|
| SHORT
BREAKS BAKING : UK |
COOKING
VACATIONS |
 |
Learn
to bake in Cumbria with an artisan baker
. . . hands-on baking courses for amateurs and professionals
Bread
Matters, run by Andrew Whitley, came about as a result
of his experience in setting up and running The Village
Bakery.
Andrew left a career as a BBC Russian Service producer
for a life of greater self-reliance in Cumbria. He converted
a stone barn next to his house into a small bakery and
tearoom and grew organic fruit and vegetables on five
acres behind. A wood-fired oven was built because the
village electricity supply was inadequate, there was
no mains gas and oil was very expensive in the mid-70s.
It turned out that baking with renewable energy was
fully consistent with the main aim of the bakery - to
make tasty and healthy bread and cakes using organically
grown English wheat locally milled by water power. By
the end of the 1980s, the bakery and restaurant had
achieved a certain reputation, but the premises were
woefully cramped. So a new bakery was built in 1991,
incorporating a French wood-fired oven with a capacity
of over 500 loaves.
The new bakery began to supply wholefood and organic
shops in various parts of Britain. Then, as the importance
of an organic approach to food and health became more
widely recognised, the bakery was asked to supply Waitrose
supermarkets.
A chance invitation to revisit Russia enabled Andrew
to research traditional methods and he returned with
a sourdough culture which was then used in a range of
rye breads that really put the Village Bakery on the
map. Various awards followed culminating in the Organic
Trophy - the highest accolade of the Organic Food Awards
- in 1998.
That same year, neighbouring bakers Bells of Lazonby,
wanting to join the organic revolution, acquired a majority
stake in the business. Production, which was uncomfortably
cramped at Melmerby, was moved to Lazonby eight miles
away and Bells installed an innovative modern wood-fired
oven to keep consistency with Village Bakery values.
Space and time were once again available at the Melmerby
bakery and Andrew launched Bread Matters baking courses,
aimed at people who shared his fascination with what
really makes good bread.
At the end of 2002, Andrew handed over the running
of the bakery and restaurant completely to Bells and
started a new company - Bread Matters Ltd - from his
home a few yards down the road from the Melmerby bakery.
In December 2009 Bread Matters moved to Macbiehill
– 17 miles South of Edinburgh in the Pentland Hills.
Here in a converted farm steading on a five-acre smallholding
under organic conversion, courses resumed in July 2010.
Andrew Whitley
 The
courses are taught by Andrew Whitley, founder of The
Village Bakery Melmerby and author of Bread Matters
(Fourth Estate 2006 & 2009) with invaluable
assistance from his wife Veronica.
Andrew started The Village Bakery Melmerby in 1976
without any obvious qualifications other than a conviction
that it didn’t make sense to pursue perpetual
economic growth if resources were limited and the
way we were using them resulted in unfairness and
ill-health. He started to bake bread from locally-grown
organic wheat and, without realising it, became a
leader in the slow fight-back of artisans against
the adulterated uniformity of British bread making.
For more than two decades he was the only commercial
baker in the country using renewable energy by baking
in wood-fired brick ovens. Before starting the bakery,
he had worked as a producer in the BBC Russian Service.
A visit in the early 1990s to post-communist Russia
enabled him to study sourdough and he then launched
a range of naturally-fermented rye breads that met
a sudden demand from people in the UK who found they
could no longer tolerate factory bread.
Andrew left The Village Bakery in 2002, did a Masters
in Food Policy at City University and wrote Bread
Matters, described by one reviewer as ‘a searing
critique of commercial baking methods’. He
chaired the Soil Association Processing Standards
Committee for several years and co-founded the national
Real Bread Campaign.
Veronica Burke
 Veronica
thinks that bread matters too. She regards it as the
perfect place to start reconnecting with our food
and with our capacity to sustain ourselves.
Veronica has thirty years’ experience of working
with children, families and professionals in the family
justice system, as a social worker, mediator and trainer.
Providing organic food and a warm welcome for Bread
Matters courses is hardly an obvious career step,
but there is some logic in the mix. Veronica believes
that real food is more than just fuel and nutrients.
It is the medium for nurture and for shared enjoyment
that can satisfy, soothe, change our mood and affect
our behaviour. Getting our hands on good, fresh, raw
ingredients, having some sense of where they came
from, and transforming them into a shared meal, ought
to be simple and commonplace, but are somehow beyond
the reach of many of us. Making bread is particularly
creative and playful, and interesting things always
start to happen when a group of people make bread
together.
