Warren Lee Cohen

Here are pictures from a August 2010 Bread Oven Building workshop in King City, Ontario. It was a perfect hot and sunny weekend. We had an inspiring crew of 16 participants who were easily able to build two bread ovens in two days. The first oven we built quickly and fired it up the next day to make delicious pizza. We took our time with the second, added a number of details and enjoyed the process of collaborative sculpting.

We began laying our fire bricks on an artistically designed river stone base.

Many feet make easy work of mixing recycled pottery clay,

clay subsoil, sand and straw into homogeneous cob to build the ovens.

We kneaded the cob into loaf size bricks.

We placed the bricks around a form made out of sand.

We built it up like an igloo, molding the bricks tightly together.

We added a second layer of bricks for improved strength and heat retention.

It is essential that all the bricks of both layers are well kneaded together so that there are no air gaps. The structure becomes one monolithic dome.

Artists at work.

The forms were dynamic connecting and influencing one another.

Here is our finished oven complete with its oven spirit.

We removed the door and hollowed out the sand after all the sculpting was complete. This facilitated easy refinement of the doorway of the oven.

Thank you Leslie and Jamie for organizing the event. Enjoy your oven!

No knead bread is a growing fad that gives more people entree into the art of baking bread. There are a number of very good videos describing the process on youtube . I find this idea both interesting and at the same time far from compelling. I simply love to have my hands in the dough, to feel its sticky sloppiness transform into soft elasticity as all the ingredients meet one another and come together into a lively dough. Kahlil Gibran wrote that work is love made visible.  So too is bread love made visible.

So, I choose to knead my bread dough (all except for sour rye which is happy with a vigorous stir). It is good exercise and meaningfilled and the results are more pleasing in terms of crust and crumb. Nevertheless, from these video clips  I have learned to bake my slowly risen loaves in a well heated cast iron pot with lid. This simple technique produces crusts that rival those of my best bread ovens.

1. shape mature dough into large loaf  (18 to 36 hour preliminary and 2 to 3 hour final rise – depending on temperature of the house)
2. place cast iron pot and lid in oven at 500 F.
3. using well floured hands transfer loaf into pot
4. cover and put in oven for 20 minutes
5. uncover pot and lower oven temperature to 400 F.
6. bake for 15 to 20 minutes
7. let cool and admire remarkably beautiful crust

Waldorf: Being a Teacher

I have been fortunate to be involved with Waldorf Education for the past 20 years. Not only is it a continuous source of inspiration for me, I have witnessed what a unique and wonderful approach to education it is. Children excell there in many faceted ways. Now that I have my own children, I could not imagine a more perfect school setting for them. Waldorf schools value childhood, protect their innocence, allow for creative play and foster the healthy development of imagination. They offer offer children opportunities to develop a broad range of skills, social/emotional maturity and conceptual depth that they will need for life. This truly is a broad based education rooted in the arts that  fosters balance, empathy, creativity and ultimately human freedom. It has been tested and refined over the past 90 years.

As a teacher, I feel that to be entrusted with professional task of looking after the well being of a group of students over a period of eight years. It is an awe inspiring responsibility and one for which I am eternally grateful. I could not now imagine a more satisfying or meaningful vocation than that of teaching in a ‘Waldorf school. As the director of teacher education at the Rudolf Steiner Centre Toronto I do have a vested interest; nevertheless, these sentiments do come directly from my experience and from my heart. I welcome any inquiries and/or questions.

I was invited to bake Dragon Bread with the first grade at the Toronto Waldorf School. The 25 students, their teacher and a few very helpful parents were delightfully enthusiastic to get their hands into the dough and to shape their imaginations into wholesome and tasty loaves of bread. Some chose to make their dragons spiky and scary others saw them as more amiable creatures, waiting to be of service. None had difficulty kneading and shaping their creations. they made them in the morning and we were able to bake them for lunch. They ate a part of it and took the rest home to share with their families. Whenever I see any of the students they are sure to ask me when we will be baking again. Children simply love the meaning-filled task of baking bread especially when it is done with imagination and love. They sense the rightness of it and are  eager to participate from the initial sticky dough all the way to eating the delicious crust and crumb.

And, while making 25 smaller dragons why not make a really large one? In response to a special request from Jef Saunders from Arscura School of Living Art, I made the largest Dragon Bread that I have yet attempted: sourdough with raisins and dried cranberries, jewels in the belly that was decorated with almonds. It was fun to make and according to many reports from their Michaelmas celebration delicious to eat. The photo is courtesy of Vibeke Ball. Thank you to one and all for a fun baking day!

Is this bread really food or is it the clever brain child of a chemistry lab?

Whole grain white bread???

Look at the ingredient label below.

