Sourdough Breadmaking Course & Toast

I was introduced to the delights of sourdough bread about 5 years ago.  Sourdough bread for the uninitiated is bread made using ancient and natural yeast cultures.  It was how we used to make bread before the introduction of a specific strain of baking yeast widely adopted in the beginning of the 20th century.  Prior to that bakers used yeast produced during the beer brewing process.

Name of Sourdough Bread

The name of sourdough bread is derived from the slightly sour taste derived from the lactic acid produced by the lactobacilli and yeast during the proving or fermentation process of the bread.

Sourdough Toast

One of the biggest revelations of experiencing sourdough bread for the first time is when you try toasting it.  Sourdough toast is unbelievable!  The open crumb structure produced by the lactobacilli and the flavour of the bread produces a toast that is unrivalled to any other type of bread in my humble opinion.  Try stilton on toast on sourdough bread and you will think that you have died and gone to heaven!

Sourdough breadmaking courses

Hartingtons runs a number of sourdough breadmaking courses with expert artisan bread baker Andrew Auld of the Loaf in Critch.  On his intensive one day sourdough breadmaking course you will learn how to make 3 different style of sourdough breads including a fabulous rye bread. On the course Andrew demystifies the production of the mother starter culture and give you the confidence to handle and work with sourdough.

Artisan breadmaking courses

Bakewell Food Festival Showcases Artisan Bread Baker

The first Bakewell Food Festival in Bakewell this week will show off some of the best food producers from in and around the Peak District.  Hartingtons, the new School of Food in Bakewell, will open its doors on Saturday (28th April) from 9.30 am to showcase Mick Saxton of Saxton's Home Bakery.  Mick, who is one of the expert tutors delivering artisan bread courses at Hartingtons, will be demonstrating the art of artisan bread making using natural leven cultures.  His speciality is sourdough bread and he will be demonstrating how to make this great tasting artisan bread on the day.  Visitors to the School of Food. which is located on the first floor of Rutland Mill on Rutland Mews, will also be able to buy Mick's freshly baked artisan bread to take away and enjoy.


Artisan bread courses in the Peak District

Artisan bread making course sells out

Hartingtons Italian bread making course has sold out illustrating just how popular our bread making courses have been. This is testament to the quality of our bread making tutors who are all passionate about real bread making.

Don't worry though we still have a full range of artisan bread making courses available and more are being added daily.

There are a few places left on our introduction to artisan bread making on 29th March or why not try an introduction to sourdough bread making to learn the skill to make your own fantastic tasting sourdough bread.

Lets get bread baking

New birth in Bakewell

Hartingtons gave birth to its own mother culture last week. This sourdough starter culture can be used in our future artisan sourdough bread making courses.

We made our culture under the instruction of one of our bread making tutors David Neville who incidentally is off to work with Morrisons, starting this week to help them upgrade their already impressive range of artisan breads. Apparently, Morrisons are the only one of the big supermarkets that have retained genuine bread baking facilities within their stores.

To make you own starter culture all you need is flour, water and some grapes. Leave the culture exposed to the atmosphere and it will pick up the natural wild yeast spores, which then work symbiotically with bacteria to produce the unique sour taste. Each starter has a completely original composition. This made the birth of Hartingtons 'junior' a very special moment in Hartingtons short life.

We are doing a sourdough bread making course in May with Andrew Auld of the Loaf. By then young Hartingtons may even be old enough to play his part.

Artisan Italian Bread Making Course In Bakewell

The latest artisan bread making course took place at Hartingtons School of Food on Sunday.

This relaxed baking course took place in Bakewell in the Peak District with students learning all about the mystery of the biga. It was refreshing to hear our tutor David Neville's first rule was to discard the constraints of a standard bread baking recipe. It was all about feeling the dough!

The students produced a fantastic focaccia and a ciabatta as well as producing their own personalised pizza. In addition to this they also made their own delicious pumpkin soup. Lunch was a bowl of the soup together with freshly made olive and rosemary focaccia.

All the students left inspired by their artisan bread making course.......so if you too want to be inspired why not have a look at some of the forthcoming artisan bread making courses at Hartingtons in Bakewell in the coming weeks.

We can guarantee that learning to make your own artisan bread will inspire you to bigger & better things in 2012.

See images from our artisan bread making courses.