Payment information
Please note that because of the way the enrolment works, your payments will begin immediately from when you enrol NOT from when the course starts.
Baking eating and sharing bread to improve physical and mental health
A Social Enterprise: Providing Training & Support for Bakers & Healthcare Practitioners to Teach and Socially Prescribe Baking as Lifestyle Medicine.
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£29.99 / month for 24 months + £1,250.00 registration fee
Apply for a Bursary or a Scholarship
“This is a journey. And these aren’t just courses. Kimbell wants to change the bread we eat, one loaf at a time. She’s the real deal: a total inspiration.”–Diana Henry, The Telegraph.
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Payment information
Please note that because of the way the enrolment works, your payments will begin immediately from when you enrol NOT from when the course starts.
While most online courses will leave you to it, we don’t. Your course is supported with regular live baking clinics and tutorial sessions with Vanessa live from The Sourdough School.
We teach as part of The Sourdough Club, and our style is all about building community, so it is very interactive. We have a fun and lively baking forum, which is supported by both Vanessa and a professional baker who is part of our baking team. Our club has an alumni membership and we have students who have been members now for 10 years – it is lovely.
Not all bread is created equal, and while most sourdough bread-making courses focus on big holes, we go far beyond the crumb structure of your bread. Of course, it goes without saying that you will learn how to make beautiful, open-structured bread, but this course is about applying the science and understanding to the bread that we bake, empowering you to bake and eat bread that supports gut health using the bread protocol to bake you will be baking advanced high hydration loaves, baguettes, pizza, brioche, cakes, pastry and pasta by the end of the course.
Gain a unique insight
You will be baking according to the Sourdough School Bread Protocol, so on this course you will be given the option to gain an insight into your own gut microbiome and physical and mental health. You will be able to buy a gut microbiome test and test your biome ideally at the beginning of the course and again in late January; and when you get your results back, you can request a feedback session with the Research and Medical Directors at the Sourdough School and discover how you have responded.
*please note that there is a recommended shopping list of baking equipment, ingredients and tests that you will advised to purchase in order to fully take part in the course, and these costs will be in addition to your course fees.
It would be too limiting to try and list everything covered on the course here, but you will learn how to bake bread and baked goods that support health. Sourdough baking skills include lessons in:
There are over 130 recipes on this course (you can pick and choose from the library), and there are guided baking lessons through out the course. Recipes include:
The Certificate taught online and is run from the Sourdough School. The School is a centre of research and development, set in two-thirds of an acre of organic gardens in Northamptonshire, UK. Vanessa and the team apply nutritional, medical evidence lifestyle evidence to baking and also teach The Diploma in Prescribing baking as Lifestyle Medicine
We apply nutritional, medical and lifestyle evidence to our recipes and techniques for baking bread for optimal health. Our Bread Protocol is supported by the many years of research and development by Vanessa Kimbell and the Sourdough School team. You will learn to bake bread that helps to reduce bloating and balance blood sugar, while also being good for your mental health. Changing your approach to this most basic food will help you understand how sourdough can enhance your gut health, weight management and mental health, and improve the way you feel.
The course is structured with a week-by-week lesson plan, but there are new recipes, magazine features and tutorials added in real time throughout the year.
You can also use the Club as library of teaching resources and support, as well as simply enjoying the community and content – you will discover a wealth of video tutorials, sourdough recipes and tips and techniques, as well as a glossary. Each recipe is fully referenced with the studies used to create them.
The course is suitable for anyone with a passion for baking who wants to learn to bake for others. Some student just want to learn to bake to share bread with their friends, family or neighbours but Manu on the course are baking for people in their community.
This course always attracts have a amazingly wide range of students, from professional bakers, home bakers and farmers, to a student helping her community in in South Africa learn to manage their blood sugar levels, a student who runs as prison rehabilitation bakery, a chef who runs a charity that teaches people with cancer to eat food that tastes good when taste is altered on chemotherapy.
The baking certificate is also part of the Diploma in Prescribing Baking as Social Prescribing and students also include GPs, nutritionists, dieticians, other healthcare professionals and microbiologists.
We provide dedicated support and guidance to our members, and we limit numbers to enure that we allow enough time for Vanessa and the team to do this well.
The course uses a combination of self-guided learning and live sessions, supported by the forum. There are lessons, tutorials, recipes, detailed videos and a paced pathway, enabling you to build your skills each week. The recipes progressively become more technically challenging, beginning with sourdough pancakes, flatbreads and tin loaves, and advancing to high-hydration boules.
The course will build your confidence, prioritising understanding and knowledge.
of the course is being a member of our Sourdough club, and the very last lesson of your course we set the final task for you to continue your learning by supporting and sharing your knowledge with someone you are connected to.
So as you graduate we invite you to enrol in The Sourdough Club for another year and we gift a membership code that we ask that you to give a young baker that you nominate as the final step in your syllabus. It means you can keep baking and learning from your course and you can support a young baker anywhere in the world virtually through the club and the forum – because our connection to each other is the real secret of why sourdough is good for us.