The Sourdough School Courses and Sourdough Club

My friend Vanessa Kimbell was a food writer and blogger when I first met her. Following visits to Uganda, Grenada and India Vanessa has changed the way she reacts to the world around that we live in and the world we want to leave to our children.

After working in a French bakery during summer holidays as a young girl and later on as a mother, Vanessa has been involved with sourdough bread making for over thirty years and along with a long list of other credentials Vanessa has gained a lot of knowledge of sourdough baking.

To spread the sourdough word and impart some of that knowledge Vanessa runs sourdough courses from her beautiful Victoria home in a North Northamptonshire village. Learn more about Vanessa's love of sourdough and get further information about the courses.

I was invited to attend one of Vanessa's Introduction to Sourdough courses. I am a sourdough beginner, having tried a starter but killed it a couple of years ago.  The amount of knowledge I came home with and my head was still spinning into my dreams!

I arrived at Vanessa's beautiful home just in time for the course and to meet the other participants. Whilst we were getting the introduction we had coffee/tea and sourdough rolls with homemade cherry jam! Beautiful.

We went on to learn the intricacies of making sourdough to use for bread, pizzas, muffins, pancakes and the list goes on.  Vanessa is very insistent on missing out unnecessary steps and to make the process as easy and foolproof as possible.

There was loads of time to ask all sorts of questions and we even tried to think of one that Vanessa wouldn't have the answer to but to no avail!

When we got our leven to the stage where you leave it and take a 'glass of wine' break Vanessa's father (Bill Hulme) popped in with some of the wine he grows on his local vineyard in the village of Brixworth and turns into award winning wines.  If you want to know more you can visit and have a tour or just contact him to order.

Following our little wine break we learned the techniques for shaping and rolling the dough.

We carried on getting the dough ready to make pizza for our lunch.

Sourdough makes a fantastic pizza and is quick and easy to roll our and cover in your favourite toppings.

After feasting on our pizzas and finishing our lessons Vanessa took one of the loaves out of the oven from the dough she had prepared earlier.  Beautiful round loaf of sourdough bread.

The huge difference in learning about sourdough at The Sourdough School and other cookery schools is that once you have finished your course you don't just go home never to be contacted again but you become a member of Vanessa's Sourdough Club, a members only web site where you can access all the information you learned on the course plus a plethora of recipes and a monthly sourdough recipe challenge.

I love having all the correct gear when I start a new project and all of the items Vanessa uses on her courses can be found at Bakery Bits, a one-stop place to get everything for the serious artisan baker.

I drove home, down the M1, thinking about all of the things I could make with the sourdough starter we were sent home with!

You can give someone a gift certificate to attend one of Vanessa's sourdough courses and they will learn a skill for life.

I was a guest of Vanessa Kinball's Sourdough club and was not paid to write a positive review and as usual all opinions and photos are my own.

Yeo Valley Visit - Blogger Day

I was recently lucky enough to be invited by Yeo Valley Yoghurt to visit their gardens and farm in Somerset for the day.  That's a long way to go for a day so I thought I could take the train.  To get the train and be in Somerset for 10:00 am I would have to leave St Albans station about 06:30 am and change up to three times in London.  Liking my sleep as I do that plan didn't exactly appeal (up at 06:00 for Barbados but for yoghurt - perhaps not).  Mr R has a cousin who lives in Somerset and as it turns out only about 20 minutes from the Yeo Valley farm which presented an ideal opportunity to drive down the night before, stay over and have a good visit with family.

Boy do you get a lot of more house in Somerset than you do in St Albans!

Mr R's cousin in her beautiful kitchen

I left the house about 09:20 and a quick trip straight up Cheddar Gorge (!!) I arrived at Yeo Valley Farm and was greeted warmly with coffee and handmade cookies.

Gilded garden knomes make a unique frame!

As soon as everyone had arrived we got a quick talk about Yeo Valley and an outline of the day before we went off with the head gardener for an extensive tour of the gardens and grounds.  The scenery was majestic with lovely verdant green fields everywhere we looked. 

The view from the visitor refreshment centre

We even met 'the girls' who make the lovely milk that is made into the lush yogurts and rice puddings and all their other creamy products.

When we got back from the grounds tour there was a yoghurt tasting session by Ben (in charge of marketing and more - as this is a small family business everyone does their job and whatever else needs to be done!) giving us the chance to sample all the flavours of yoghurt including Raspberry and Passion Fruit, rhubarb, Blueberry, Lemon Curd and loads more and small pots of greek yoghurt with honey and rice puddings. 

Ben showed us how to taste the yoghurt hygienically

Then we were let loose to try all the flavours and varieties

Chef Jamie showed us some great recipes featuring yogurt, cream, milk etc like a homemade ricotta cheese that is simple to make and ultra useful in tarts and more.  We watched as trout fillets were tea smoked in a homemade smoker and sourdough bread was made. 

As soon as the cookery demonstration was over we sat down to a sumptuous lunch of tomato salad, mixed greens (all from the property) tea smoked lake trout, ricotta and spinach tart, sourdough bread,

and for dessert a simple yoghurt based cheesecake - absolutely yummm.

Easy cheesecakes in jars perfect for a pic-nic

A further talk about the kitchen garden,

including the perfect compost

followed by a cup of tea and then it was time to wend our way home.  I would have liked to spend a couple more days there but instead started the long 3 hour drive home.  The plus point being the very generous goodie bag we were given filled with all flavours of yoghurts.

A sample of the yoghurt we were given to take home

I look forward to visiting Yeo Valley Yoghurts again soon!