Bakes
The twelve-week teaching schedule: what happens in each bake, what to prepare, and what leaves the room.
One bread a week, in an order that builds on what came before: the plain loaf and baguette give way to sourdough and bagels, then the enriched and laminated doughs, before flatbreads close it out. You read the lecture before you arrive, work the dough at the bench, and leave each week with the notes that tell you what to change on the next one.
The straight dough
Flour, water, salt and yeast mixed by hand and baked in a tin — the bench session the other eleven weeks are measured against
Week 1 · 22 February 2027
Shaping and steaming baguettes
Four ingredients, a poolish mixed the night before, and the three things that decide whether a baguette opens in the oven
Week 2 · 1 March 2027
Wet dough on the bench
The week 3 bench session — a 78% ciabatta built from poolish, folded rather than kneaded, and handled so the gas survives the trip to the oven
Week 3 · 8 March 2027
Dimples that stay
The week 4 bench session — a focaccia mixed two days early, dimpled warm, and fried crisp in the oil it sits in
Week 4 · 15 March 2027
Stretching and blistering pizza bases
Type 00, 0.1% yeast and a 90-second bake — the week where the oven stops being equipment and starts being the difficult variable
Week 5 · 22 March 2027
Your starter's first loaf
A week-old starter, a levain built overnight, and a bulk ferment you end by looking at the dough rather than at the clock
Week 6 · 29 March 2027
The dough you cannot stretch
The week 7 bench session — a 60% rye built on a warm sour, mixed for four minutes, smoothed into a tin with a wet hand and left uncut for two days
Week 7 · 5 April 2027
The bread you boil first
The week 8 bench session — a 55% dough on high-gluten flour, shaped and retarded the night before, then boiled in malt water and baked hard
Week 8 · 12 April 2027
Butter, a piece at a time
The brioche and challah bench — building the gluten before any fat goes near it, keeping the dough under 24°C, and braiding from the centre out
Week 9 · 19 April 2027
Twenty-seven layers of butter
The croissant bake — a détrempe mixed yesterday, an 82% butter block, three letter folds, and a proof that has to stay under the butter
Week 10 · 26 April 2027
Mix it badly on purpose
Bicarbonate, four black bananas, and a batter you stop stirring while it is still lumpy
Week 11 · 3 May 2027
The bread you cook on a surface
The last bench session — pita, naan, roti and tortilla off a dry hot surface, and the steam that lifts a bread with no yeast in it
Week 12 · 10 May 2027