Professional Artisan Baking - The Advanced Session

Dear 'realbread' friends and other food enthusiasts,

OK then!! Here goes........... 

At last I am writing that blog post about the amazing four-day 'Advanced Baking Session' at the School of Artisan Food!

Having taken the summer off - with the kids being at home for 9 (!!!) weeks - there hasn't been much of an opportunity to sit down quietly and write. But as they're both on their last summer camps this week...I feel I ought to (and want to!) start writing again and get back into sharing great baking and other foodie stuff with you BEFORE the school year starts. Very conveniently, as part of this blog post I will also tackle a number of my 'Personal Baking Challenges 2013' as they were part of the list of the breads we baked that week!

It was the very first week of the kids' summer holidays when I was given the opportunity to be part of the Advanced Baking Session at the School of Artisan Food - my Birthday present from my lovely husband, my dad and my husband's parents. A "professional four-day course developed for existing bakers, chefs, business start-ups and advanced home bakers". 

I wanted to do this course - as some of you already know - to explore how serious and how far I want to take bread baking. Having had a love for baking all my life, my artisan (or 'realbread') baking was taking more and more shape at home (baking for other families around me) and I ended up thinking "What's next?". Apart from that, I had only ever taught myself. I wanted to get some professional and technical knowledge and experience under my belt and this course seemed to offer this.

The other probably most important element of this course - and the philosophy of the entire school for that matter - was the 'Artisan' element of it. I have grown up with and have always been interested in 'real' food. Honest food, pure food. Organic if possible. Food that no one has messed about with to put it bluntly. Bread, vegetables, dairy, meat and fish the way it was meant to be. This is how I have been baking my bread and so it was an easy choice to go for the Advanced Baking Session at the School of Artisan Food. Here is a link to the school. Have a look at all the wonderful courses they offer. When I read it, I wish that I was 21 again...........!!! www.schoolofartisanfood.org

In four days we baked 17 different types of bread with 6 six of us (max. of 8 people each course) at a reasonable pace. This meant that we didn't all bake each type of bread from A to Z but at crucial moments in each of the 17 processes we were called over to come and have a look, smell, feel, stretch, fold, cut, shape, etc. This was all brilliantly managed by Wayne Caddy, Head of Baking at the School and up to present the UK for the Coup Louis Lesaffre 'Bakery Masters' title in Paris in 2014.

Obviously, I cannot take you through the entire four-day course in a blog post. I have a feeling that this post is going to be long enough as it is.... And I wouldn't want to 'give it all away' either with loads of videos and recipes - simply out of respect for the wonderful people who have put this course together.

So, I will share with you my personal highlights. And personal they were!

After a magic wedding in Devon the weekend before, I travelled up North by train to Worksop where I was picked up by the lovely Robin Brown - one half of the extremely warm, friendly and helpful couple who run Browns award winning B&B. As I was by train, Robin took me to the School every morning and picked me up in the evenings. Courtesy of the B&B for people who follow courses at the School. How good is that?! As we produced a crazy amount of bread all week I did give them some of it in the evening of course;-). Let's hope they liked it!

But seriously, Brown's is a great place to stay if you consider doing a course at the School. It's the one closest to the Welbeck Estate. Super breakfast menu - all cooked by the wonderful and chatty Joan. Here's a link: www.brownsholbeck.co.uk

So, on my first morning I was actually quite nervous and apprehensive as well as excited and raring to go! The unknown. Finally stepping outside that comfort zone again. It had been a while. Who else would be on the course? All professional bakers with 'strong like bull' arms.....? As it happened.......that was not the case. Phew......! A lovely group of people with very diverse backgrounds.

After a warm reception with coffee, tea and goodies baked at the School we introduced ourselves, spent a little bit of time on some theoretical material about bread, flour, milling, mixing etc. and actually got on with it pretty soon. Right up my street! Learning by doing. Practice. Getting my hands dirty.  That's exactly what I came for.

The four-day programme was packed with loads of different breads - including a lot of 'specialty breads'. First up was the brioche. One of my 'Personal Baking Challenges 2013' - hurrah!! This particular one - and two other of my personal challenges - I did get to do from start to finish. 

As you probably know, brioche is made with a truckload of butter and eggs and in this case with a levain and a little bit of saf gold yeast (which tolerates sugar better than normal baker's yeast) - we are on an artisan baking course after all ;-)! 

Now for the exciting bit................ :-))))! I got to use a professonial mixer for the first time in my life....... LIKE A KID IN A CANDY STORE!! Honestly, there's nothing like it! To watch the development of the dough as the mixer churns away....brilliant! Also taking a huge amount of dough out of the mixer is an interesting activity. I took it on with both hands and loved it!

And this is the dough we ended up with. Beautiful! Strong. Yet with enough elasticity. Tenactity & elasticity. That's what you want from your dough!! With brioche dough, you try and develop the elasticty (gluten) first - then you add the butter.

We let this dough prove overnight (retard) and shaped an baked next day.

    Brioche. Different shapes and finishes.

