River Cottage Bread Class

our classroom

Aidan Chapman from nearby Weymouth and owner/baker of The Phoenix Bakery taught our bread class.  I really liked him, he had a lot of energy, a true passion for making different breads, and had a love for American chefs. 

Aidan started by explaining how to make a starter culture for sourdough breads.  That was pretty complicated.  I think I'll make that one last when I start making them at home.

bucket to his left is his personal stash of sourdough culture

this is where he was screaming "Put a lot of energy in your bread"

after a lot of work you get this beautiful thing of Sourdough

Next Up: Flatbreads!

Yum! And so easy!

Next: Pizza Dough and outside pizza oven!

Pizza Dough

Pizza Oven and Set up

Cooking away

My masterpiece

My pizza. Yes, that is an egg and it was DELICIOUS!

Next Up: Foccacia!

Now I know where all those dents come from. FINGERS!

Making various kinds...Didn't really care for caramelized onion version...

Finished Products!

Next Up: Malt Star (Brown Bread) and learning shapes:

Ena and her Malt Star

That dough is really rising. Pretty cool. We did that.

Mine and Ena's are the ones closest to the words in this caption. Hers are the closest and mine are the ones behind hers. The straigh braid and the ziggy swirl stick thing.

Cooked. Beautiful and ready to eat!

Next Up: Ciabatta! This one was SOOO much fun to make:

Before

After

They had a beautiful garden that I checked out during a break:

part of the garden

strawberries. I picked and ate 3. Shame on me! They were so good.

Capers! I'd never seen them in the plant state before. Cool! I picked and ate one.

Artichoke

Hops. For making beer...

I forget what she said this was. Carda...something?

River Cottage Farm House:

shot of the Farmhouse by the garden

View from the garden is so pretty that it doesn't look real

Drumroll please.... You didn't think I'd go to a farm in the middle of nowhere England and not find a goat did you? Heck No!

Next Up: GOATS!

Chocolate

Vanilla

Am I glad we went? Yes!
Would we stay at Trill Farm again? Maybe, but I doubt Romy would want us to. Would probably stay at one of the cute places that we saw in Lyme Regis.
Would I do another class at River Cottage Farm? Yes. The staff there are so nice.
Were we the only Americans? Yes. In fact, the only ones that weren't British.
Being the only Americans how were we treated? For the most part no different. However, a few ladies said some things that weren't very nice. In fact, the mother of a young boy was the most inappropriate which I found to be a shame.

On the taxi ride back to the station the driver over charged us and we wanted to punch him in the face.

Then took his advice and caught the 6pm train when we really had 7pm tickets.  Long story short don't ever do that! We ran into a lady train guard by the name of Linda H. who basically wished she wasn't who she is and took it out on us.  After a lot of calm debating on our side and a lot of screaming/trying to scare us on her side we ended up not being arrested, but instead paying more money and being forced to get off that train and waiting for our correct train in Salisbury.

So if you ever take the Southwest Trainsfrom London Waterloo to Axminster and back and run into Linda H. (doesn't like to wear her name badge) working, you'll know who I'm talking about because she's one of the most unhappy women that I have ever met...Feel free to tell her that she must be an unhappy person because I sure did. I hope she gets fired. She's mean and should not be working with the public.  She's better suited for a mortuary.

Alright, so that finally wrapped up our Bread On The Coast trip. Overall, I had a great time and am so glad Ena joined me on the adventure along the Jurassic Coast.

Cheers,
WMMc