Warren Lee Cohen

Challenge: Making Sourdough bread in 40 degree plus heat

I’m in Rio de Janeiro in one of their hottest summers and trying to make sourdough bread for friends and family. The first two batches were terrible, over-proofed and then turned very sour. Even when I reduced the rising time on the second batch to about 12 hours start to finish, the bread was far too sour, although the structure was not bad.

So with the third batch and what was left of my patience and pride, I made the sponge with refrigerated water.  This and a slightly cooler night temperature of 27 degrees and a 16 hour process did the trick… delicious bread. What a treat after a week of white fluff!

This makes me wonder all the more what the first breads must have tasted like. Bread throughout history must have been quite sour in many parts of the world and varied markedly with the seasons.

Mascha Perrone’s third grade at the Toronto Waldorf School learned how to make sourdough starter from flour and water (as described in my book Baking Bread with Children). After 2 weeks of careful tending by the children, the starter was alive and bubbling and fragrant. It was ready to bake with. The parents came together one evening to knead and sing the starter into dough for Pita bread. The next day we lit a fire in the outdoor wood-fired oven, waited for it to get hot and then baked pita bread to our hearts’ and stomachs’ content. They were delicious!!! The children engaged in this experience from start to tasty finish and their enthusiasm was compelling.

Two days later they delivered to me one of the most beautiful and heartfelt thank you notes that I have received, It included a picture drawn by each child that captured what stood out for them in this experience- what an excellent example of how to both deepen a lesson and teach gratitude in one generous gesture. Below are just a few of the pictures

Advent, Channukah, Divali, Christmas and Kwanza

In the spirit of this wonderful stream of festivals of light , I have been setting my intentions for the coming year, which I hope will be filled with fruitful meetings, growth, play and a deepening sense of love filled work. My work educating Waldorf teachers at the Rudolf Steiner Centre Toronto is proving dynamic and deeply engaging. I am fortunate to have also  been invited to offer a number of shorter workshops and presentations in Canada and Brazil. These help me to create a nice balance of work and play and allow me to cultivate my many disperate interests such as Waldorf Education, baking bread, building bread ovens, inner development and sculpture. Come join the fun.

I received a link from a Bread artist in Bulgaria who is taking her love of bread and her desire to build community around the world by creating BREAD HOUSES, in home workshops in which the art of baking bread gives time and space for conversation and rekindling traditional crafts. I love the idea of cultural revival centred around the practical/spiritual activity of baking bread. This theme will inspire two Art of Bread workshops planned for this winter and spring in Toronto. Look here for details in the new year.

Monday I was warmly welcomed at work with a gift of a 2  1/2 kg  cotton sack of freshly milled, organic Red Fife wheat, a local variety that has been grown in Ontario since the 1840’s. This grain, originally brought over from the Ukraine, was successfully grown across the wheat belt of Canada until the early 1900’s when it was supplanted by other varietals. Renowned for heartiness, flavour and nutrition, Red Fife is experiencing a revival and is now sought after by artisan bakers. My first sponge is rising as I type this post. I look forward to feeling how this dough is to knead by hand and ultimately to savor its crust and crumb. Anson Mills has some helpful information about working with this high gluten wheat. Thanks Lucas!

More good feedback from my first sourdough bread baking workshop in Canada. Many kindergartens at the Toronto Waldorf School are now using natural leavening processes to make more nutritious and digestible breads for the young children. This is such an exciting outcome from a one day workshop.

I am pleased to announce my first baking workshop in Canada.  Come and join me if you can.

Jennifer Muller

Today at 6:20am
Hi Warren, I hope you are well. Your daughters look beautiful! I have been enjoying your bread cookbook but wanted to ask you a question about spelt. I used your recipe but cut out the white flour as I was trying to make it with just spelt. However, it wasn’t done on the inside when it should have been, and I noticed that the spelt just keeps taking in more and more water when kneading it. Do you have any suggestions for making just spelt bread with no other flour or do you always suggest using white or wheat with it? Thanks!

Today at 7:20pm
Hello jennifer,
Greetings to ol’ England. We are in sunny Canada and the girls are asleep – almost…
Always nice to talk about bread!
Baking with all spelt is nice and flavourful. As there is so little gluten to make the dough stiff, I tend to work it quite wet in the mixing bowl and kneed it as best I can in the bowl. it does not need as much kneading. then I put it in loaf tins and bake it as usual. If it is raw in the inside, then you could try baking it longe at a slightly cooler termperature.
Good Baking,
Warren

We’ve landed and set up house in Richmond Hill, just north of Toronto in Ontario, Canada. Our garden is filled with wild flowers and large patches of raspberries. I am directing the Teacher Education Program at the Rudolf Steiner Centre Toronto. Luciana is knitting up a storm and taking care of our lovely little girls.

The sourdough starter made the long journey from England to Brazil and at last to Canada. It was a bit sluggish at first, but soon sprung back to life. And the wheat, the hard Canadian wheat is a pleasure to work with, much more elastic than what I had grown used to in England. Tomorrow I am going to consult on my first new bread oven project. A workshop is soon to follow.

A brave group of 18 oven builders gathered at Taurus Crafts to build two bread ovens in one weekend! The first oven was a quickly built  ”festival oven” that we fired up on the very same day we built it. We dried it completely on the second day and made delicious pizza in it. This oven had walls about 4 inches thick with neither door nor chimney and stood on a temporary and mobile plinth.

The second oven was crafted to last with a collaboratively sculpted exterior, oaken door and oven walls about twice as thick. This oven will work well for both pizza and many loads of loaf bread and had all of our creative energies pressed into its outer shell. Many thanks to the fine folks at Taurus Crafts who helped organize this exciting weekend. Participant comments are included below the photographs.

Dear Warren,
I want to say a very belated thank you for your wonderful course at Taurus Crafts . I was completely blown away by your heartfelt approach. You really communicated your passion and deep understanding of bread making, which has helped me return to my baking ready to (tentatively) abandon my recipes and start feeling my way into the unknown. I’m going to suggest the current class 3 maybe helps build an oven in our garden.

Another participant who went home to build another bread oven commented:
Hi Warren — here are the photos — We had a really great day doing it – superb weather – good friends and several now want to build their own — and we are the experts!!!
Many thanks for your inspiration.