The Sourdough School

BALM – Proven as one of the healthiest approaches to bread in the world.

Based in the walled gardens of Dr. Vanessa Kimbell's beautiful Victorian home in rural Northamptonshire, UK, we tutor individuals and train bakers and healthcare professionals in Baking as Lifestyle Medicine (BALM). Personalising bread to your lifestyle, gut microbiome, and unique genetics for optimal health—tailoring fermentation, fibre, and diversity so that your daily bread becomes the foundation of your health.

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Ingredients Library

spelt flour for sourdoughThis library has the core knowledge about understanding your ingredients.  I am constantly adding to it. You will find lessons and tutorials on how to use your ingredients when you bake, how to use fat, eggs, and inclusions  you will also find that information included about , about how your ingredients are key to nourishing the gut microbiome and support health.

Syllabus for Ingredients Library

Home page
LessonLesson TypeTime (mins)What you will learn
11: Ingredients TutorialsCore Knowledge

This is a set of tutorials about the key ingredients that you use when baking. When you first start baking sourdough you will discover that different ingredients have different flavours, textures, nutritional value and rate of fermentation.

21: Guide to Botanical Blend Ingredients Library

When you are ready to create and diol your own botanical blend flour then you will find lots of information in the botanical library useful to make your own

31: Gut Nourishing Inclusions & ingredientsBackground Knowledge

In this library you will find summaries of the knowledge about ingredients that positive  impact on our gut microbiome. Whilst it is pretty clear that every ingredient has properties that are nourishing to the gut microbiome it is never the less interesting to understand more about the research on specific  ingredients and  impact our microbes and gut heath.

All reasonable care is taken when advising about health aspects of bread, but the information that we share 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.

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