the epic bakery school post

The Lighthouse Bakery school

Arrival Tue 22/7/08

After a fairly uneventful journey, I arrived in Robertsbridge, East Sussex, at about quarter past six. I found my B&B, a pleasant Victorian house not far from the station. It’s a very quiet village and modern houses mix with Tudor half timbered buildings with sagging roofs and windows. After a brief shower, I got ready and headed to the George pub to meet Rachel and Elizabeth.

Rachel is dark haired with freckled arms and a forthright manner. Elizabeth has wavy light red hair, wears tortoiseshell glasses, and is the slightly quirkier of the two. She’s not lost her American accent, though certain words she enunciates more clearly in an English way.

We talk of art, Liverpool, America, and other things I can’t recall. We are very well looked after, one of the owners of the pub makes sure we lack for nothing. They’re interested in taking on some Lighthouse bread, as they seem to have become a gastro pub in the not too recent past. The atmosphere is lovely, sensitive to period detail, but with modern lighting and comforts. There’s also Stanley, the resident basset hound, of whom Elizabeth is very fond. It turns out they have four cats at their house, which is sizable, perhaps an old farmhouse? Elizabeth would like a basset hound as well, but I think Rachel feels they have enough animals at the moment.

Our food is very good, though there are perhaps a few kinks to work out with the menu. Elizabeth’s salad was an overwhelming combination of flavours; Rachel’s lamb was slightly overcooked. My own food was fine, though my main course, which was a tart of tomatoes, onions and goat’s cheese, was covered in a profusion of salad leaves. The chocolate dessert was a chocolate and mint cake, with fresh mint leaves in the chocolate sauce. Rachel was very pleased to have celery served with her cheese board, but found the portions of cheese absolutely massive.

They were both very welcoming and we asked each other many questions about baking and the bakery and life in general. They wouldn’t hear of my offers to pay, even for my own food and drink. Rachel said she would pick me up in the morning after she made a delivery to a local farm shop. I couldn’t ask for a more lovely start to my visit and I’m looking forward to tomorrow.

Wednesday, 23/7/08, “Jewish Baking”

Biscuit of the day: hamantaschen

Rachel picks me up around 9.45 and explains she hasn’t yet made her delivery, because Elizabeth found out this morning that the live yeast had gone off so none of the breads were rising properly or otherwise acting how they were supposed to. Elizabeth is the chief baker, and Rachel oversees the admin side and does some baking and other kitchen prep as needed. Elizabeth had made new loaves of some of the breads by the time we arrive, but others will be finished later.

It turns out I’m the first and so far only person to take the Jewish Baking course, as this is the first time they’ve offered it. So for today I can be an honorary member of ‘The Tribe’ as Jews are colloquially known to each other. Elizabeth is from Boston originally and of Eastern European Jewish heritage, so she’s been making bagels and bialys in the bakery for years. Interwoven with the recipe directions and demonstrations is a history of each product and an explanation of how the ingredients interact with each other and the science of the breadmaking process. It’s a lot to take in, but never feels overwhelming. The flow of her delivery makes it one continuous story.

I had never tried a bialy, though had seen them in New York on many occasions. They’re kind of like large rolls or very small loaves and have a filling of onions mixed with breadcrumbs, so they’re more savory than bagels. Some of my onion filling fell out when getting them in the oven; the dough was a bit sticky and didn’t slide off the peel as easily as it should have. But I ate a successful one later, and thought it was pretty good.

We also made New York deli rye with caraway seeds, which brought back childhood memories of the sliced rye we used to have at home. Caraway *is* the smell of rye bread to me. Both of those loaves went into their freezer to be stored until I left, but I can’t wait to taste it.

I honestly haven’t had so much fun in ages. I don’t think I even stopped to go to the toilet because I never thought about it. We had a fantastic salad for lunch, which Rachel had made out of the veg from their organic garden. It had several kinds of lettuce, courgette, cherry tomatoes (bought, because local tomatoes haven’t ripened yet), and cubes of a delicious sheep’s milk cheese.