Also on Day One we prepared doughs for Pannetone, Fruit Tea Malt Loaf and bigas and sponges for Day Two's Focaccia, Cottage Loaf and Wayne's award winning Coup de Monde Olive & Gruyere loaf. The only bread that was ready to bake on Day One was the fruit loaf:

At the end of day one I went back to the B&B and as I entered my room I had the most unexpected and deeply touching experience..... I had this one 'flash' moment in which I wanted to call my mum to share my experience of the first day of this fantastic course with her..... It just came to me and completely overwhelmed me. In fact, writing about it now brings back that overwhelming emotion again. I literally just sat on the bed and let it overwhelm me for a while. As most of you know, my mother died almost 14 years ago now. She was a daughter of a baker. I am from a baker's family as it were. The urge/reflex to call her in this moment of enthusiasm and spontaneity I hadn't experienced probably since a year or so after she died. As I look at it now, I think that the first course day brought me right back to 'me'. To my core, to who I really am and to what I really love doing. And in that moment, she was suddenly there. Very close. Beautiful and painful all at the same time. As if wanting to tell me something. The way I have taken this in the end is, one of confirmation. That I am doing the right thing. Whatever shape or form it will take in the future. I am on the right track. Baking. She just came to tell me that ;-)! Thanks mum! X

So.......Day Two! 

Having 'eased into' Day One a bit, now we were on to some serious baking. The brioches were shaped and baked of which you have seen the result above. The Cottage Loaves (they are so beautiful!), Pannetone, Olive & Gruyere Loaves and Focaccias were baked too on this day. 

These Focaccias were not from this world............ Honestly. DELICIOUS! Scoffed it down in the evening as I couldn't cook in the B&B and I had no car to go out. No need for it either. I took freshly baked bread with me every night and bought some beautiful cheeses and fruit at the Welbeck farm shop the first night to have with it. Oh.........and of course I had bought some wine on my travels up North to see me through the week ;-). 

So as you might gather, suddenly we started to feel like real bakers here :-)!! All the time schedules, proving sessions, number of folds, oven times and temperatures became more important if not crucial to success. Very helpful was our whiteboard schedule on which we ticked off completed activities like hourly folds etc. If you have a good look, you can see that I took the opportunity to make the ciabatta from start to finish as well. Another one of my 'Personal Baking Challenges 2013' :-). 

As mentioned before, every day we prepared sponges, bigas and levains for the next day so that it got a chance to do its thing overnight. On Day Two we prepared these for Hot Cross Buns, Pain de Campagne, Rye & Onion tin loaves, Ciabatta, 3 Grain Levain and Walnut Levain..... Not any ordinary list of breads.......!!!

Making the Ciabatta dough on Day Three, I took this beautiful picture of the dough being mixed:

Call me a freak, but I can look at this for a long time........... Sheer beauty and perfection!

Bulk fermentation and folding to follow of course and lots of feeling the dough to get to know what it good dough feels like. Feeling and stretching the dough lots and lots of times is the only way to get a good idea of what it should feel like. We even tasted raw dough and levains, bigas, etc to find out how different they can be. Note: this picture is not necessarily one of the ciabatta dough.

A few more pictures of the ciabatta making.........

Nice crumb!

More finished bakes from Day Three:

Rye & Onion tin loaves (will never forget the ones we left in the oven and completely forgot about.......................!!!!)

 

Hot cross buns (the ones Wayne developed for M&S a loooooooooong time ago ;-)) and fruit loaves.

Preparation for Day Four was an impressive list once again, including a bread I had never heard of and was very excited about: Panmarino! Others were Raisin & Rosemary batards (from the same Panmarino dough), Beer Barm Bread, Orange & Raisin Levain with a Raspberry Tea Soaker and.................................there it finally is..................

THE TRADITIONAL BAGUETTE!!!!!

No need to tell you that I felt very lucky to be able to take on the baguette recipe from start to finish. ANOTHER one of my Personal Baking Challenges. The tricky bits are handling the dough (high hydration), shaping and slashing. 

Learning about slashing the baguettes

But we got there in the end and Wayne told us that it was an impressive result for those of us who did this for the very first time. OK. I believe him ;-).

Proper BO!!!!!

Probably worthwhile showing you the Panmarino too. You cut the crown and add the course sea salt just before baking. It's symbolic for the 'crown and diamonds' based on the original recipe by Luciano Pancalde who once read a biography of the d'Este family and descriptions of their their banquets...... Rosemary bread with a crust that sparkled with diamonds..... Lovely!

The Raisin and Rosemary Batards next to it we made out of the same dough as the Panmarino. You can see the finished Panmarinos behind it.

I told you earlier we still had to bake all the other breads off too..... Well here's that big rack again..... Filled with all the final breads. 

And yes, we were impressed. With our own efforts. Only after receiving compliments from Wayne. Of course.

So what do I think now? 

Well........... It is definitely one of the best things I have ever done in my entire life. And that includes experiences like doing an MBA at Cranfield. I haven't been 'in my element' like this for a very long time indeed. Here's a BIG thank you to everyone who made this happen. All the people from the School, fellow bakers on the course and my family.

It was worth every penny. Yes, I did know how much my Birthday present cost and how much the people who gave me the present wanted me to do the course. My husband being the biggest fan of them all! He has encouraged me all the way and during the course sent me a poem - written by him - every morning addressed to 'Madame La Baker'... They were hilariously funny!!!! I love you darling!

First floor: bakery! Four days.

Since I've come back from the course I have baked the Ciabattas and the Panmarino. The summer holidays in Brittany plus having the kids around me full time all the other of the 9 summer holiday weeks have prevented me from getting stuck in properly again but I am about to do just that! Something I had never used before the course and am using all the time now is the FDT calculation. Basic I know. But incredibly important. It's all about temperature. Here goes: Flour Temperature (FT) + Bakery Environment (BE) - Base Temperature (BT) = Water Temperature (WT) where BT tends to be 58'C (55-60) most of the time. For large quantities of rye it is 80'C.

If you are thinking of doing a bread baking course: DO IT!!!! 

Baking bread must be one of the most basic and satisfying processes known to man. I am glad that I have discovered it. Long may it last.

Love,

X Bee