In what bread recipe that you know is their more water than flour (usually it is 2 to 1, flour to water)?
Since when is Cottonseed fiber a food?
High fructose corn syrup is not a food!
Neither is soy fiber!
And then there is the whole list of other unpronouncable goodies…

Ingredients:  WATER, WHEAT FLOUR, COTTONSEED FIBER, WHEAT GLUTEN, HIGH FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP OR SUGAR, YEAST. CONTAINS 2% OR LESS OF: CALCIUM CARBONATE, SALT, BARLEY MALT, VINEGAR, NATURAL FLAVOR, CALCIUM PROPIONATE (TO RETAIN FRESHNESS), SODIUM STEAROYL LACTYLATE, CELLULOSE GUM, SOY FIBER, ETHOXYLATED MONO- AND DIGLYCERIDES, MONO- AND DIGLYCERIDES, MONOCALCIUM PHOSPHATE, SOYBEAN OIL, SOY LECITHIN, YEAST EXTRACT, B VITAMINS (NIACIN, THIAMINE MONONITRATE (B1), RIBOFLAVIN (B2), PYRIDOXINE HYDROCHLORIDE (B6), FOLIC ACID, VITAMIN B12), CALCIUM SULFATE, FERROUS SULFATE (IRON), CALCIUM DIOXIDE, VITAMIN D3, VITAMIN E ACETATE, ZINC OXIDE, AZODICARBONAMIDE, ENZYMES, SOY FLOUR, STEVIA EXTRACT (NATURAL SWEETENER), WHEY.

Why choose this when all it takes to make nutritious bread is flour, water, salt and leaven?

Keep on baking!

A dead mouse was embedded into the bread and already sliced.
Ready to eat?!

Premier Foods was ordered to pay nearly £17,000 in fines and redress after a man found a dead mouse in a loaf of bread as he made sandwiches for his children. A more worrying detail was that the tail was missing and presumably eaten for lunch the day before.  For full article click here

Come explore the art of baking bread using whole grains and natural leaven, sourdough starter. We’ll bake a variety of breads using the same simple sourdough culture. We’ll touch upon the aspects of baking that create healthy and nutritious bread and, of equal importance that allow for joy and meaning in the baking process. You’ll learn how to make and use your own sourdough culture. You’ll take home fresh baked bread, sourdough starter and inspiration for future baking.

Toronto Waldorf School
Kitchen (downstairs)
Sunday September 26, 2010
10:00 am to 4:00 pm

Course fee $75 (includes all ingredients, bread and starter to take home)

To register please contact Rudolf Steiner Centre Toronto
Tel. 905 764 7570
info@rsct.ca

I have received the most touching responses from my Art of Baking Bread and an Evolving Picture of Human Consciousness workshop this summer. Baking bread together can be spiritual work that nourishes us body, soul and spirit. It is enlivening, awakens the senses and can be a whole lot of fun.

Hi Warren,

I had the pleasure of meeting you and your family at the RSI this summer. From the evening session in which you showed how to bake bread, the guidance of your book and the great bread starter that you gave me, I am baking very nutritious breads for my family (at least once a week): corn bread, plain bread, apple bread, scones and even pizza. I have not bought bread since I started baking! Every time I make bread I feel I ma meditating. It is a wonderful experience that I have never had while cooking. I dare to say that it feels like a spiritual practice. My children also help and I am trying to help them deepen their relationship with what they eat. 
Thank you for all your work and for inspiring others. 
Best wishes, 

Alejandra

Hello Alejandra,

What a beautiful testament to the deep nourishment of baking bread and sharing this gift with others. Thank you so much for this note. I will cherish it and likely share it with the people who are gathering with me this weekend to build bread ovens and bake pizza together. This work of baking together continues to amaze me in its power to to cultivate spiritual companionship.

Blessings on the bread
Warren

This week the Rudolf Steiner Institute offered an opportunity to explore the interconnected themes of the art of baking bread and the evlution of human consciousness with a group of  nine very engaged and fun loving bakers. This full week hands-on intensive allowed us both to bake a whole range of breads and to explore how the human diet and consciousness have changed since the agricultural revolution. Further this led us to look into the interconnected symbiosis in this change of diet and consciousness, which I have been enjoying researching for some time now. With a theme this vast and admittedly far reaching, we could only hope to touch in at certain significant moments in this panoramic journey and taste the proceses at work in these historical times and cultures. Our journey took us from ancient India and old world chapatti to Greece andpita bread, from sourdough breads in northern and southern Europe, to yeasted bagels, cinammon rolls and to the pinnacle of bread extravagance organic sourdough all butter croissants and pan au chocolat – a truly delicious journey in bread and thought! The journey continued to the modern day, to Wonder Bread, Nutritionaism and Orthorexia Nervosa. What lays in the future we can only surmise…

We began our week with the mystery of the agricultural revolution, trying to develop a palpable understanding for how human kind learned how to develop wild plants into domesticated varieties, a power which we no longer possess (even with the advent of genetic engineering!). How our modern food plants and animals were bread from their wild predecesors is still far from clear as is how this early food was then prepared to eat. Again there are many missing links in trying to understand these processes. For instance how were the early grains ground and cooked? It is not as easy to do as you might imagine using only the traditional tools, and these challenges were an important part of our process of discovery.

