Lesson 1: A sneak peek into the Sourdough & Wild Yeast Baking classroom

By Jemima Armfield

Andy has a lifelong love of baking and has over time developed a particular passion for bread and sourdough.

Students of Andy's online River Cottage course Sourdough & Wild Yeast Baking are demonstrating some real talent through their assignments.

River Cottage I love – each course is so different. I really have learnt a lot from the tutors, and they are helpful and approachable. Their enthusiasm and passion are infectious. Andy is a great teacher and the bread is amazing! - Emma B

A peek into the online classroom

We have seen some very talented bakers submitting work in Andy's online classroom. Here is a peak behind the scenes and into the magical world of sourdough. Join the class today

Lesson 1: Sourdough Starter

During this lesson you’ll be shown how to make your starter, and we’ll do them together to make sure you get your timings right, then you’re ready for off! We will show you a simple loaf to bake as your first and give plenty of ideas of what can be made from the excess ‘discarded’ starter.

For your assignment, you will need to get your starter going. Get it bubbly (it will take 5 days, and you’ll need to feed it every day).

To use up the waste, try some of the recipes we have made today; sourdough choc cookies, rye crackers and/or sourdough pancakes.

Recommended course

Sourdough and Wild Yeast Baking taught by Andy Tyrrell

Mastering a range of classic sourdough loaves, using rye, wheat and spelt flours, plus tasty sourdough doughnuts, pizza and pancakes

View courseAll Food & Drink courses

Assignment 1: Wendy Becker

Wendy:

The starter has a good base taste and we will reuse it. There was not as much change over the six days as explected.

Pancakes

Our dough was very thick after a night in the fridge. I added about 50ml of milk but it was not enough. This resulted in a thicker and more dense pancake (more American style than crepe). These were a solid blank canvas for added flavour in sauces and toppings. However, they were a bit bland for our liking. We will retry as we like the idea of a more digestible pancake but will try to make thinner and perhaps at a touch of sugard.

Cookies

The cookies were highly anticipated. The texture was a bit oily but nice. In contrast to the pancakes, these we found slightly too sweet. These were eaten up very quickly!

Crackers

These were a hit. We almost tossed the end of the starter but decided to keep to the zero waste them of this less and tried the crackers. What a good decision. We make these with the pasta maker as suggested and benefitted from the thinness of the pieces. We tried one slightly thicker cracker where we incorporated the seeds into the dough. That was a nice alternative. These crackers had a great flavour. The improvement we would try to capture next time is that we were challenged with getting the seeds and salt to stick (and we did find these improved with salt). We will try a bit of an oil brush next time as well as pushing in the topping a bit (paprika was popular as were nigella seeds).

Bread

This felt to be a good start. We don't normally tin the sourdough so it was a good new experiment. As noted elsewhere, the proving in the idea is different than in the assignment notes. In our punt, we followed the assignment notes. The loaf looked very nice. The bread had a good taste, though we prefer it slightly more sour (do we let it prove longer next time?). The bread was less airy than we like but it didn't feel overly stodgy and made a nice toast.

Feedback from Andy Tyrrell:

Hi Wendy

Excellent work all round here, great to see the starter up and running and the first loaf is one of the best I’ve seen on here. 😊

Really well risen which is the tricky part with a sourdough tin, you let it rise right up as high as it could which is perfect. If you leave the leaven a touch longer it will bring a touch more acidity to the loaf but generally I think the tin loaf is one I’d encourage to have a lower acidity to encourage a good rise. It can definitely be played around with but I’d avoid a second prove in the fridge as it just doesn’t rise up the tin enough in there.

The crackers, brilliant! I do like putting the seeds in the crackers too, small seeds like linseed are very good for this as you can still roll them out thin.

The pancake batter just needed a bit kore milk to get that crepe batter consistency it really varies with the flour people use. It also makes tasty fluffy pancakes with the addition of sugar and also a little bicarbonate or baking powder too.

Well done Wendy for trying them all! Andy

Join Wendy in Andy Tyrrell's online Sourdough & Wild Yeast Baking course today and learn how to make a huge range of sourdough goodies, including pizza, foccacia, brioche and more. Book now, start at any time!

Jemima Armfield

Digital marketing manager, content creator and head of tutor relations, I'm here to make sure everyone is getting the support they need throughout their studies at Learning with Experts.

Stay updated

Receive free updates by email including special offers and new courses.

You can unsubscribe at any time

Food & Drink

Related posts

Our best selling courses

Awards & Accreditations

  • CPD Accredited (provider 50276)
  • Good Web Guide
  • Red Herring Winner
  • Education Investor Awards 2021 - Finalist
  • Royal Horticultural Society
  • Digital Education Awards 2023 Winner for Digital Health and Wellbeing Learning Product of the Year
  • Digital Education Awards 2023 Winner for Adult Home Learning Product of the Year