Shaping Dough Bread Class

 At the end of September I went along to another Blackbird Bread baking class....this time I went as a helper not a student, though I did get to do some baking too.

The workshop this time was all about shaping dough, so maing pretzels and bagels, I had to pick which I wanted to make so I chose to go with pretzels as I wanted help learning how to twist them to the right stape.

We started with the pretzels, which were surprisingly easy to shape after a couple of attempts. They grew so much on their final prove as pretzel shapes!

 While we waited for the pretzels to finish their final prove we went about shaping our sundried tomato and basil ciabatta that we would be having as our supper during class.

The ciabatta smelt amazing when they came out the oven and tasted even better when we had them still warm with some cheese and a little wine.

Here's how the finished pretzels came out... shame a few lost their pretzel look but for a first attempt I'm happy and I know for next time to leave larger gaps in the shaping now I'm aware how much they grow in the final prove.

 Here's all my wonderful bready bakes of the evening...well minus the 3 ciabattas that had to be eaten between us as they were too tempting to resist...there was also a very ugly pretzel that I refused to photo after it came out the oven, was more a blob than a pretzel!