I was very much looking forward to making challah, having fond memories of eating it at summer camp. Going to a camp where it turns out 98% of the campers are Jewish kids from the metro New York area, you discover some foods that aren’t quite as common in suburban Pittsburgh. I managed to successfully plait my loaf, though it was narrower than the ones I remembered, possibly because there were fewer strands (this recipe made a 4 strand loaf). Bagels were the other thing I was looking forward to, proper American bagels being so difficult to come by in Britain. Liz had already made some bagel dough and shaped it, so we could boil and bake them straight away. We made some new dough and rolled it out into snake-like shapes. You then wrap the dough around your hand to join the two ends together. Mine were a bit lopsided, it’s a fine art to make a perfectly symmetrical bagel.

Hamantaschen are delicious little triangular biscuits filled with prune puree, or dried plums as we euphemistically call them. They resemble tricorner hats, or um, feminine imagery if you’re so inclined to view them that way. A. is already referring to them as minge biscuits after I described them to him. When we arrived there was a plate of fresh ones waiting on the long farmhouse-style table we eat around. I’ve got to say, I enjoy the intimacy of one-on-one classes, and I’m thrilled to be the only student for the first two classes. The involvement in every step of the process is the reason I’m there, but still so much fun. Weighing, mixing, kneading, putting things in and taking them out of the oven. Soon I’m programming the oven timers. I envy their four deck oven (meaning simply that there are four industrial ovens stacked on top of each other). They are high crown ovens, perhaps 5 feet long by 1 foot high. This means there is plenty of room for loaves to rise, but means biscuits and such are further away from the heat and may need to be raised up a bit to bake properly.

The other equipment new to me is the prover and the retarder. The prover has temperature controls which can provide dry heat or moist heat as required (or no heat at all if it’s off). This helps in the ‘proving’ stage, when the dough is undergoing a final rise (in a tin or baking tray depending on the shape of the product). The retarder is basically a fridge with a framework for sliding racks in. It helps cool things and slow down the fermentation process, if necessary, before baking. For example, the oatmeal raisin cookies we made on Thursday are best if you put them in the retarder for an hour or more before baking. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Rachel drops me off at the b&b, my bag now holding a loaf of challah and some bagels. I changed my clothes, read for a bit, then headed for the Ostrich, which was a few yards away from the B&B. It advertised a tropical garden and pub food, so I thought I’d have dinner there. After I got my pint and sat out in the garden, which was quite large and had several picnic tables, the barman came by and asked if I was all right. When I enquired about food, he said they only had filled rolls, so I had to find my tea elsewhere. This meant a trip to the other village pub, the Seven Stars.

When I got there, there were several members of the pub’s coopers (?) team wearing matching shirts, having just finished some sort of competition with the George. I’m guessing they won, as everyone seemed to be in good spirits. It was very much a locals’ sort of pub, the menu was more your typical pub fare, although the fish and chips featured a batter of local ale for the fish, so I chose that. It was also the only non-red meat-based main course. The beer mats were ones I recognized from my previous trips to Sussex, five and eight years ago respectively. They were postcard sized and featured a vintage illustration of Harveys of Lewes brewery, which was the source of the batter for the cod I was about to eat. I wrote out a postcard to MC, knowing that she would appreciate one that featured a brewery and talked about baking.

The fish was pretty good, the chips were fine, albeit from a freezer. Couldn’t tell about the peas, though they were a nice shade of green and not shriveled.

Pretty sure I slept like a log that night.

Thursday, 24/7/08 “American Baking”

Biscuit of the day: Madeleines

I’d never had a Madeleine before today, though I know well their place in literature. I really should read Proust one of these days. Funnily enough, I did get memories of people and things I hadn’t in a long time, like the camp counselor (also Jewish) I had a massive crush on when I was sixteen, though he was more than twice my age. A fact that I was thankfully spared from knowing until just before I left camp. He was a violinist who played with such beauty, I fell as much for his music as for him. I wonder if he’s still with the Toronto Symphony.

Today’s recipes had a familiar ring to them: cornbread, oatmeal raisin cookies, the bagels we had started yesterday. Also anadama bread, which is something I had at college, but not before or since. The cinnamon raisin loaf was a treat, as we got to mix cinnamon and sugar together to dust on the loaves before baking, which was a familiar childhood combination, having eaten it on toast many times.

