A Master Class in Bread Baking at PAUL Patisserie

Bread seems to be coming into my life a lot lately. Firstly I attended a Sourdough bread making class at the beginning of January and now a French bread making class in London at the renowned Bakery and Patisserie PAUL.  The bread making masterclass was held at their Bankside shop although if you check out their website you will find all the other London locations.

The trains were having problems with signalling because of the floods in the Farringdon tunnel which meant I was about 10 minutes late for the class but I was welcomed and allowed to catch up with the others.

Our Baker for the evening was Felixe who knows bread baking inside and out. He explained the processes to us, showed us procedures and then let us have a go at the dough we had started.

Because the dough we were making would not be advanced enough to bake during the class we set this aside and worked on some dough already made (in the ‘Here’s one I made earlier’ category!)

We kneaded, shaped, rolled and rested our little loaves under Felixe’s expert eye putting them inside the specially shaped baskets for their final proving.

When the dough was ready we were shown how to put it on the paddle, score it and put it into the ovens, even pressing the button for an injection of steam, very important to the bread making process.

Whilst the dough baked itself into bread we went upstairs to their balcony seating area for a veritable PAUL feast! Salami, sliced meats, cheeses, pesto, roasted peppers and much more (are you drooling yet?) were waiting for us as well as the PAUL house red wine which I absolutely adore.

When we finished eating we went downstairs and our own dough had been wrapped up to take home to bake that evening or put in the freezer for another time.  I want to use mine when the little people visit and get them to roll their own bread rolls.

And of course the loaves that we had put in the ovens ourselves were ready, warm and inviting and were intended for us to take them home.  I loved sitting on my train home with the smell of warm dough all around me!

PAUL host their French Bread Masterclasses on a Tuesday evening every other week at Bankside and every other week at Covent Garden – there is no excuse not to attend one!

The photos from the night were taken by the lovely Marco who was helping Felixe and who took everyone’s camera and made sure he photographed everyone have a trial at doing each stage.  Many thanks Marco and to Felixe as well for an enjoyable and educational evening.

I was a guest of PAUL-UK and usual all opinions are my own.