. . . hands-on baking courses for amateurs and professionals

It is time to take bread into our own hands. Not just because the modern industrial loaf is sad, soggy, nutritionally depleted and adulterated with hidden additives, but because making bread is one of the most satisfying things you can do. More and more people are discovering a simple but profound fulfillment in turning flour, water, yeast and salt into nourishing food, at the same time bringing a little stillness to their busy lives.

Breadmaking is easy, if you give it time.

Showing how to do it and explaining why dough works as it does is the calling of organic pioneer and artisan baker Andrew Whitley. His hands-on courses introduce beginners, enthusiasts and culinary professionals alike to the fundamentals of fermentation on which all good bread depends. He is convinced that making good bread is everyone's privilege. His knowledge and skill help banish the fear of failure which blights many people's attempts at bread.

Andrew's abiding concern is to tell others why good bread is vital to the health of people and the planet and to show them how to make it with their own hands.

What better place to do this than Melmerby in the unspoilt Eden Valley near the English Lake District? With stimulating company, good food in the Village Bakery Organic Restaurant and an atmosphere at once purposeful and relaxed, it all adds up to what one student called 'a life-enhancing experience'.

Thirty years ago Andrew left London, and a career as a BBC Russian Service producer, for a life of greater self-reliance in the hills of Cumbria, equipped with little more than a conviction that bread matters. He started to grow food on five organic acres in a small village at the foot of the Pennines and converted the stone barn next to his house into a bakery and teashop. 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 (for that is what it had become) 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 five hundred 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. The BBC Radio 4 Food programme's founder-presenter Derek Cooper once called Andrew "one of the most uncompromising bakers in Britain", identifying him as one of the leaders in a revival of artisan baking which has bucked the trend towards additive enriched uniformity in British breadmaking. A committed advocate of organic food production, Andrew put theory to work in the daily production of thousands of loaves and cakes, made with the simple conviction that health abounds in natural ingredients transformed with time, care and a little humility.

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 to concentrate on Bread Matters from his home a few yards down the road from the Melmerby bakery.

All courses are led by Andrew and are fully 'hands-on'. In addition to a folder of detailed notes and recipes, students get plenty of individual help with the products they are making. Having stepped down from active involvement in The Village Bakery at the end of 2002, as well as running the courses, Andrew writes, chairs the Soil Association Processing Standards Committee and campaigns for better food and health - all under the mantle of a new company whose name, he hopes, says it all:

. . . Bread Matters

Bread Matters Fundamental

This is the basic Bread Matters course which is suitable for everyone, whatever their experience.
Like all the courses, it is completely 'hands-on'. By making several different loaves from start to finish students learn and understand what is really happening when flour, water, salt and yeast are mixed together. Complete beginners are given a sound introduction, while those with more experience improve their range and understand - often for the first time - why things work the way they do (or sometimes don't). Everyone makes 'benchmark' loaves, yeasted and naturally fermented, in which the five crucial stages of proper breadmaking are experienced and analysed: mixing, fermenting, moulding, proving and baking. Then students move on to other recipes, each demonstrating a different and delicious way of using the fermentation process.

After two days of fully hands-on baking, students take home everything they have baked plus a folder full of notes and recipes. All meals are provided in the Organic Restaurant, including dinner on the evening of the first day and breakfast on the second.

The atmosphere is friendly and cooperative and so relaxed that people hardly realise how much they are learning. It is an exhilarating mixture of physical activity and thought-provoking ideas. At suitable moments, Andrew Whitley tells how he came to start The Village Bakery, and reflects on the rough road from earnest artisan to supermarket supplier.

Conversation tends to range widely, taking in nutrition, organics, dietary sensitivities and food politics. Above all, it is fun.

Italian Baking

Ninety per cent of Italian bread is made by small craft bakers (compared to six per cent in Britain) and the country is blessed with a genuinely regional food culture.

As an alternative to British baking (with its preference for square slices and regular rolls) this course teaches you how to handle the soft, stretchy doughs that produce the chewy, open textures of breads like Ligurian focaccia, Altamura semolina bread, and Tuscan schiacciata. You will make and use a biga or overnight sponge in which bread is made with a little yeast and a lot of time, as befits the birthplace of the slow food movement.

Gluten-Free Baking

Hardly a month goes by without the launch of a new 'free-from' range in the supermarkets. But many consumers are deterred, as much by the high prices as by the strange additives that seem so inappropriate in foods aimed at people already struggling with dietary sensitivities.

To want or need a gluten-free diet shouldn't mean abandoning sound nutrition, even if it is sometimes hard to make things exactly the same as their 'normal' counterparts. So home baking is often the only answer and this course is guided by the key Bread Matters principle - to combine naturally occurring, organically grown ingredients into products which are good to eat, in the full meaning of those words.