During 2010 Veronica has developed her interest in
sustainable style and created an image consultancy
called Fried Green Tomatoes (www.friedgreentomatoes.co.uk).
She provides colour analysis, personal styling and
a creative approach to looking good and feeling great
without costing the earth.
Andrew and Veronica are collaborating on a number of
projects that will bring bread making to different groups
of people, including families, young people and professionals
who want to make creative changes in the way they work
together. As a means to facilitate communication and
to shift dynamics, and as an essential skill for life,
making bread has a lot to offer. As part of a new and
sustainable, human-scale food system, it has the power
to transform the way we look after ourselves, each other
and the places we live in.
Putting bread on the table
More and more people are deciding it is time to start
making their own bread. You can bake your own delicious
and nutritious bread for about half the cost of a typical
supermarket loaf, avoiding the additives into the bargain.
If you control what goes into it and when it is baked,
you can enjoy real freshness, not the pappy perma-softness
of shop loaves laced with industrial enzymes that aren’t
declared on the label.
Rediscovering domestic skills like breadmaking means
trading the ‘convenience’ of the ready-made
for the satisfaction of greater self-reliance and a
sense of fulfilment when the bread on the table is our
very own. It is also great fun, as Bread Matters students
often remark. And for some, those home-made loaves may
point the way to a new career in which baking bread
helps to make ends meet.
For beginner or old hand, domestic cook or aspiring
professional, Bread Matters is the place to come to
learn new skills and get to grips with good bread. You
learn by doing, so everyone makes a variety of breads,
feeling the changes as a dough comes together, observing
the crucial part time plays in developing good flavour,
satisfying texture and nutritional integrity. You will
go home with several loaves of your own bread, more
confidence and a greater understanding of the processes
at the heart of breadmaking.
Bread Matters is now based South of Edinburgh, not
far from West Linton and the Pentland Hills. Macbiehill
Farmhouse is powered by renewable energy and, on five
acres under organic conversion, is developing an agro-forestry
project for food, fuel and a more diverse landscape.
A warm welcome, good companionship and lovely surroundings
await you.
New from 2011 is an Intermediate course for home bakers
with some experience who want to move up a gear or perfect
some techniques that have so far eluded (or baffled)
them. This course will also appeal to the many former
Bread Matters students who would simply like to return
for another inspiring weekend in our new Scottish home.
2011 also sees the starte of a course for young people
as they approach the challenge of independent living
in a changing world. Skilling up for Powerdown borrows
its title from the Transition movement and is about
growing, baking, cooking and thriving by doing more
with less.
Bread Matters Fundamental
This is where you start to understand how to make
good bread. No mystifying instructions (like ‘make
a well in the flour’). Nor the small deceits
of ‘one I made earlier’. On this course,
you make bread with your own hands from flour to loaf.
Complete beginners are given a sound introduction,
while those with some experience improve their range
and understand, often for the first time, why things
work the way they do (or sometimes don't). We cover
the five crucial stages of proper breadmaking –
mixing, fermenting, shaping, proving and baking –
by way of basic yeasted and sourdough breads. Then
we move on to other recipes, each demonstrating a
different and delicious way of using the fermentation
process.
After two days you take home everything you have
baked, perhaps a little sourdough to leaven future
breads and, almost certainly, a whole new understanding
of what good bread is and how to make it at home.
All meals are provided, including dinner on the evening
of the first day. Numbers are limited, so everyone
gets good guidance. There is plenty of opportunity
for questions and discussion brings insights into
the wider world of bread and health, often arising
from Andrew’s experience of starting and running
the Village Bakery for over twenty five years. The
surroundings are intimate and yet professional, the
atmosphere purposeful yet relaxed.
In the words of one student, “the knowledge
I have acquired plus the confidence to go on baking
has been invaluable. Plus, it was such fun. I have
come home on ‘cloud nine’”.
 |
 |
Baking for Community
Baking for Community is designed for people who are
already involved in collective baking ventures or
who would like to begin the journey. Reconciling the
long fermentations that are essential to real bread
with the patchwork availability of volunteers and
part-timers is one of the challenges addressed by
the course’s mixture of practical baking and
collaborative planning. We deal with the space and
equipment needed to get a simple baking venture off
the ground and discuss the interplay of commercial
realities such as regulations, costings, margins and
production planning with the ethical aspirations that
lie at the heart of this kind of project.
