It was another dream Sunday. Sweating it out in a sweet, little, local bakery, learning the secrets behind making the perfect loaf of sourdough bread. Sarah and Meredith, the owners and bakers of Community Loaves, generously shared their bread making knowledge with ten hungry amateur bakers. It took all day, and I would have happily stayed another. We learnt how to combine, feed, fold, stretch, autolyse, knead, proof, shape, slash, and bake our bread. We learnt about yeast, gluten and bread math (not at all my finest talent) and most importantly, we were given and taught how to take care of our very special, very own pets - our starter. There were spelt tarts with hand picked blueberries and candied orange peel for morning tea and a long table lunch in the back garden where we feasted on fresh salad, vegetable quiche, warm bread and iced tea. The entire day was a delight. We all left with our freshly baked loaf of bread, a lovely big bag of organic flour, our jar of starter and a great big raring urge to go home and retry all of the lessons that we had learnt from the day.

If you know me and are lucky enough, then maybe one day I will share my pet, the starter with you. If you are also lucky, I may just share with you some of the secrets learnt from the workshop, so that you too can have a crack at making your own perfect loaf of traditional sourdough bread. Watch this space...