Play dough – creative and convenient breadmaking at The Machado Gallery

A rave review here from The Guardian’s Sally Shalam took us (and three other Guardian readers) to The Machado Gallery in Barford, Warwickshire last weekend.

It’s owned by sculptor and ceramicist, Sue Machado (pictured) who, these days, brings her passion, creativity and love of shaping and “firing” to breadmaking. So it’s not about following recipes. In fact Sue is positively against them. Crack her basic formula and, as long as you keep an eye on consistency of your starter and dough, you can mix it up, using different flours, sugars (molasses, golden syrup), seeds, herbs and wet ingredients (potato, mushrooms, onions). Sue positively inspired us to play around and to great effect.

Shalam’s write up particulaly appealed because she highlighted Machado’s winning two stage breadmaking technique, which makes the whole process much more user friendly. Her hot tip is first to make a biga or starter of dried yeast, flour, water and honey, which takes just 15 minutes. You leave it to prove for at least two hours (but you can leave it up to 2 days). It then just takes an hour and a half to make the bread mix, incorporate the biga (pictured), prove and bake the bread.

With the exception of the olive oil drizzled foccacia we enjoyed for lunch (pictured), you need only prove most breads once. So it’s easy enough to make a biga in the morning and bake the loaf at lunchtime or after work – nothing more therapeutic post work than kneading bread!

Obviously the proof of the pudding is in the eating and the doing, but check out my pictures below – as you can see from our beaming faces both us and our breads rose to the occasion. I was even prouder of the potato and rosemary bread I made as soon as I got home on Sunday evening (last picture). It just goes to show what a user-friendly process it is.

Many thanks to our inspiring teacher Sue, who knocks up a fabulous lunch too. Thoroughly recommend the course and her wonderfully aesthetic home and B&B. (Though should you check it out, I wasn’t terribly taken with Warwickshire’s gastropub of the year, The Granville).

Here’s hoping my Alentejo gastronomy and convent pastry course in Portel today goes just as well!

Go Flo!

Sophie’s choice

Mandy’s a.k.a. Rapunzel’s plait

Very proud yours truly

And please do try this at home!