Next we looked at Ancient Egyptian culture, which had developed over 40 different varieties of bread as depicted in their tomb paintings. In Egypt came the art of adding leaven to the bread. This made the bread more digestible, nutritious, tasty and helped it to keep longer. It is also easier to chew and use as a base or dipper with other foods. Egypt allowed bread to rise into the third dimension and along with that advance, Egyptians entered more fully into materialism.

Our sourdough repetoire expanded into French Peasant Loaves and Sourdough Rye bread flavoured with corriander and honey. These breads were surprisingly sweet and nutty (do to my method of keeping the sourdough starter firm and dry).  Here loaves are more complex and can be shared amongst many peoples. Oven technology had to mature to consistently and evenly bake these larger loaves. These breads grew well beyond the inflated plane of earlier loaves and allow crust and crumb to develop into more spherical loaf forms. We also felt how differently the rye grain/flour responds than does wheat and how satisfying each can be if worked appropriately to their nature.

As we progressed towards the modern day, we had to include at least one recipe with commercial yeast (I much prefer sourdough for the multiple reasons listed above including improved workability). We made sesame seeded bagles which not only have a slightly more complex form, but also have the added step of being boiled before painted with egg, sesame seeds and then baked. These were both light and chew.

Our bread journey turned decidedly more decadent in our last two days of baking  in which the bread organism become ever more finely layered and rich. On Thursday we baked All Spelt Sourdough Cinnamon Rolls with generous amounts butter, cinammon, brown sugar, raisins and pecans all rolled into long logs, sliced and baked. The contrast of cinammon sweetness and slightly tangy dough was most satisfying.

And lastly, we stretched the dough even more finely and folded it with 32 layers of butter, rolled into fine All Butter Sourdough Croissants. This pinnacle of the french culinary art required precise temperatures, conditions and exactness. the mood in the kitchen was decidedly more tense. The singing that filled the atmosphere from the previous days was lost as we busily tried to work the dough when it was the perfect temperature before racing it back into the refrigerator. It was definitely stressful at times working in such hot weather, but the results were remarkably delicious. We baked over 160 croissants, some filled with almond butter and/or chocolate, none of which remained to for the following day.

All in all we baked a tremendous amount of bread and were able to feed the 160 participants at the Rudolf Steiner Institute, whose praise was effusive. And not remarkably, many people were most deeply nourished by the simpler sourdough breads we baked. These were baked with joy and love and song. Blessings were kneaded right into every loaf and the participants, I am convinced, could taste these and enjoy these more subtle ingredients along with the substance of the bread. It is for this reason that I always encourage my students to sing to their loaves, to pray as they knead and imagine the loaves nourishing their loved ones. Then the love is baked right in.

As if all this activity were not enough, on top of all of this baking we also spent an hour and a half each day discussing a host of themes including: The evolution of human nutrition from antiquity to the modern day, the Agricultural revolution to Wonder Bread, We studied, drew and painted the wheat plant, looked at the sacred and daily role of bread and wine in our lives, explored issues around wheat/gluten intolerance and allergies, earthen bread ovens, and looked at elements of our own food biographies. Then in the afternoons Kevin Hughes led us in painting exercises. It was a full and deeply satisfying journey of collaborative baking and research.

Thank you to Joy for her enthusiasm and her wonderful photography. If you would like to see her whole beautiful photo essay of this week please visit Joy’s blog .

You guys/gals are some mightily inspiring bakers!

Thanks for a great week.

Build two bread ovens with experienced oven builder, Warren Lee Cohen. Made from recycled clay, sand and straw, these hand (and feet!) sculpted ovens are kneaded right into shape and then allowed to harden.

We will fire one of them and use it to make organic sourdough pizza on the Sunday. Please bring your favourite topping and an apron.

Many participants from past workshops have gone on to build their own bread ovens.

King City, Ontario
Saturday August 28 and
Sunday August 29, 2010
10:00 am to 4:00 pm

Course fee $125 (includes lunch both days
and all materials)

To register please contact Leslie
Tel. 905 833 3533
leslie.peel@mac.com