I enjoy cooking and baking but I have not really got into bread making yet. I make bread rolls and sometimes pizza base but that is as far as my bread making skills take me. I have always wanted to create beautiful loaves of bread so when I had a chance to try out a bread making class hosted by Hotpoint and Currys PC World at the Jamie Oliver Cookery school, I did not need much persuasion to say yes.
The Jamie Oliver Cookery school is part of the Jamie Oliver restaurant and it is located in The Westfield shopping centre in Shepherds Bush. The cookery school is bright and airy and is fully kitted with all the newest kitchen equipment and Hotpoint ovens. Our lesson started with a brief introduction to the Hotpoint ovens that we were going to use in the kitchens. As all new electrical equipment, oven too have come along way. The new Hotpoint ovens have a multi flow technology that distributes heat evenly so everything in the oven will cook evenly, this is an important factor in baking especially bread.
Next we watched a demonstration by the resident chef to make the bread dough for the bread rolls and Focaccia bread.We learnt the key skills of bread making such as knocking, kneading, proving and shaping the dough. These skills are of utmost importance in creating the perfect loaf.
I realised whilst attempting to make my own bread rolls and Focaccia bread that baking bread is actually very messy but at the same time extremely therapeutic and a great way to unwind. The best bit is that the kitchen smells heavenly and the taste of hot bread straight out of the oven is absolutely delicious.
I was rather pleased with my bread rolls and Focaccia bread, although I did learn that if you add too many pumpkin seeds they can burn!!!!I am rather proud at my plaiting skills demonstrated in the picture below.
As the saying goes "the proof of the pudding is in the eating" this we did as we enjoyed our hot freshly baked bread rolls, served with a lovely cheese fondue and roasted pumpkin soup made at Jamie Oliver's Kitchen.
The whole bread making session was excellent and I have definitely come home with much more confidence at attempting to bake bread. If you are keen to learn how to bake bread or just need to boost your confidence than you can book classes at the Jamie Oliver school. You can also check out the recipes for the Rosemary Focaccio and the Roasted Pumpkin soup at the Currys Tech Talk Blog
I was invited to the bread making class by Currys PC World and Hotpoint. All the views expressed in this post are my own as are all the photos.
I love the smell of freshly baking bread but it's not something I have ever really felt comfortable making. This class looks like it was so much fun and your focaccia and rolls look delicious!
ReplyDeleteWhoa. Can you teach me all of that? It sounds really fun and by looking it feels tasty. I can only just do cake and nothing else.
ReplyDeleteThis sounds like such a fun experience! Do you know if kids are allowed to join it? The breads you made sound pretty impressive too!
ReplyDeleteThis sounds so much fun, I love fresh bread with soup.
ReplyDeleteThese breads look delicious! I've heard it takes a lot of practice to make the perfect loaf. Not an easy feat at all. Props to you!
ReplyDeleteI think that your bread making skills are incredible and the plaits are so masterfully curated. Hopefully we can see more bread based recipes on here because I reckon that you would rock them.
ReplyDeleteOh my gosh, your bread turned out amazingly! I've tried to make my own bread rolls before but they've never turned out quite right :/
ReplyDeleteThis is a mouth-watery post. I so love making bread,and playing around with ingredients. I have tried this with salted egg and the other recipe I followed was with sweetened pull-pork.
ReplyDeleteLooks great. I love freshly baked bread
ReplyDeleteOh wow, this looks amazing, the bread you made looks absolutely fantastic. Yum!
ReplyDeleteI would love to attend a cookery school, especially one for bread-making.
ReplyDeleteI had no idea that Jamie's restaurants also had cooking classes, that's pretty cool! The bread you made looks lovely, especially those plaits you should be proud! x
ReplyDeletewow that looks amazing, I would love to attend that! The bread just looks incredible, please send me a slice haha
ReplyDeleteI am a sucker for bread and good bread at that. I can not believe that his cook school is so close to where we live.
ReplyDeleteYou make it seem so simple haha however I'll mess everything up. And that freshly baked bread.. oh man haha! Saving this recipe for later! Thank you
ReplyDeleteAh this looks like so much fun and the bread looks delicious!
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