After three and a half days of baking, listening
and talking, students will take home some shared wisdom,
a clearer idea of how to make community baking a reality,
recipes for real bread to get a project going and
a bag full of their own delicious baking. Participants
will also receive a free copy of the Real Bread Campaign’s
Knead to Know, an invaluable resource book for artisan
and community bakers.
 |
 |
Bread Matters Advanced
Bread Matters Advanced is an opportunity to spend
a week immersed in bread. It appeals to home bakers
with some prior experience, (though enthusiastic novices
are welcome) and it is often a next step for people
who have attended one of the two-day Bread Matters
courses (though this is not a prerequisite). People
planning to bake commercially might prefer the focus
of the Baking for a Living or Baking for Community
courses.
We cover the basic types of dough – yeasted
and sourdough, enriched and laminated – by way
of ‘benchmark’ recipes. Then the real fun
begins, as we tackle techniques and recipes from a
wide variety of baking traditions. Students have time
to pursue their own interests or to perfect a particular
bread with support and guidance from Andrew. By the
end of five days, you’ll have baked upwards of
twenty items in the wood-fired oven and you will take
a new confidence and understanding into all your future
baking.
There is ample scope for conversation and time to
dip into the Bread Matters library and to share baking
and other experiences with fellow students in a relaxed
and friendly atmosphere. We also visit nearby Whitmuir
Organic Farm for tea and a farm walk.
In common with our two-day courses, all daytime meals
are included, as is the cost of an evening meal with
wine on the Tuesday.
 |
 |
Sourdough for All
Sourdough, or natural fermentation, is the way all
bread was made before yeast production was industrialised.
For thousands of years, ordinary people allowed the
yeasts that occur naturally in flour to make their
bread rise. These yeasts took their time, working
in harmony with beneficial bacteria that gave the
dough a certain tang. A piece of dough was kept back
to pass on these active agents to the next day’s
bread.
So the process isn’t difficult. And it’s
great fun watching your ‘leaven’ or ‘sourdough’
work, knowing that all it contains is flour and water.
The process becomes even more intriguing when we learn
from recent research just how many good things happen
in dough fermented by natural yeasts and lactobacilli.
In Sourdough for All you make your own starters (from
wheat, rye and other grains) and may try out the sourdough
distantly descended from a culture that Andrew Whitley
originally found in Russia 21 years ago. We dispel
myths, reassure worried custodians of exotic-looking
ferments, and show how science and craft come together
in an age-old process which everyone can use to make
their own delicious, healthy bread.
 |
 |
Baking for a Living
The rapidly-spreading Transition movement talks of
the need for a ‘great re-skilling’ to equip
the less energy-dependent and therefore more localised
society that beckons us from beyond petroleum. One
of the key resources in any harmonious neighbourhood
is a bakery. Fresh bread within walking distance means,
for one thing, no need for chemically-induced softness
and ‘shelf life’. More importantly, making
bread on a small scale for others to enjoy is good
work that has been undervalued for too long in our
pre-occupation with ‘efficiency’. Happily,
more and more people are, from conviction or necessity,
turning away from corporate careers that offer tempting
financial rewards in return for participation in unsustainable
or inequitable ventures. This growing movement seeks
– and often finds – a deeper satisfaction
in baking real loaves from start to finish for the
health of people and planet.
Baking for a Living could be your first step in this
direction. It is designed for people who want to take
their baking beyond the domestic scale. It is also
suitable for bakers and cooks who already have some
professional experience: they will be attracted by
the chance to extend their understanding and skills
while gaining useful insights into product development,
marketing, costings and organic certification.
No-one is better placed to impart this information
than Andrew Whitley, who started a village bakery
from scratch and ran it for over 25 years. His approach
is realistic about the need for financial resilience
but entirely supportive of anyone who is more interested
in purpose than profit. Spending a few days on Baking
for a Living where you will meet others at various
stages of a similar journey may be the best investment
you could make in your ethical future.
French Breads
There is more to French baking than the all-purpose
‘sticks’ lined up in every sandwich bar.