We make gluten-free bread, yeasted and naturally leavened, as well as cakes, biscuits, pizzas and pastries, balancing sweet and savoury and always remembering that the aim is to make things that all the family will enjoy, whatever their dietary requirements.

North European Baking

From Russia to Scandinavia via the Baltic comes a tradition of baking that reflects harsh climates and poor soils. Many people in Northern Europe still prefer the robust flavours of long-fermented rye breads accompanied by a healthy diet of wild mushrooms and berries. There's a feeling in these parts that bread still matters. In Russia, for instance, the words khlyeb-sol' (bread-salt) are synonymous with 'hospitality'.

Before starting the Village Bakery, Andrew Whitley studied in Russia and worked in the BBC Russian service. In this course you can learn from his considerable knowledge of sourdoughs and share recipes for breads, pastries and cakes from various parts of Northern Europe.

Baking for a Living

In the two years since it was first offered, Baking for a Living has been considerably oversubscribed. There's definitely something in the air: more and more people are seeking a more meaningful, perhaps less stressful, life - and artisan baking is an attractive option.

Baking for a Living is designed for anyone considering (or already taking the first steps in) baking bread for sale and for people thinking of making this in some way part of a changed life. As well as baking key recipes that can form the basis of a whole repertoire of products, you'll learn a wealth of detail about the practicalities of small-scale baking, the realities of organic production and the politics of food.

No-one is better placed to impart this information than Andrew Whitley, who started a village bakery from scratch and ran it for over twenty-five years. You will get advice that's sympathetic but unsentimental, economically realistic yet passionately supportive of anyone seeking health and meaning in a life informed by aspirations nobler than the mere pursuit of profit.

Sourdough for All

There are many reasons for making bread with sourdoughs or leavens - flavour, texture, avoidance of bakers' yeast, not to mention the superior digestibility and nutritional quality of these doughs. But for many people, it is sheer fascination with the fermentation process that leads them along this endless path.

Unfortunately, the literature on sourdough baking often makes it sound like alchemy, complete with a priesthood, strange language and interminable rituals. It doesn't have to be like this!

In Sourdough for All, we show how easy it can be to create and use a natural fermentation. Students make their own starters (from wheat, rye and other grains) and may try out the sourdough that Andrew Whitley originally brought from a bakery in Russia 16 years ago. We dispel myths, reject mystification and show how science and craft come together in an age-old process which anyone can use to make their own delicious, healthy bread.

Bread Matters Masterclass

Designed for bakers with some experience (although virtual novices have also participated to great effect) the Masterclass is an opportunity to examine in more depth the fundamentals of good baking.

The basic ingredients and processes are covered by way of benchmark loaves and there is time to make recipes more than once in order to identify and correct imperfections. Recipes from a wide variety of baking traditions will be tackled, with scope for students to pursue their own interests. An in-depth (and friendly) critique of students' work will lead to understanding and improvement.

The course is suitable for both enthusiastic amateurs and food professionals who wish to perfect their skills while finding out more about organics, natural fermentations and good baking in wood-fired ovens.

Comprehensive notes and recipes are provided. An afternoon visit to the nearby Watermill (source of the Village Bakery's flour for the first decade or so) is provided and there is some free time to explore the fells or lakes.

An optional 'business' session imparts valuable insights into the economics of small-scale baking and the marketing of organic food. There is scope for conversation, time to dip into the Bread Matters library of baking books and to share baking (and other) experiences with fellow students in a relaxed and friendly atmosphere.

As with our two-day courses, all daytime meals are included, as is the cost of one evening meal with wine in the Village Bakery Organic Restaurant.

Venue

Courses are held at The Village Bakery, Melmerby, Penrith, Cumbria, England - located between Penrith and Alston on the A686 road and 9 miles North East of Junction 40 of the M6 Motorway. There are train stations at Penrith (West Coast line) and Langwathby (Settle-Carlisle line). There is a taxi rank at Penrith station. Bread Matters can collect you from Langwathby station which is 4 miles from the bakery. The nearest airports are Newcastle (75 minutes) and Manchester (2 hours).

Accommodation

Accommodation is not included in the course cost. On receipt of a booking fee or deposit , Bread Matters supply details of local hotels and bed & breakfasts.

Meals

Coffee, lunch and tea (with breakfast on the second day of the two day courses) punctuate sessions in the bakery. As the course progresses, you will sample the products you have made fresh from the wood-fired oven. On the first day of a two-day course (the Wednesday of a five-day course) an evening meal with wine is included in the course cost and is a chance to experience superb organic food and drink in the Village Bakery Restaurant. Partners not attending the course are welcome to come to this meal (at extra cost).

This Other Eden

Melmerby, the Eden Valley and the North Pennines offer wonderful opportunities for visitors and Bread Matters has scheduled most of its courses around weekends with this in mind. Bread Matters provides local tourist information when acknowledging receipt of a course booking.