Team Bake-off and Baking area

Gather your wits for the Team Bake-off. The limit is your imagination, the rules fluid, the judging kind.

The weekend starts with a Friday evening baking session introducing you to the baking area. Bake-off teams can be formed of any reasonable number. You can sign up and work on your creation any time over the weekend that the bakery is open. There will be a maximum of 8 teams due to oven space and the Grand Final will be judged at 3pm on Sunday. There will be baking sessions run by several different people each day and we will be baking the bread for the café in bulk baking sessions.

There are many different aspects to producing baked goods. You may want to fire an earth oven, or be more interested in foraging wild ingredients. You may have opinions on recipes or baking techniques including correct oven temperature. It’s a fun, social thing with the ‘Grand Final’ to work towards. You can put the practical skills you learn to use, or just enjoy the workshops.

catering surfaces, grain mill, flour storage barrel in a marquee.

You will have access to loads of different kinds of ovens including a large LPG catering oven, Ed’s biochar rocket oven, an earth and cob oven and a large woodburning oven made from steel by The Fireweaver. Julian will also be giving a talk on Thermo-Electrics. We will have a delivery of seasoned hardwood. Bonus points for skillfully using the woodburning ovens especially the earth one…

Each team will have access to anything they bring or forage themselves, a limited range of pre-bought ingredients including Heritage flours, grains to grind, cake making equipment including clean catering surfaces, bowls and tins and space to store and prepare.

Select your Heritage flour, learn about Sourdough starters and baking, forage and gather ingredients to prepare for the Grand final on Sunday where you will fire your ovens, Bake-Off and have your baking judged by popular acclaim.

There will be wise people about to advise on different methods of leavening and cooking. There is a prize for the winners…