Bread Making with the Masters @ Leiths School of Food and Wine

I have always been a big fan of breads, all sorts of bread (literally) and as a bread lover, I am as passionate as one could be when learning to make breads. Thus, I signed up to the one day Bread making class at Leiths School of Food and Wine to master the basics of bread making.

A few tips before the class:
- bring an apron (if you do forget, they can provide you one in class)
- bring a notebook and a pen (trust me, you will need to remember the helpful tips)

Upon arrival, you will be seated in the dining room where coffee, tea, and fresh baked pastries are served as breakfast. This is the 'waiting room'; you will then be given a booklet specifically designed for your course (bread making in my case). Inside the booklet, you will see the schedule for the day, what sorts of bread will be demonstrated and baked, and most importantly, recipes (which you will be following later on).

After everyone in the class has arrived, we were led to the demonstration room. I felt like a student again (and a geek), front-row seat, making sure I jotted down all the notes and tips I gathered from the demonstration. First of all, we were introduced to fresh yeast (my first encounter) and the standard process of bread making (mixing, kneading, proving, knocking back and proving again). The demonstration includes making the doughs for an enriched white loaf, Italian bread (foccacia) and how to make your own starter (for sourdoughs for example).

After the learning and notes taking session, we went to the kitchen, where hands-on baking began.

The kitchen area

First, we had to make the dough for the Enriched White bread. The enriched part is from the butter, egg and milk that we added. Usually, you can make a white bread with just flour, yeast, water and salt. This enriched flavour bring a slight sweetness to the bread, and a yellowy colour as well. Once the dough is done, we had to place them by the ovens to let them prove. Meanwhile, we got on with the dough for the Foccacia - a bit wetter than the white bread dough. Knead, knead, knead and let it prove.
Third dough - we made a Soda bread dough with fruits and nuts, which does not need to be proved (as we used bicarbonate soda as an active agent instead of yeast). We were given a lot of freedom in terms of how to shape our breads. I stuck with the classics, and shaped my Fruit Soda Bread as 4 round rolls. As for my white breads, a small loaf and a plait.

My white breads before and after second proving

Our breads were happily baking in the ovens, while we had our simple yet warming lunch. One of our bread chefs made us a Carrot and Coriander soup and of course breads go best with soup! We ate the breads which had previously been demonstrated to us in the morning. As soon as we tried the breads, we all thought "if only our breads turn out to be this good!"

After lunch, we had to glaze our white breads which have had their second proving. We were given poppy and seasame seeds to decorate our white breads. Then all we had to do was to wait for them to be baked.

The course ended around 2.30pm. Because with breads, it is very time consuming with a lot of waiting around, most of the hands-on baking were done in the morning.

I left the school with some much joy and satisfaction that I felt like I was a little kid who had just made her first art sketch. Oh, and of course with many freshly baked loaves of bread.

I would highly recommend anyone who is or would be interested in learning to make your own bread. Freshly homemade breads are the best, and I can guarantee that you will not be shopping for bread at your bakery shops for a long while!

This is also a great activity for your weekends, afterall, baking is very therapeutic and brings great satisfaction. What is the best thing to do but baking when the weather is just being so unpredictable?

For info on the course, please visit http://www.leiths.com/enthusiasts-courses/bread-workshop-12/

I am now looking at other courses at Leiths for my next challenge!