I got to practice my kneading and loaf-forming skills today. Getting the loaf into a tight shape by rolling and pushing ever so slightly, but without squeezing the dough, is a tricky business, and having small hands doesn’t seem to help. I got better with practice though. Making rolls was a tricky business at first too, but visualizing the shape it’s meant to have and getting used to the feel of the dough helped.

Today’s lunch was a pissaldière, for which we rolled out the already-made dough and then covered it with the tomato and onion mixture Rachel had made up. Studding it with olives, we slid it into the oven alongside the other loaves. I love how fresh everything is and how well we eat. I love the shared values of good bread and good food, simply prepared, using good quality, ideally local, ingredients. And I most especially love how I have connected with these two women in ways I haven’t with anyone else in a long time. I can be myself, or let down more of my guard than I usually do. And sometimes it is nice to talk to another sympathetic American and be able to speak in cultural shorthand about tv programs and breakfast cereals we had as kids.

The buttermilk biscuits were truly a taste of home, fluffy and warm, though with a touch too much salt because the butter we used is salted. The butter was still slightly chunkier than it should have been after I mixed it with the flour, but it made the biscuits melt in my mouth that much more.




The Sussex landscape is made up of gently rolling fields, and a surprising number of tree-covered hills. The roads between the bakery school and Robertsbridge are dotted with oast houses, which are relics of a bygone era when much of the land was owned by Guinness and covered in hop fields. The hops were dried and stored in the oast houses, I think a certain amount of processing went on as well, from what Rachel tells me of them.

I walk to the next village, Salehurst, in search of the pub recommended in the information provided by the b&b. It’s about a mile and a half away, which is a lovely walk at this time of evening. The pub doesn’t disappoint; it’s old, and feels old inside, has a massive garden out back, and a nice, albeit small menu of freshly prepared food made with local ingredients. I ordered falafel in pita from the blond, ponytailed barman, who looks like a surfer…perhaps he is, or was. I feel like something light and veggie is in order after last night’s fish and chips. I have a nice pint of Hylfer Blonde from the Dark Star brewery, also Sussex-based. The people-watching is excellent, from country posh to East End of London. There are hippies, rat race escapees, the landed, the upwardly mobile, the families with kids. An American woman’s voice cuts through the various English accents, as she tries to explain the differences in American and English higher education to a nodding young man. She’s not loud, but the accent will always stand out above the others.

The mint in the yogurt sauce that comes with my falafel tastes fresh, but strangely, packets of condiments are delivered when I ask for mayonnaise for my chips. A small detail, but when they clearly take care with the rest of the food, it’s slightly disconcerting.

The countryside lent itself to some picture-taking on the way back. The light in the sky had broad strokes of gold and peach and orange splashed across it. I felt the happiest I have in a long time.


Friday, 25/7/08 “Advanced Baking”

Biscuit of the day: tuiles (I think)

Today another woman joined us. Her husband had spoken with Rachel extensively about bread and bakeries, he’s apparently opening a development in Waterloo which will feature a butcher, a greengrocers and a bakery. She often bakes bread at home and he gave her this course as a Christmas present. I’m very glad I had the previous two days to build up my knowledge, because I think I would have felt a bit lost if I’d come in to this course cold. Things like baker’s percentages, which I’d felt intimidated by previously, made much more sense now.

We made bread using four different types of starters, also known as pre-ferments. Sourdough is the most well-known type of bread that requires a starter, and our sourdough was made with rye and spelt and shaped into a couronne or crown before baking. We also made batons (mini baguettes), ficelles (very thin mini baguettes) and epis, which is when the baguette shape is cut and positioned to look like grains of wheat.
Our white loaves were made with a sponge starter, which is just flour, water and yeast, left to ferment for a day before baking. We shaped them into cottage loaves, which are a traditional British shape. They’re round with a smaller round on top. We dusted ours with poppy seeds.

Lunch was bulgar wheat, flavoured with cinnamon and some other herbs and mixed into a fresh salad like what we had on Wednesday. Rachel had added some of the sheep’s milk cheese again since I’d liked it so much. We had to interrupt our meal to take things in and out of the oven, since some loaves were rising quickly due to the warmth in the kitchen.

