Master the craft of making your own bread
Most people love the smell of freshly baked bread. Something many people don’t realise is that it is possible to create your own bread without the need for a breadmaker. You can prepare it by hand and successfully bake it in your home oven.
Laurie Brunot will be holding an Artisan Bread Making workshop at Hillmorton High School starting on March 3.
Over two Sunday mornings, Laurie, a passionate, experienced French-trained baker and pastry chef, will help you discover the art of making your own bread.
Making bread only takes a few ingredients: yeast, flour, water and salt. Nothing else needs to go into it – adding flour and water to yeast kickstarts a magical, marvellous process that ends in fluffy, delicious bread.
This simplicity hides a much more delicate and complex process.
It’s easy to follow the directions from a recipe book but quite often all the ‘‘whys’’ are not explained.
The result will still be delicious, because nothing beats fresh bread out of the oven, but there is still much more to learn than just following the steps in a recipe.
A recipe book does not teach you how to feel the dough, the gesture to make the perfect ‘‘boule’’ or the understanding of working the dough in your hands.
You need to know the basics of making bread to start. Once you have learned how fermentation works, how yeast affects the structure of your bread, why an open window will impact the development of your dough, it will all start to click together, and the magic will happen.
It is a wonderful sense of accomplishment to make such beautiful, tasty, nutritious and satisfying products when you know it has been done with nothing more than four ingredients.
Once you know the basics you will be able to explore so much more.
Have you ever tasted a bread made with beer, or red wine?
Have you ever tried to shape bread as a tomato or a brioche to look like a crocodile?
This workshop will show you there is no need to limit your creativity.
The workshop session begins with the tutor demonstrating her expertise and you will see bread being created in the hands of the artisan baker.
You will learn the fundamentals of making bread and the secrets of top bakers.
Then it will be your turn to reproduce, step by step, all the stages to create your own bread with Laurie on hand to provide support and advice.
You will create a range of different bread varieties: white bread; baguette; focaccia; ciabatta; French traditional bread; fougasse.
You will leave the workshop realising how easy it is to create your own artisan bread and amaze your family and friends with your new skills and delicious bread.
For more information and enrolments, go online to hillmorton.school.nz/adult-education or email ace@hillmorton.school.nz. If this course is not for you, please check out the many other adult and community education classes Hillmorton High has to offer.
A recipe book does not teach you how to feel the dough, the gesture to make the perfect ‘‘boule’’ or the understanding of working the dough in your hands.