Real French bread is fat free...

... at least until you lather it with butter. The English and Americans add oil to their bread to give it a longer shelf-life. I never knew that before...

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I interrupt Our Story on account of the fantastic outing I had yesterday with Marian, my English mum. Back when Anthony and I were engaged, Marian told me that she didn't want to be called my mother-in-law because, as she put it, "mothers-in-law are nasty and horrible." So we agreed that she would be my English mum instead.

Marian loves Paul's, a family-owned chain of artisanal bakeries. Most of their shops are in France, but they also have a good number here in London. Marian always makes a point of stopping there when she's on holiday, and frequently drops by when she's in town to visit us. And with good reason! I'm always on the lookout for good bread, and theirs is some of the best I've ever tasted. (They also do a mouth-watering array of fresh pastries!) So when Anthony and I learned that Paul's runs bread-baking classes, we knew we'd found the perfect thing for Marian's birthday present. We thought it would be most fun if she and I did the class together.

The great day finally arrived. (Her birthday was back in May, but the classes are booked solid for months in advance). We met yesterday morning at Piccadilly Circus, and browsed for a while in Fortnum & Mason. I tried on hats, and Marian bought some coloured sugars for Anthony's sister's wedding next month. We enjoyed a leisurely lunch in the Gallery Restaurant at F&M and then wandered up to the bakery at Covent Garden.

There were eight of us in the class. They fitted us out with Paul's aprons, and we took our places down both sides of a long table, where bowls of flour had already been set out. Our first project was to make a basic white dough, which consists of only four ingredients: flour, water, fresh yeast, and salt. Marian and I were both surprised about the ratio of water to flour, which was much higher than what we were used to from Ango-American  recipes. The "dough" that we turned out onto the table for kneading was a sticky mess -- and it only grew stickier and messier as we worked. Apparently it's supposed to be like that. Adding more flour was a definite no-no. The style of kneading that they taught us was also far more vigourous than anything I'd attempted before. You have to use both hands at the same time -- scooping, turning, and flipping as fast as you can, so as to trap as much air as possible inside the dough. We then put it back into the bowls to begin fermentation.

The next step was preliminary shaping. Dough needs to ferment for 4 hours at room temperature before it's ready for shaping, so at this point, the instructor brought out three batches of dough that he had made for us earlier in the day. (The dough that we'd made at the beginning of class was later wrapped up for us to take home.) He divided the batches into small lumps and showed us how to fold them into cylinders.

After giving our fermenting dough a quick turn to supply it with fresh oxygen, we sat down for a few minutes while our instructor told us about the best kinds of flour to use, where to buy fresh yeast, how to slow down or speed up fermentation according to our time constraints, etc. Then we were back on our feet for final shaping. We made round loaves from the olive dough, oblong loaves from the granary dough, and flutes from the white dough. These were all placed on wooden boards, and tucked between folds of linen to help them maintain their shape while rising.

While the loaves were rising, we sat down in the bakery for afternoon tea. We feasted on sandwiches and pastries while our instructor answered further questions and explained the baking process. After this, we loaded the bread into the ovens. This was achieved by first rolling the loaves onto a baker's paddle, and then sliding them into the back of the stone-based oven. Here's Marian loading the oven:

Transferring flutes onto the paddle:

After the bread came out of the oven, we could help ourselves from the pile. All the participants left with a big bag of fresh bread in one hand and a bag of dough in the other. They also gave us an envelope full of recipes and useful tips. I felt like it was my birthday too.

My stash, back home:

My delighted husband: