I love to cook, and I love to spend time in my kitchen just playing with different ingredients and seeing what happens. But I have never got into baking. I think it’s probably because you have to be exact with your measurments or it can go very wrong, then you have to put your creation in the oven and not touch it until it’s done. My kind of cooking is throw a bit of this in and add a bit of that and just always taste as you go. Once I’ve got a recipe nailed I share it with you guys. But you can’t do that with baking. I really want to learn more about it and when I was invited to take part in an evening of baking and learning about gluten in baking at Bake With Maria I was intrigued to find out more.
Bake with Maria was founded by keen baker Maria Mayerhofer. The company started out in Maria’s own kitchen where she taught groups of people how to make their own bread at home. In 2011 Maria opened The Baking Lab where everything that is taught can be replicated at home without fancy ovens or endless pieces of baking equipment.
The evening was focused on being Gluten Savvy. The bread we were baking wasn’t gluten free and as I learnt during the workshop, gluten may not be the devil. We were also joined by Tom from Shipton Mill and baker Emmanuel Hadjiandreou, the author of How to Make Bread.
What I learnt…
– The typical sliced loaf that you pick up from your local supermarket that is pre-sliced and ‘perfect’ looking are proved for only about 40 minutes and baked in 20. Every loaf looks the same, and has to be produced in high quantities quickly. What that means is that gluten proteins don’t have time to break down as they would in a bread made by traditional methods and that makes it harder to digest.
– The importance of the flour you use and all the differences between grains from all over the world. Quite naively, I didn’t realise how much there was to learn and that you can’t replant the grain, so once that crop is exhausted, you will never have the same grain again. The vast variety of flour and how it affects the baking process. You really have to be in tune with your environment and ingredients.
– Milling flour was one of the first forms of food processing. Wholemeal flour actually costs less to produce but sells for more. There is more waste from producing white flour but all the different waste can be sold off for use in other things.
– Gluten sensitivity appears to be on the rise, especially if the current boom in gluten-free everything is anything to go by. Celiac disease is very different and I am not referring to that here. If you look at how many ingredients there are in a typical sliced loaf from your supermarket, there will probably be about 20. There should be 4 (flour, water, yeast, salt)! But gluten free products are no better – a gluten free, sliced loaf off the shelves has almost as many. Think of what those other additives are and what they are doing to your body.
– The long fermentation process in baking soda bread makes it more nutritious – In the long slow fermentation that produces sourdough bread, important nutrients such as iron, zinc and magnesium, antioxidants, folic acid and other B vitamins become easier for our bodies to absorb.
– That baking bread at home can be easily learnt and is really fun!
The rye bread recipe we made on the night proves overnight and bakes in about 25 minutes. This recipe needs no kneading and so is perfect for baking at home – make it whilst your dinner is cooking, leave it overnight and then bake when you get up. By the time you’re showered and dressed you have freshly baked bread!
We were shown how to roll the perfect baguette, something which I managed to do quite well! I enjoyed this the next morning with my brothers homemade marmalade and a cup of tea, whilst my rye rolls were baking!
Before my wedding last year I went on a healthy eating kick, obviously wanted to look my best on the day! I cut out all bread, cakes, pasta and just tried to cook things from scratch. Rather quickly I was a lot less bloated and I was convinced it was because I cut out the bread. But actually, when I eat freshly baked bread, like on the course, I don’t get a stomach ache and I don’t get bloated. I wander if people realise it’s eating highly processed food with an unbelievable amount of additives that might be causing discomfort and bloating. Remember bread should have 4 ingredients… All that other crap in there is whats making you bloat. Yes, cut out those foods I mentioned above and you’ll notice a difference. But that’s because you are probably eating more real food. Bread is not the devil, and not much beats the smell of freshly baked bread, does it?
At the end of the night we took home our freshly baked baguettes and rye dough. I baked the rolls in the morning – it was so easy to spoon it out on a tray and bake. I think they came out pretty well! Definitely going to be baking this again very soon.
Eat with good quality, fresh ingredients and you will beat the bloat. You just need to be gluten savvy.
I had a great evening learning about bread baking; Maria, Em and Tom were all so enthusiastic about what they do. It has left me wanting to learn more and start to bake more at home. If you want to learn more you can join Maria for a range of interesting classes. From novice to frequent baker, anyone can take part.
I was a guest of Bake with Maria but as always, all opinions are my own.