish, but this is a seriously gorgeous pudding that as you can see from the photo, is met with delight in our house! This particular dish I was inspired to make from my father in law, Brain Dunstone of Boughton.. The star anise gave a delightful twist and the bitter orange marmalade tempered the sweetness, whilst the eggs and cream form a custard. It serves generously 10 – 12, but we eat it over 2 -3 days and I sent part of this one back with my photographer Nicky Callis - it was the least I could do to say thank her for these lovely photos!

Serves 10 – 12

Prep time 20 minutes

Cooking time 1 hour 20

Freezes No

Size of dish 9cm deep, 32cm long and 27cm wide

775g of white tin loaf

275g Rasins

140g caster sugar

Zest of 1 orange

1.5l of whole milk

600ml single cream

8 medium eggs

7 star anise

3 or 4 tbs of orange marmalade

1 Preheat the oven to 180 (between gas mark 4 and 5.) Slice the bread into 1.5 cm slices.

2 Arrange the slices in a large deep dish, scattering the raisins and sugar evenly between each layer. You will get about 3 layers or so depending on the thickness of your slices. Keep 3 or 4 spoons of sugar in reserve to use later on. Bear in mind you need to leave a little room at the top, as the pudding will rise as it cooks.

3 Evenly distribute the orange zest over the top of the pudding.

4 Pour the milk, cream and eggs in a jug and whisk to evenly distribute the egg.

5 Pour gently over the bread and using the tips of your fingers gently press into the bread to ensure the liquid is distributed throughout.

6 Sprinkled the remaining sugar and add the star anise over the top and pop into the oven. After an hour and 20 minutes check that the pudding is risen and golden. If it is not golden cook for a further 10 minutes and check again.

7 Remove for the oven and glaze by gently spooning over 3 – 4 tablespoons of marmalade whilst the pudding is still hot.

8 Remove the star anise. Serve either hot of cold with custard or cream