Learn to make authentic Sourdough
It's Time to make real bread
So much of what we eat has been reduced to a series of biochemical reactions, designed in a laboratory for the purpose of being translated to the manufacturing process. This has nothing to do with nourishment, beyond satisfying various legal requirements for truth in packaging and so on.
As human beings, we need to take back making food, because only when we do this, can we really take control of our own and our family's nutrition. We have given the bulk of our home cooking to the big companies, and it turns out they are too busy selling us stuff to really care about what they are doing to our food, our families, and our farms.
The accepted wisdom was that if you were in business, you would try not to kill your customers. It seems this rule has morphed for the new millennium - it's okay to kill your customer now, as long as you do it slowly. That way, you can get all their money before they die.
The next wave of food producers has begun! All around the world, small producers are popping up to counter the march of the corporate food factory.
The School of Sourdough is the brainchild of SourdoughBaker, a.k.a. Warwick Quinton. Warwick is one of Australia's original artisan bakers, and he has been making his amazing naturally leavened breads for over three decades. He has initiated and run over a dozen bakeries and cafes throughout NSW, always with the same 'from scratch' ethic - don't 'assemble' food, create it. Make something that matters.
The elements of honest bread are simple. Flour. Water. Salt Fire.
The School of Sourdough aims to teach everyone, no matter where they are on their sourdough journey, the true art and craft of natural bread making, using these primary elements. Add to these time, temperature and fermentation, and you have all the necessary ingredients to make truly nourishing bread.
Collaborators
Like any community enterprise, the School of Sourdough relies heavily on friends and accomplices to make things happen. People who share our vision of a decentralised food production system, based on integrity and fairness.
Over the years, we’ve had many collaborations with inspiring people and synergistic businesses. This has led to some innovative outcomes, including our current micro bakery, which makes bread without huge reliance on the electricity grid, using sustainably farmed wheat and grain.
Support
Warwick writes a whole lot of blogs and contributes to numerous baking related forums, including many on social media platforms like Facebook, Pinterest, Medium and Twitter.
He offers ongoing support to all journeyman bakers and students alike, in many countries. Help him to research and contribute to the work being done in the world of sourdough baking. Warwick’s input to the knowledge base that is sourdough baking has continued for over 30 years.
Donations can be as little as $10 or as much as you like. Support his work and receive a ‘heads up’ with new content!
HISTORY
The School of Sourdough has been Warwick Quinton's vision for many years. Warwick's been a journeyman artisan baker, specialising in sourdough and naturally leavened breads, since about 1990. Over the years, Warwick has made millions of loaves of sourdough bread, and almost as many Danish pastries, espresso coffees and even croissants! He has owned and operated a string of bakeries and cafes, all noted for their unique and extraordinary popularity wherever they found their audience.
Warwick started the website www.sourdoughbaker.com.au back in 2009. He began putting the information he knew people should want to know about sourdough bread online. At that time, he found himself between bakeries, having lost a house and part of a family to one already. It was a painful experience, and one he hoped his own students would never have to replicate.
He was still enthused by the idea that his craft might one day find its way back to the center of people's lives - the idea that the bakery provided the staple food for everyone; whether you were a king or a pauper; everybody had to eat. The baker was viewed as a linchpin of community life; along with other important professionals like the butcher, the grain and produce merchant, and the smithy.
While it's acknowledged that we can never go back to that time, certain aspects of it need to be reinvigorated, so that we don't lose our way any more than we already have. We need to embrace an economy, a life style, and a value system that places high worth on things truly made from the heart by hand, sustainably, ethically and affordably. We need to place some of our trust back into the people we know, rather than the faceless corporate machine. Particularly our food.
Back in 2007, Warwick chose to make what he knew available to the home baker through a blog, Home Sourdough Bread. This morphed into another, more general blog, SourdoughBaker. This blog eventually paved the way for his own website to take shape. sourdoughbaker.com.au.
In 2010, Warwick started teaching his techniques to the general public from his cafe and bakery, then situated in Hunter Street, Newcastle, NSW.
Over the ensuing decade, Warwick has evolved this course to become the Sourdough 101 Workshop, and then the Sourdough 102 Workshop. Later, observing that the bakery trade was slowly coming around to the idea that bread should be made the 'old fashioned way' again, Warwick put together the Sourdough 300 Series, specifically aimed at budding professional bakers and journeyman professionals who needed to upskill. Now that the knowledge base of the general public has also grown, he has moved on to the Sourdough 200 Series, where people can gain a more in depth understanding of the process of making sourdough bread.
Warwick's methods have become the production backbone of many bakeries around Australia and the world. He has consulted to many of our best bakers, and has taught thousands of home bakers his techniques. He has written a number of short guides and booklets, and is known around the world for his continued enthusiastic promotion of the natural baker's craft.
Sourdough bread is the original bread, and continues to be embraced by growing members of the general public as both nutritious and delicious.
Call Warwick if you wish to discuss doing a workshop, whether you are a complete beginner or long time baker.
0409 480 750
TESTIMONIALS
'The Master Baker Class was the best training I received in a long time. Warwick has a wealth of knowledge about bread and is willing to share it, with great enthusiasm. A truly memorable experience with an amazing guy. Well worth the interstate trip !' - Arnaud (WA)
'Warwick taught me the nitty gritty of sourdough mixing , proofing & wood fired oven use - all the stuff that the books NEVER tell you.' - Michel the sourdough bread nerd. (QLD)
One Sourdough 300 Series Student had this to say:
'Warwick's blog gives an insight into who he is, and meeting him I found that he was the same person - open, friendly, honest and down to earth…the experience was completely immersive; from maintaining a sourdough starter, to learning how to do a bakers turn; and onwards to shaping, proofing, dusting and slashing the dough, all necessary before it gets deposited onto the floor of Warwick's amazing woodfired oven…There is no doubt he is a maestro of artisan sough dough bread making; his passion shines through in his relaxed mentoring style. The added conversation was a pleasant diversion. For any true lover of sour dough bread I can’t think of anybody better than Mr Quinton to guide and share his knowledge about The King Of Breads. I think the future of sour dough baking is safe in his hands. Thanks for the opportunity to share a momentous time that has sent me on my own journey of producing amazing sough dough bread .' - Richard (Phillipines)