The late great baker Lionel Poilâne catalogued
81 regional speciality breads on his map La France
des Pains. So there’s no shortage of recipes
for this course.
But, as always, the aim is not so much to reproduce
a given number of breads as to grasp the underlying
differences of ingredients and fermentation method
that account for the diversity of French baking.
You will learn how to make and use a levain, the
spontaneous fermentation of flour and water that is
used in almost all traditional French breads, including
the real baguette à l’ancienne. You will
bake pain de campagne on the sole of the wood-fired
oven and appreciate the way in which French wheat,
with its soft, extensible gluten, lends itself to
open-textured doughs. And you’ll savour the characteristic
additions of walnuts and olives to breads that are
almost meals in themselves.
Italian Baking
The birthplace of the Slow Food movement has things
to teach us about the role of time in good breadmaking
and the distinctive character of regional flours.
This course is an introduction to the varied breads
that can still be found in a country where baking
remains largely regional in character and the work
of artisans not machines.
We examine the most famous (to foreigners, at least)
of Italy’s breads – ciabatta – and
show how its open porous texture depends on successful
handling of very wet dough made with surprisingly
soft flour. And at the other extreme, we enjoy the
wheaty flavour and hearty texture of semolina bread
made from durum wheat such as is grown in the Altamura
region in the south-east.
At the heart of all good Italian bread, of course,
is long fermentation, embodied in the famous biga
or yeasted sponge. The course explains how to make
your own and then develop it to bring flavour, keeping
quality and vitality to all your breads.
Whole Grain Baking
Few people know that all UK flour except wholemeal
must by law be fortified with chalk (calcium carbonate),
iron and two B vitamins to compensate, in a small
way, for the depletion of nutrients brought about
by milling whole wheat into white and light brown
flours.
The outer layers of cereal grains contain most of
the broad range of micronutrients that humans need,
yet we still give most of them to animals, keeping
the less nutritious white stuff for ourselves. If
we want to avoid the compulsory adulteration of our
flour with synthetic additives whose effectiveness
is doubtful, we should choose unrefined flour. Hardly
a month goes by without new research showing the considerable
benefits of a whole-grain diet. So what is stopping
us?
The problem with baking with whole grains (this term
is mainly used to denote ‘wholemeal’ flours,
rather than the unmilled grains themselves, though
these can be used to make some superb breads) is making
sure that nutritious also means delicious, especially
for the less adventurous members of the family. Fortunately,
Andrew Whitley has considerable experience in achieving
this balance, having started baking for a living over
thirty years ago using only wholemeal flour stoneground
from English wheat.
Whatever your experience or skills, if you want to
learn how to make everyday breads that bring out the
best in both you and your ingredients, Whole Grain
Baking is for you.
You will make a similar range of breads to those
featured on the Fundamental course, with the emphasis
on managing the distinctive properties of wholemeal
flours.
 |
 |
Bread Matters Intermediate
You have done some baking and while you wouldn’t
call yourself an expert you can turn out a passable
loaf. You tend to make the same loaf most of the time.
You’ve tried sourdough and it hasn’t always
seemed worth the effort. Adding interesting extras
like nuts and seeds into your breads doesn’t
seem that hard, but managing soft doughs, shaping
a consistently good-looking roll or loaf, getting
the cuts right on a baguette – these sorts of
thing sometimes trip you up.
If you recognise some or all of this picture, Bread
Matters Intermediate may be for you. It builds on
the Fundamental course and goes into more detail,
offering a chance to deepen your understanding of
a range of bread methods and to hone the practical
skills that produce excellent results every time.
We are running this course also in response to the
many Bread Matters students who enjoy Fundamental
so much that they want to come back for more. Our
current record returner has been five times and makes
no apology for valuing the break, the companionship
and the tuition equally. So if you would like to come
again, or if you are intrigued to see what we are
making of Macbiehill compared to Melmerby, doing the
Intermediate course may offer just the right balance
of familiarity and progress.
 |
 |
Skilling up for Powerdown
Bread Matters receives a lot of requests to provide
training for younger people. We have devised this
original, residential course with a broader focus
on sustainability and a varied mix of activities.
As well as learning some great skills that will last
a lifetime, course members will learn more about how
our energy use and way of life affect other people
and our environment and how they can become part of
the solution.
