Today DH, my brithers, sister in law, and I went on a Nordic Breadmaking course at the lovely Willow Bakery in Shepperton. Willow Bakery is a home bakery, open one day a week.
I don't make many sweet breads, so this was really interesting. In addition to the Pulla (Finland), Cinnamon and Cardamom knots, we made some Swedish rolls and a Danish Rye Bread. it was a jam packed course, only possible because Nicky had weighed out most of the ingredients in advance.
Of course we have double of everything. One of the Pulla loaves will be sliced and frozen; we've frozen all the uncooked Knots, we can bake them from frozen as we need them. We'll start eating the Rye in a couple of days when it has had time to mature. The rolls are waiting to be eaten.
We did all the kneading by hand, which was a lot of work because these particular doughs are very wet - and two of them were enriched with butter. Nicky is building a workshop in the garden to house the bakery, and this will enable her to provide mixers for at least one of the doughs in future.
I'll certainly be using a mixer when I make these at home. Now I know what texture I am looking for, it will be easy to tell when the mixer has done it's job
I have no pictures. I just didn't think to take any.
It was good to spend the afternoon laughing and concentrating on other stuff.
