After discovering Virtuous Bread I'd initially booked onto their Basic Bread course, but after doing some more research I decided to take the plunge and go headfirst into the world of sourdough. The idea of making bread from just flour, water and salt appealed to me after a life-long obsession with cake and biscuit baking where there was always baking powder, bicarbonate of soda or of course, self-raising flour to do the job for you.
I'd booked onto a course with Jane Mason, the mastermind behind Virtuous Bread, on the 10th of October. With a day off work I was looking forward to trying my hand at bread baking - I couldn't think of a better way to spend the day.
I turned up at her lovely home in Hammersmith, right on the riverside, with rowers working their way up and down on a beautiful sunny autumnal morning. I was greeted not by Jane but Lucy Heeley - it turned out Jane's parents were over from Canada for the book launch of Jane's book 'All you knead is bread' later that week and she was taking them on a tour of London. At first I was disappointed not to be meeting and being taught by Jane, after reading so much about her and the real passion she holds for bread baking and sharing this with others. However, my disappointment did not last long.
There were three of us on the course: myself, a lady in retirement who had been bought the course as a birthday gift from her son, and a lady over from Singapore who wanted to start baking her own bread.
We started the day with tea and a chat about why we were all there. Lucy, it turned out, had spent a year doing the Leith's Diploma of Food and Wine, something I'd previously looked at, but sadly the cost was just too prohibitive. Through the connections she'd made at Leith's she now helps run courses at the school and has been working with Jane to teach the basic bread and sourdough bread courses.
First up, we needed to get our rye sourdough breads on the go. She led us through to Jane's kitchen which backed right onto the river and drew our attention to the bowl that sat in the middle of the table. After pulling away the plastic cover, a brownish, frothy liquid sat at the bottom of the bowl. This it turned out was what a refreshed sourdough starter looked like. Something we'd all be aiming to achieve if we wanted to make our own.
We each poured out the necessary amount into our own bowls, I was transfixed by all the bubbles in the liquid. We then added flour, water and salt and had the choice to start tailoring the bread to our own tastes... treacle, honey, spices and seeds... so much to choose from. The heady world of bread baking was already pulling me in.
I opted for treacle to give it a good colour and a depth of flavour along with cumin and seeds. Then it was time to get our hands dirty. After plunging our hands into the mix, we squeezed and squelched until we had combined all the ingredients into what basically resembled a wet sticky mass. Turns out that was the job done for rye sourdough. All that was left to do was to grease our little loaf baking tins, and with wet hands scoop up the sticky mass and shape it into a rounded oblong and simply plop it in the tin with a shower hat on top to rise. This would take anywhere between 3-5 hours, depending on the heat in the kitchen.
After this eventful start we then sat down for more tea and some delicious toasted raisin bread with jam (all home baked of course). Divine! Once we'd had our fill Lucy talked us through the science behind sourdough, explaining it in simple terms, and patiently answering our very many questions.
Then it was back to the kitchen to make a wheat sourdough. This bowl of refreshed starter looked somewhat different to the first. It was off-white to begin with and very gloopy and stretchy; almost like melted mozzarella cheese. Again we each pulled and stretched our portions into our individual bowls. Then added the basic flour, water and salt. We had the choice of white, wholemeal, and spelt flours, I opted for a 50/50 mix of wholemeal and white spelt. Then we got our hands in and combined the ingredients once more. This time the mass took the form of what I had imagined a dough to look like. Once done, it was time for our first knead!
Lucy showed us her technique, kind of a two-handed, stretch and pull method, where the heel of your right hand stretches the middle to top of the dough upwards while the heel of your left holds and pulls the bottom of the dough towards you. From the very get-go you can see the glutinous strands working their magic, as a web becomes visible in the dough each time you stretch and pull. Lucy set the clock and we kneaded our hearts out for a whole 10 minutes. With each of us developing our own unique technique that worked for us. The method didn't seem to really matter as long as you were creating a stretch in the dough to form the glutinous web. It was surprisingly hard work kneading for a solid 10 minutes, we all seemed to end up using our whole body in the kneading movement with a rocking motion from hip to foot as we stretched and pulled, all the while looking at each other's to see how our own compared. As we'd all chosen a different flour combination each of the doughs had taken a slightly different route, with some more stretchy (glutinous) than others.
At the end of the 10 minutes we performed the 'windowpane test' to see if we'd kneaded sufficiently. We each picked up our doughs and started to pull and stretch them in mid-air as you would to draw curtains, the dough thinned to reveal thin panes through which you could see the daylight coming through when held to the light - hence the name. Aha we'd all pretty much cracked it, but Lucy still made us do a couple more minutes kneading just to be sure and make sure we'd truly mastered the kneading technique. After which, it was time to let our doughs (and us) rest. We popped our doughs under a tea towel for an hour while Lucy talked us through the plan for the rest of the day and started to get lunch prep under way.
