The Sourdough School

PIONEERING A NEW APPROACH TO BAKING AS LIFESTYLE MEDICINE

Learn to bake, teach & prescribe Baking as Lifestyle Medicine
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Our gardens are certified organic.
+44 (0)1604 881274
bookings@sourdough.co.uk
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    • Certificate – Baking as Lifestyle Medicine.
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Our COVID-19 Health & Safety policy

The School is set in two thirds of an acre of organic gardens, and we will teach theory outside as much as possible.

Our primary concern is the health and wellbeing of our teachers, students and our wider communities. We understand that people may feel anxious about attending a course, so we have changed the way we teach to fit in with current government advice. At the Sourdough School, we teach through participative demonstration and lectures. The practical aspect of making bread yourself will be carried out at home, allowing students to remain socially distanced throughout. Each day when you arrive at the School, we will take your temperature. If you have a high temperature, you will be asked to go home.

  • Before entering the school, everyone must have a a negative lateral flow test, and it must be registered with the government website.
  • The Sourdough School has been thoroughly cleaned and will continue to be on an ongoing basis.
  • The wearing of a face covering is now compulsory in many enclosed spaces, but due to the nature of the course, it is not viable at the School, as you need to taste and smell the bread in order connect to the process of baking. We are therefore reducing class sizes to just 4 people and keeping the doors open. We also have a strict testing policy, as outlined above.
  • The classes are predominantly demonstration only. However, students will be able to follow Vanessa closely as they learn how to make sourdough, and will be encouraged to touch, smell and feel the dough.
  • Vanessa will not be able to provide ‘hands on’ adjustments or teaching dough-handling at this time, as this would require close physical contact.
  • We will mix a large batch of dough, and when you shape your loaf, you will be asked to do so individually at the bench. Again, this is to maintain social distancing.
  • Lunch will be served each day at 1pm at the Griffin Inn, where you will be able to take your bread to enjoy as part of a meal which will also include local produce.
  • Please do not bring any nonessential personal items, as space is at a premium.
  • Please bring something warm to wear (ideally an extra layer that can be removed when not needed), as we will have the full front of the Sourdough School open to the garden. We will, whenever possible and whenever the weather allows, teach in the open to allow for maximum ventilation.
  • You are welcome to use hand sanitisers, but please be aware that they can be very drying and can affect the sourdough. For this reason, you will be asked to wash your hands with soap for a full 20–30 seconds every time you arrive in the classroom, including after lunch.
  • You will be asked to use the same drinking cup all week, and you should minimise the touching of surfaces whenever possible.
  • Vanessa’s home is attached to the School. She will open the door to her home to help with ensuring the School is very well-ventilated, but you are asked respectfully to not to go into Vanessa’s home area.
  • The toilets should only be used by one person at a time.
  • Once your class is finished, please take your personal belongings and leave the School in an orderly fashion while maintaining an awareness of social distancing.
  • If you begin to show any signs of COVID-19, then you shouldn’t attend class.
  • Please do make sure that you are fully insured, both medically and to claim the cost of the course, in case of any symptoms.

  • Miss Baker Pro XL

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All reasonable care is taken when writing about health aspects of bread, but the information it contains is not intended to take the place of treatment by a qualified medical practitioner. You must seek professional advice if you are in any doubt about any medical condition. Any application of the ideas and information contained on this website is at the reader's sole discretion and risk.

A NEW APPROACH

👉🏻 For the past 3 years we’ve been working on something incredible … prescription sourdough bread making courses for our @sourdoughclub members 

📈We have had amazing advances in healthcare, but there is no pill to cure poor diet. The best medicine is prevention via a healthy lifestyle, and many studies have shown that people who eat healthily and exercise regularly sleep better, have less anxiety and depression, have more energy, and lower their risk of chronic illness overall.

🙌 Vanessa’s work on Bread & the Impact on the Gut Microbiome has been turned into something extraordinary. Prescription bread-making courses as a lifestyle intervention, and the Bread Protocol we teach here is designed to address the way you live, exploring behaviour related to nutrition, physical activity, stress management, sleep, social support and environmental exposures. These courses are 12 weeks long, and designed to maintain health and prevent disease not just in individuals bit in patients and populations, so we have 2 ways to enrol on a course: 

1️⃣ SOCIAL PRESCRIPTION 
If your doctor or healthcare practitioner is one of  our Sourdough School graduates and they feel that this bread-making prescription course is something that will improve your health, then they may can prescribe the course for you as a social prescription free.

2️⃣ SELF PRESCRIPTION 
You can self-prescribe these courses by enrolling yourself on a course to improve your health and wellbeing.

📰 If you are interested in learning more about the prescription courses then please sign up to the newsletters as we will be announcing their launch over the coming weeks and months. 

@vanessakimbell
@drmiguelmateas 
@dralexdavidson 
@dksherratt 

#lifestylemedicine #preventativemedicine #systemschange #socialprescribingday #socialprescribing
🧘 LAST ORDERS TODAY 🧘 I’m prepping the st 🧘 LAST ORDERS TODAY 🧘

I’m prepping the starters to post out on Thursday.

