Masterchef Live 2011 – Brasserie Bread Artisan Baking Workshop

Artisan Baking Workshop with Brasserie Bread

Masterchef Live was great fun (you can read about the rest of the day in my post here: Masterchef Live 2011), but the highlight of the day would have to been the hands on Brasserie Bread artisan breadmaking course! I’m a huge fan of Brasserie Bread’s bread and cafe, and have always wanted to do one of their baking courses. The classes ran every 2 hours, and with only 20 spots – competition was FIERCE. My friend and I made the executive decision to line up for as long as it took. How long it took turned out to be little over an hour. We basically lined up as soon as the last class ended, and waited for our class to begin!

Matthew Brock was our tutor, and he talked about what the difference was between commercially baked bread, and artisan bread. Along with using and honouring traditional methods, Artisan bakers use their hands, and bake from the heart.

Our fearless teacher, Matthew Brock, Brasserie Bread’s training officer

He demonstrated a simple recipe for an Italian Schiacciata – an olive oil based flat bread similar to a foccacia. I was amazed at how few ingredients were required – just some strong bread flour, water, a teaspoon or two of olive oil, instant yeast, and salt!

Matthew showed us the Autolyse method of dough kneading. Instead of kneading the dough continuously for 20 minutes straight, we kneaded for 2 minutes, then let the dough rest for 2 minutes – repeating this process a total of 6 times. Much less work, for a better flavour! Kneading the dough is incredibly fun, and involves throwing, stretching and folding the dough over and over. Very cathartic!! Sorry, not too many photos… hands all doughy.

Stretching the bread dough

My little dough ball

I have to say at this point I was totally revelling in my “Yakitate Japan!” fantasies, and could be heard yelling out “SOLAR HANDSSSS” at regular intervals.

Our dough balls ready to sleep

I was wondering how we’d have time to mix, knead, prove AND bake our breads in such a short 1 hour class – and I was worried we’d have to throw our little dough balls away at the end. But no! We got to keep them, to bake later that night at home :D! The Brasserie Bread stand kept our little named boxes in their fridge for us, ready to pick up at home-time.

Matt showing us how to final shape our dough

Schiacciata con l’uva – bread with grapes!

“Here’s one I prepared earlier”

And of course we all got to taste:

Crunchy on the outside from the demerara sugar, and the thin crust – and light and fluffy on the inside, the grapes on top have burst in the oven, letting the juice escape to form a caramelised layer. SO GOOD. And after doing all that kneading, I bet it tasted even better.

Such a good lesson, and well worth the 1 hour waiting time. Matt was such a great teacher, and I really appreciated how the class was aimed at simple techniques that could be replicated at home. After the class I felt really confident to bake my own bread (and in fact I did… which I will blog about soon!)

Masterchef Live was held from the 7th-10th October 2011
Hordern Pavilion & Royal Hall of Industries
Tickets were $30.

If you liked this post you might enjoy my other post about Masterchef Live:
Masterchef Live 2011