We finished a bit ahead of schedule, as Elizabeth was watching the clock to ensure we didn’t miss our trains. In fact we had time to look at some of their cookbooks and for me to copy down the quantities for their chocolate bread recipe that’s in the Green and Black’s cookbook (I have the American version, but it’s easier to cook in metric here and sometimes my equivalents aren’t always the published ones).

My co-baker was the first to leave, as she’d pre-booked her taxi. She must have made the earlier train, as there was no sign of her when I arrived. Rachel helped me pack up all the bread they’d been storing in the freezer for me. Three grocery bags and a jute re-usable shopper later, I was fully loaded and ready to go. Elizabeth gave me a hug, careful not to get any flour on me after I’d taken off my apron. Rachel drove me to the station and insisted I keep in touch. I said I would definitely be back and hopefully have my mother with me next time.

Luckily the train was fairly empty up to London, so all the bread bags could sit with me on the seats. Not so much the case going to Liverpool, and the grandmother and granddaughter sitting opposite me were giving me evils as I put my carrier bags (tied shut mind you) on top of what turned out to be their suitcases in the luggage hold. *eyeroll* So I had to move them onto the lower storage area, but everything made it intact.

So yes, an amazing few days of creativity, productivity and time out in the countryside. Well worth every penny and I’d go back in a heartbeat.

my new local food heroes

Root beer is one of the few things that it's difficult to find easily and cheaply in the UK. You can order it from Cyber Candy or get it from the branch of Sweets from Heaven in Chester. Barq's is my preferred brand, not because it tastes particularly different from A&W or Mug, but because it has caffeine. I'd recently heard that a Chinese supermarket in town carries it, but hadn't got around to checking it out.

So it was much to my delight to learn on Saturday that Mattas, the lovely international foods store down the street from my work, now stocks A&W root beer. This is a Very Good Thing. :D

onwards

It's been quite awhile, though I'm sure you all stopped paying attention a long time ago, clearly I did. ;^)

Things have been going much as I predicted in my last post. I'm glad we did try to do it. Our last major shop came from Waitrose/Ocado, who have begun to match Tesco on prices of many branded household items that they both sell. They sent us a £15 off voucher as well, to lure us back in, plus they offer free delivery on certain time slots, such as late evening ones, which suit us very nicely. I'm hoping to get to the greengrocer's later, I still prefer to get all the fruit and veg there that I can. As the weather is rather glorious at the moment, I want to make some summer recipes, including pasta salad, which calls for cherry tomatoes and basil.

I've been trying to bake bread on days off, so we have something fresh and not storebought. Last week I did brown bread for the first time and whole-wheat scones. I've got a back of wholemeal flour to use up, so I thought I'd try the scone recipe on the package. They were interesting, I think they'd be well suited to savoury scones, so I might try adding some cheese to them if I make any today. Next recipe in the test kitchen is going to be chocolate, almond and cardamom cake. I need to find out the best way to remove cardamom seeds from the pods, the ones I bought look sort of tough to crack.

Days 24-43

Truth be told, I lost count awhile ago. I apologise for my extended absence, work, life etc.

To make up for the Tesco visits documented previously, I went to the Unicorn grocery co-op in Chorlton, south Manchester on Sunday March 9. Chorlton seems like a nice little town, it has a good vibe, a variety of interesting independent shops and restaurants, and the Unicorn is closest thing Whole Foods I've seen in the UK that isn't an actual massive corporation.

It's bigger than the Windmill co-op and has quite a variety of items. It is vegan, so that's why I couldn't find any cow's milk, plenty of soy and rice options though. Unfortunately the veg choice wasn't huge, I know it's the end of season in the UK, so some items will be missing, but the carrots and parsnips were about as thick as my finger :/ . The butternut squash and swede I got were fine though. They're big on yeast/wheat/gluten-free type breads. I went for an organic herb loaf, which did seem to have yeast and wheat in it, hurrah, and it was quite herby. It lasted pretty well most of the week though.