We then performed our first stretch and fold of the dough. This apparently helps to create those lovely big holes you get in sourdough bread. We each took our doughs, which were already starting to look bigger than before, and in a clockwise motion pulled a small clump of the dough up and away from us and then pulled it back into the centre, then moved to the next section until we'd gone round the clockface. Then we had to flip the dough over and quickly smooth over the surface with our hands lightly pulling from the top to the bottom until the surface looked nice and smooth - easier said than done! Then it was time for them to rest for another hour.
Meanwhile we had a lunch of tasty lentil and vegetable soup with lots more bread and cheese. I could have quite happily gone for a nap after all that food, but no, it was time to shape the wheat doughs. Under Lucy's direction we stretched and folded once more before rolling, stretching, smoothing and all other manners of movement that by the end were beyond me. Lucy made it all look so simple. Somehow we all got our doughs into the correct shape (basically a long, fat oblong) and placed them as gently as we could on a floured tea towel and then covered them again to do their final rise.
Next it was time to move onto making some swedish crispbreads. Lucy had already made the dough, which had some milk and spices added to it, as it had needed time to proof before we could start to make the finished product. Our first job was to pluck small little clumps of the dough and shape them into balls (hopefully of a relatively equal size). Then Lucy masterfully demonstrated the shaping technique.
On a floured surface Lucy rolled the dough up and down with a mini rolling pin, flipping it over, time and time again, adding flour as she went so the dough didn't stick to the table or the rolling pin. Then once it was about 50cm long by about 8cm wide she sprinkled some sesame seeds, cumin seeds and rock salt over it and then rolled this in using a funny looking knobbled rolling pin which created an unsurprisingly knobbled pattern on the rolled dough. This was then simply placed on a greased baking tray ready to go in the oven. Now it was our turn. We each had a go with varying degrees of success, but after working our way through the full mix (of about 40 balls) we'd pretty much mastered it and were churning them out, up to four at a time, by the end. Lucy cooked them as we went so we got to taste test while working the production line. They were really crunchy and packed full of flavour - particularly the ones with cumin added. I was amazed when Lucy said that if well-wrapped and stored in an airtight container they could last happily for a year. They're perfect if friends pop over at short notice for a drink, particularly dipped in hommous or somesuch.
Then it was time for the final sourdough of the day. Scones!!! One of my favourite things with a cup of tea. We watched and learned as Lucy rolled out the dough she had again pre-prepared and simply shaped it into rounds using cutters and popped them in the oven.
Then we had to sit and wait for them to cook followed by the endless torture waiting for them to cool enough so we could tuck into them. Apparently, they're best eaten fresh on the day of cooking, so alas we had to relent and fill our already full stomachs with even more. Still warm, served with butter and apricot jam, they were a thing of beauty, with a real depth of flavour compared to a standard scone. It was impossible to have just one...
After this, we somehow pulled ourselves back off the sofa as it was time to cook the rye and wheat breads. The rye sourdoughs had each worked their way to the top of the tin, so we topped them with our preference of seeds or flour and popped them in the oven for 40 mins. We then did the 'prod test' on the wheat doughs; basically prodding your finger into the dough and if it pops back to its original shape then it's ready to bake. All our doughs passed the prod test so in the oven they went. Lucy thankfully picked them up one by one and placed them on the baking tray to go in the oven. While they cooked, we cleaned up the kitchen one last time as Lucy talked us through everything we'd done that day.
It felt like being a child when it was time to check the breads, as Lucy pulled first the rye breads from the oven and did the tap test on the bottom of each to check they sounded hollow. They looked perfect! And then the wheat bread - wow, they'd grown huge and each one looked fantastic.
We each formed our own little pile of sourdough goodness to take home with us, along with a Virtuous bread bag to put it all in, a scraper and of course, most importantly, our very own starter! After thanking Lucy for a wonderful experience and for putting up with our incessant questions, we left in a buoyant, happy mood, with our bags wafting out the scent of freshly baked bread.
It truly was a lovely day, spent in good company, creating wonderful looking, smelling and tasting sourdough goodies. I couldn't wait to try it all out for myself back at home.
If you're thinking of taking the plunge - I have no reservations but to say go for it. You'll never look back! Find out more and book up here.
PS - sorry for the lack of photos, I was too busy taking it all in to even think about doing this.
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