A Sourdough Workshop is where we consolidate the learning from the online part of your course.
The Advanced Diploma includes a 5 day workshop at the Sourdough School in Northamptonshire.
The Advanced Diploma is a combination of 3 Modules
- The Bake for Health Certificate – 1 year (online)
- The Impact Of Bread on the Body and Mind (online)
- A Workshop at The Sourdough School In Person (5 days)
The Workshops
In many ways, the workshops are more intimate and relaxed than a traditional course. It is about slowing down and taking time to explore together. It is about the application of knowledge – not just about how to make sourdough, but also about how we practically apply the incredible findings from studies in and around the science of fermentation and the gut microbiome.
When we asked ourselves what our courses are about we came up with a few key things. The first thing is that our courses are really about a feeling. It is about making a difference. So being a student here is about being part of The Sourdough School; it is about becoming part of a movement. At our core, we believe that translating research, and applying our knowledge to recipes and empowering you to share this knowledge with your patients, customers and clients is our purpose.
This is what I call a ‘beautiful disruption that encourages people all around the world to connect to the soil, the farmer and the miller, and to bake bread that nourishes. Learning to make sourdough and sharing this knowledge, is the best way to change the paradigm of bread, from a food that makes people sick to a food that nourishes.’
Before you attend The Sourdough School
You will need to pay for the course as you apply. Vanessa will then arrange to chat with you. It is informal but this is to check that your expectations are in line with the way we teach and that you have chosen the appropriate course for what you want to learn.
Teaching style on our workshops
It is important to understand our teaching style at the school. We are relaxed and demonstrate sourdough and working with one mixer, we make larger batches of dough, rather than each of our students individually making bread. You will be involved in every aspect of mixing, shaping and proving sourdough, through to the bake. This enables us to slow down and connect to the process, and understand each step fully and will look at the details that really make the difference.
- We spend time outside to connecting to the soil. Gathering botanicals and creating a Botanical Blend flour using grains. We work with wholegrain heritage grains and sprouted grain flours, and milling these to make fresh flour with lower gluten,
- We’ll use grains such as barley or rye, and poppy seeds, sunflower seeds, pumpkins or beetroot.
- We’ll then optimally ferment the dough to reduce its gluten load, predigesting the dough and increasing the nutrients.
- We’ll be creating symbiotic accompaniments to eat with the bread, such as pickles, ferments, cultured butter or cheese
- You will learn how to optimise gut health by fermenting live (probiotic) foods, such as pickles, compotes and cultured butter, using seasonal produce, fresh from our organic gardens or from the farmers’ market
These workshops are an opportunity to slow down and completely immerse yourself in a world of sourdough, fermentation and the gut microbiome, applying the knowledge from the studies to the food we create.
You’ll learn that every aspect of the bread we eat – from the way the grain is grown and the fermentation process, to how we eat our bread, and what we eat it with – impacts on both our physical and mental health. You’ll become connected to the incredible microbial world in which we live.
What will you learn?
This is the opportunity to consolidate your learning.
- How to blend and milling Botanical Blend flour by blending grains, herbs, flowers and botanicals to mill fresh flour as the base for each recipe, and how to increase the prebiotic value of your bread to nourish your microbes
- Starter refreshment and how microbes and yeasts interact.
- Understanding every step of making a 10-minute sourdough tin loaf
- How to make a retarded boule, as well as mixing, shaping, scoring and baking sourdough
- All about mixing and kneading techniques
- Timings, temperatures a familiarisation of the variables affecting fermentation
- About fibre, protein & gluten in the flour
- Why diversity is key to gut health
- About the gut microbiome and why the kind of bread you eat matters
- How to make an 10 minute fermented sourdough cake
- How to recognise the point at which the bread is proved
- Understand probiotics and how to use strain specific ones to optimise gut health as remake A probiotic cultured butter
- Why sourdough is particularly nutritious and digestible
- Learn how to make a vegetable or fruit probiotic pickles such as kimchi or sauerkraut
- How fruit compote can increase specific foods to beneficial microbes in your gut- and we will make a fruit compote
- Learn how to eat symbiotically – enjoying some of Vanessa’s recipes for lunch as she applies the 7 course principles
- Gaining a deep insight into sourdough and see in person the extensive wealth of knowledge on bread and the gut that we apply to not just the way we make the bread, but our approach to flour and the way we eat bread
- have full access to our extensive collection of the most up-to-date research on the gut microbiome, and be free to browse any of the 1,000+ books in our sourdough library, which includes historical texts on bread dating as far back the 16th century
- Understand more about how we collaborate with the scientists and food producers that work alongside the School
- Be given one of our renowned sourdough starters from our collection to take home with you
- Spend time outside with our amazing gardener and botanist Anna, and enjoy the beautiful surrounding countryside each morning and enjoy some fresh air every day
- Embark on a unique and innovative voyage into the world of sourdough and the gut microbiome, learning how to make changes to your own diet and lifestyle for the better.
- Gut microbiome testing
If you would like to test your own gut microbiome at any point before or after the course, you can do so here.
Which research will we use?
We have already have identified key papers around sourdough and gut health as part of your online module. You are welcome to bring some of your own research, but in the meantime, you can browse our extensive research database here.
Will I be tested?
Yes. At the end of the week you are asked to do an open test. This is marked as a group and this is to ensure that you have understood all the principles of sourdough taught on the week here. We will mark it together in a group exercise as a means of reinforcing the key principles of making great sourdough, but we will send you the questions before you arrive so you can make sure you are familiar with the test.
Will I get a certificate?
Yes. You will get a Sourdough School Advanced Diploma Certificate.
Limited spaces
Spaces are very limited. Please note that there may be instances where we feel that a particular workshop subject is not suitable. However, to speak to Vanessa about booking a workshop, please email bookings@sourdough.co.uk.
All of our information for attendees can be found here. Please read our Terms and Conditions before you book.
Vanessa
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