Some of the things you will do:
- Learn
how to grow your own grain, mill flour, and use
the wood-fired brick oven to bake fantastic naturally
fermented bread that nourishes and impresses
-
Build an outdoor clay oven for baking and cooking
-
Grow, make and share local, seasonal, organic food
-
Prepare a final feast from what is near to hand
and understand about making a little go a long way
-
See renewable energy systems in action and construct
a solar dryer
-
From the clothes you wear to the gifts you give,
recycle, remake and re-use creatively
-
Figure out how to throw off those supermarket chains
– and begin to make a difference.
The course is led by Andrew Whitley and Veronica
Burke of Bread Matters, with contributions from organic
farmers Pete Ritchie and Heather Anderson of Whitmuir
Farm and others.
Who should come?
SUFP is suitable for young people aged 17 - 24 and
will appeal to those doing their Duke of Edinburgh’s
Gold Award Residential.
Why bother?
Because we know that happiness doesn’t come from
just consuming more stuff. Because real skills make
you more independent. And because young people think
they can change the world, and they’re right.
Baking without Gluten or Wheat
More people seem to have difficulty digesting wheat
and gluten these days. Experts talk of the ‘iceberg’
of gluten intolerance, with coeliacs at the top and
a wider group below with varying negative reactions
to either wheat or gluten or both.
Quite why staple foods such as bread are increasingly
off-limits for some people is a puzzle, but evidence
is accumulating that some dietary sensitivities can
be triggered by inappropriately processed foods. Long
fermentation has been shown to neutralise the proteins
in wheat that are most problematic for coeliacs and
others who are intolerant to wheat.
The trouble is that many of the ‘free-from’
products available in the shops are both premium-priced
and anything but free from strange additives. Many
people have concluded that it may be safer, and cheaper,
to bake your own.
Avoiding wheat or gluten shouldn’t mean abandoning
sound nutrition, even if it is sometimes hard to make
things exactly the same as their ‘normal’
counterparts. So this course is guided by the key
Bread Matters principle: to combine naturally occurring,
organically grown ingredients into products that are
good to eat.
We will make some gluten-free and some wheat-free
breads, yeasted and naturally leavened, as well as
pizzas and pastry, balancing sweet and savoury and
always remembering that the aim is to make things
that all the family will enjoy, whatever their dietary
requirements.
 |
 |
| |
|
|
|
|
|
Where it all happens
Bread Matters courses are held at Macbiehill Farmhouse,
Lamancha, West Linton in the Scottish Borders. Set
in five acres of land in conversion to organic status,
with wonderful views up the valley to the Broughton
Hills, the former farm steading has been extended
to provide spacious teaching facilities complete with
a wood-fired brick oven and professional baking equipment.
Macbiehill lies just off the A701 near Lamancha,
about 17 miles South of Edinburgh. Trains from London
Kings Cross take under 4½ hours to Edinburgh
Waverley on the East Coast line and around 5 hours
on the West Coast line from Euston. We offer a free
collection service from Edinburgh station the evening
before each course and during each course we can ferry
you to and from your local B&B accommodation.
The Local Area
Macbiehill is in a wonderful location – tucked
away in rolling hills yet barely forty minutes from
the centre of Edinburgh. There is great walking through
tranquil countryside and the nearby Pentland Hills,
friendly towns and villages to explore, the River
Tweed and the textile and knitwear industries, not
to mention castles, abbeys and museums that reflect
the area’s turbulent history.
Half a mile away is Whitmuir Organic Farm whose new
restaurant and farm shop are both a destination in
themselves and an inspiring harbinger of how Scotland
can feed itself responsibly in a changing world.
Timings and Meals
The courses begin at 10.00am on the first day and
usually end at 4.00pm on the last day.
Veronica Burke (Andrew’s wife) provides all
the meals using organic and local ingredients, some
grown on the Macbiehill smallholding which is under
organic conversion, with much of the remainder coming
from nearby Whitmuir Organic Farm. Coffee, lunch and
tea punctuate baking sessions and as the course progresses
we sample the products we have made fresh from the
wood-fired oven.
We provide an evening meal on the first day of each
course (Tuesday on the Advanced). Partners not attending
the course are welcome to come to this meal (at extra
cost).
Accommodation
Accommodation is not included in the course cost.
On receipt of a booking fee or deposit, we supply
details of local hotels, bed & breakfasts and
self-catering accommodation.
|
