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A few weeks ago I taught a sourdough workshop for beginners at the Hope Community Centre in Coventry. It was organised by COGS of Coventry’s Rachel Ward and we were fed a glorious lunch made by Lucy Radford.
Although I’ve taught a lot in the last forty years (tennis, dance, choreography, video making, research methods (!), etc) I’ve never taught anyone how to ferment and make sourdough bread.
It brought me such pleasure to work with the group, to listen to their questions, to notice the trickier parts of the process for them, to share ideas and uncertainties, and most of all, to see the bread they’ve made in the time since as we’ve shared experiences via a WhatsApp group.
Here are some photos of their post-workshop baking (posted here with their permission):
They are amazing!
Here’s what participants said:
I had tried to make sourdough before but most of my attempts would fail. After doing Simon’s course, I have a much stronger sense of what is happening at each stage of the process, which lets me adapt to changing conditions without compromising the result. It has made bread making much more exciting to me, because now I always get a decent loaf and if things don’t turn out perfectly I have a good intuition of what I need to change for next time. So far all breads have come out delicious!
The day flew by: great company, good food and tons of education, all laid out in an easily digestible way allowing us to make extremely digestible delicious bread. I cannot wait for a follow up day to go through inclusions. Simon is a great teacher — highly recommend.
Rachel is organising another couple of workshops for beginners. The next will be from 09:00-15:30 on Sunday 3 March 2024 at the Hope Community Centre and I believe there is still a place available (the space only fits 8 participants). Then there will be a third workshop on Sunday 14 April, 09:00-15:30. The workshop costs £50 and what you get is:
If you want to book a place send Rachel an email at cogscoventry@gmail.com.