I was thinking why sourdough all these years? I guess it’s because is alive… it’s a culture of wild yeast and lactic acid bacteria. We might like to think we can control it, but we can’t control everything. Things change when we bake. The flour changes, the ambient temperature changes, or something happens during the middle of the day and your baking routine changes.

We can be very critical of ourselves. Starting the day by looking in the mirror and criticising our physical appearance. Or looking at something we’ve done or said and overanalysing it. Often, without realising, some of us can be incredibly negative.
It’s the same with bread. I notice that many people are self-depreciating and, while they aspire to make beautiful loaves, they have a distinct lack of acceptance that creating a really aesthetically stunning loaves takes time. It’s an art. It takes many years to be able to understand the nuances of each flour and how each one behaves to create bread. There is no instant fix. And I wouldn’t want there to be.

If you want an instant fix, go out and buy a packet mix – that way the work is done for you. In sourdough there’s no instant fix. That is the whole point of it really. That’s why we celebrate when we do make those incredibly beautiful loaves. And what you are actually celebrating isn’t high levels of gluten or high levels of hydration. It’s that person’s ability to have understood and connected to the flour, to their environment, to the yeast, to the timings and rhythm and everything coming together to create something that is joyous to eat.

To learn more about what we do here at The Sourdough Club and the courses we teach, follow the link in the bio to read 

#mindfulbaking #sourdough #sourdoughsclub #bread #sourdoughlove #sourdoughlover #naturalleavened #leavening #realbread #breadmaking #bakebread #makebread #makerealbread #sourdoughstories #bakingforlove #bakingtherapy #sourdoughbaking
🧂 ARTISAN INGREDIENTS FOR ARTISAN BREAD 🧂 A 🧂 ARTISAN INGREDIENTS FOR ARTISAN BREAD 🧂

Artisan bread starts with artisan ingredients. Honest ingredients that have been grown and harvested with respect for both the people and the earth. The flour has to be organic, the water chlorine free and the yeast has to be sourdough, and so it follows that the salt has to be similarly harvested with principles that are in synergy with our own. Salt making was, up until the industrial revolution, an artisanal craft. Much like bread making salt is also an artisan product that has been industrialised, so we use a hand-harvested salt in our bread.
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In our shop, we sell unrefined salt specifically for sourdough - Natural salt contains all of its trace minerals and other elements that are naturally a part of its origin. Our salt is not exposed to chemicals and does not contain anti-caking agents.
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Follow the link in our bio to our shop, where you can find the best artisan ingredients for your bread! 
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#artisan #salt #iamamember #sourdoughclub #sourdough #sourdoughbread #naturallyleavened #realbread #sourdoughbaking #bakingbread #breadmaking #homebakedbread #sourdoughlove
DID YOU KNOW WE HAVE AN ONLINE SHOP & CAN PURCHASE DID YOU KNOW WE HAVE AN ONLINE SHOP & CAN PURCHASE MY WHITE SOURDOUGH STARTER?
(with worldwide delivery)
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I have several sourdough starters but The French white starter is one that I have been using since I was 11 years old and originates in the bakery I grew up baking within France. It takes a bit longer to reach it’s peak and is generally slower and sweeter, and much more forgiving of being neglected for a week, so the one I recommend for beginners. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
We have verbal confirmation that the starter originated over 115 years ago and If you swipe right in the video you can listen to me chatting to one of the older residents of the village confirming that bakery did not shut during the war either .. & it has been maintained ever since... it’s a lovely story. Although the microbes double every 20 – 30 minutes when they are refreshed ... so it is either over a century old or 30 minutes old depending on how you want to look at it. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
You can purchase a pot of my starter, along with a grey moon kilner jar & a mini video course on looking after your starter. 
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TAP THE PICTURE TO SHOP.
 
Swipe right to see the amazing video of the French bakery where the starter originated from @vanessakimbell has been baking with this starter for over 20 years … and first baked almost 40 years ago with it …#romantic 
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#breadbosses #breadporn #flourwatersalt #breadtalk #bread #breadstagram #sourdough #sourdoughschool #bread #sourdoughlove #sourdoughlover #naturalleavened #leavening #levain #realbread #breadmaking #bakebread #makebread #makerealbread #learntobakebread #breadmakingclass #sourdoughstories #bakingforlove #bakingtherapy #sourdoughbaking #bannetons #bakery
🌾 BARLEY - DO AS THE ROMANS DO 🌾
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Oats & Barley. We love both, but this week we have been diving to barley with our students, learning about nutritional value, what role plays in supporting key butyrate producers for gut health and why gladiators were call 'barley-eaters'!
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And naturally, we will be talking about how we can incorporate barley into our baking and our botanical blends.
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To find out more, become a student of the Sourdough Club! 
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#grains #wheat #einkorn #emmer #spelt #heritagegrains #freshlymilledflour #milledflour #milling #freshlymilled #botanicalblend #fromscratch #unrefined #mockmillproud #mockmill
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