We drove over to Oundle today where a food festival was being held. What a lovely market town. The centre looks very like Stamford with the houses built out of local quarried stone, but it's not so big or busy as Stamford. The only problem was it took us half an hour to work out how to get into the town because the bridge in had been sealed off for building works. As a result, the traffic diversion was circuitous and it took ages to work out where we needed to break the circle.
Dan Lepard was holding a workshop in bread baking and we arrived at the venue about ten minutes late. Fortunately, the organisers had realised that there were traffic problems so they had delayed the start by ten minutes
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Bearing in mind that classes with Dan can cost £230, we thought the £12.50 it cost for this workshop was excellent value. He explained and demonstrated the whole baking process very thoroughly, not only covering bread made with yeast but also sourdough bread which does not have added yeast. It was great to pick up a few tips and wrinkles from such a knowledgeable baker. His Lordship had made his first ever attempt at sourdough bread yesterday and although it had been edible, it hadn't been a great success. Watching Dan go through the process helped identify where he'd gone wrong (forgetting to add salt). At the end of the demonstration Dan took questions which he answered in great detail and with enthusiasm. He's clearly a man with a passion for dough. Oh, and everyone was given two free bags of Shipton Mill white bread flour plus two sachets of dried yeast.
What's my sourdough bread like? Well, I reckon it's much tastier than supermarket stuff made by the Chorleywood method using grain which would otherwise be sent for animal fodder and which is filled with so much yeast and preservatives that it gets a full rise within seventeen minutes:
