Take your sourdough baking skills to the next level

Baking’s popularity has exploded during the COVID-19 lockdowns, and none more so than sourdough, which became a national baking trend in Britain during the pandemic.

On this course, you’ll learn how to bake the perfect sourdough bread. Alongside baking gurus at BBC Good Food, you’ll get top tips and tricks to make delicious sourdough loaves, pizza bases, and more.

Learn how to make a sourdough starter and more

Sourdough is notoriously tricky to get right. Many websites will give you advice on how to bake with sourdough, but BBC Good Food’s tried-and-tested method comes with a high success rate and guaranteed accessibility.

You’ll get a beginner’s guide on how to make and care for a sourdough starter, how to keep it alive, and how to put it to good use in a great bake – going from flour and salt to loaf of bread.

Discover how long to autolyse sourdough, and great sourdough recipes

After the introductory first week, you’ll go on to learn how to autolyse, prove, shape, and score sourdough.

You’ll understand how to deal with fluctuations in weather, what to look for in ingredients, and what bakeware and kitchen equipment you need.

You’ll also explore how to use leftover starter, as well as how to bake enriched doughs, sourdough pizza bases, and sourdough flatbreads.

Become a better baker with BBC Good Food

BBC Good Food has been providing cooks worldwide with accessible and innovative recipes for over thirty years.

You’ll learn from their expert bakers not only how to bake better sourdough, but how to become a better cook – improving recipes, exploring new flavours, and changing your techniques to leave friends and family coming back for more!

What topics will you cover?

The sourdough course takes learners through all steps in the process of starting with flour and salt and ending up with a loaf of bread. The first week gives students instruction in making and caring for a sourdough starter so that by the end of the first lesson they have a product they can go on to bake with. Subsequent classes will cover autolyse, proving, shaping, scoring and baking. The course also gives instruction on how to use starter discard up and how to bake enriched doughs, pizza bases and focaccia.

The course also includes:

How to read and amend a recipe
What to look for in ingredients
Bakeware and kitchen equipment tips
How to deal with fluctuations in the weather

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Learning on this course

On every step of the course you can meet other learners, share your ideas and join in with active discussions in the comments.

What will you achieve?

By the end of the course, you‘ll be able to...

Describe the mechanics of cooking, and in particular baking.
Investigate the behaviours created as they cook, the cultural role that baking plays in life and how to become better cooks.
Research and collect recipes that they want to try based on being able to evaluate the written instructions.
Learn how to ‘read’ or interpret a recipe to see if it is workable, and to annotate it, to improve it
Reflect on failure if it happens, assess possible causes and modify techniques

Who is the course for?

This course is designed for beginner to intermediate bakers.

Whether you want to learn how baking works so you can be more experimental with your bakes, you’re looking to avoid unhealthy bakes and want to bake from scratch with family, you’re interested in becoming a baking hobbyist, or you’re an experienced baker and want to add new abilities – this course has something for you.

Who will you learn with?

BARNEY DESMAZERY

As the longest standing member of the team, skills editor Barney has written thousands of recipes for BBC Good Food. Barney is also Good Food's resident bread baking expert. Follow @barney_desmazery

Anna Glover

Anna is a recipe writer and food editor, and loves whipping up new creations with well-known ingredient to create easily accessible recipes that everyone can make.

Cassie Best

Cassie is food director for BBC Good Food. She trained as a chef at Leiths School of Food and Wine before joining BBC Good Food 10 years ago. She enjoys baking and creating family focused recipes.

Who developed the course?

BBC Good Food

BBC Good Food is the no 1. food media brand in the UK comprising the monthly food magazine launched in 1987, leading food website, and bi-annual BBC Good Food Shows.

About this ExpertTrack

Improve your home baking skills as you learn the techniques to master tasty recipes and understand the science behind baking.

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