Other than that, I've mostly been going to the Bread Shop in Aigburth for everyday items like cranberry juice and sandwich rolls. Husband's patience is starting to fray a bit, he's very much ready to go back to Tesco. I think he's concerned we've spent a lot more than usual on food over the past month. I haven't been keeping close tabs on this, I would say yes, it's probably more than what we would spend at Tesco, but I wouldn't say it's dramatically more. I might see if we can compromise a bit, sticking with the greengrocer and butcher as often as possible and maybe doing Ocado/Waitrose orders once a month so we're not going to Tesco as often. I wish there was a Waitrose closer by, I'd just do my shopping there, but the nearest one's in Formby, which is a bit of a trek.

Still, I think we've done quite well overall, I'll come back with further thoughts over the weekend.

Days 24 - 29

We had a bit of a breakdown over the weekend. A couple of husband's friends had come to stay for a few days, and though they were out most of the time, I hadn't planned on having extra stuff around for breakfast. Also I worked six days last week, so I was just concerned with getting stuff the two of us needed when I could. So Saturday morning, husband goes out in search of bacon sandwiches, or similar, for breakfast. None of the places to eat nearby are open at this hour (around 8.30). So to Tesco he went and came home with croissants.

Then on my way home from work I found out he had come down with some sort of stomach bug, and needed medication. It's about 6.30, and the nearest chemist (Boots) was already closed and I imagined that most of the other ones in the area would be as well. So back to Tesco, and got some bacon (the poshest I could find ;) for Sunday morning.

Sunday morning arrives, he needs more meds. I also discover we're nearly out of tea. Visit number 3 achieves both of these. W only buy fairtrade tea though, so at least we were able to get that.

Thankfully, he's starting to feel better, he was in a pretty bad way until Monday evening. I've been trying to get back on track; milk from a corner shop on Monday, sliced bread from Matta's yesterday. He bought a few things from the Co-op yesterday on his way home from work. I haven't seen one near us in Liverpool, which is too bad as I'd prefer to shop there if I could. Searching online, there are a couple in Wavertree and one in Childwall, which are only a couple miles away, so I will keep that in mind for the future.

Off to the butchers in a bit, we're in need of sausages and bacon again.

Days 19 - 23

We made an order with Good Food Store on Sunday evening and it was delivered last night. We opted to go with them instead of Northern Harvest because you could choose a delivery time, including evenings, which is more convenient for us, rather than only having one delivery day. I might give Northern Harvest a go in the future if I'm already off on a Friday, but as we don't have a porch or similar, someone has to be in to receive deliveries.

Our order came to about £20 before delivery charge (which is £4.95) and this is what we got:

The box:


Fruit and veg, and bread:


Groceries:


Later I'm heading to Aigburth Road to get some other things we need. My yoga teacher told me about the Unicorn Grocery which is a co-op in Chorlton, south Manchester. I'm going out that way next weekend, so I may stop and check it out, there seem to be a lot of similar ethical shops nearby.

Days 16-18

We ate the bread before I remembered to photograph it. Whoops. I'll probably bake another loaf on Thursday when I'm off, if I have time. If it's pretty, I'll try to remember to keep the camera nearby.

We were discussing the project with a friend of husband's earlier, and he thought it was a great idea. Husband said that most people he's told about it have been very receptive to the idea and have offered suggestions of independent shops to visit. His idea for the next step is that we make a map and put all the shops on it. I wonder if we can get it online...his photoshop skills are probably more than up to the task.

Someone asked me not long ago if it wasn't more expensive to shop at local independents than Tesco. The short answer is yes, but it's worth considering the reasons behind this. Tesco and other supermarket chains have the purchasing power to keep prices artificially low; many consumers don't think about this and assume 'that's just how much x costs and I'm being overcharged if I buy the same product somewhere else for more'. A recent example that has garnered a lot of media attention is broiler chickens, how they're raised, and the low prices paid to farmers who intensively rear them. I watched Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's programme on Channel 4 and plan to sign up for the campaign to get people to switch to free-range chicken. More information about it is here: http://www.chickenout.tv

Getting back to my earlier point, this person said that it was too expensive to shop at farm stands and such in her area because it has many wealthy people and so prices are higher. I mentioned that one item with competitive pricing is free-range eggs. That might be something she could afford to buy, as prices for local free-range eggs are often equal to or lower than Tesco in this area.