Dear Panarians,
This Newsletter deals with:
During the last year I have continued to put much effort into PANARY’s website. The photos are generally improved, and all course descriptions now feature the daily programme (hour by hour) for that particular course. Prospective students can now see for themselves more clearly what to expect from the PANARY experience.
Dear Panarians,
This brief newsletter is to inform you about additional courses being added to the annual programme in order to repeat those popular courses that have sold out.
Booking began for 2012 in November and by new year the February courses had all filled. Hence there have been new courses laid on in March and April for one-day British and one-day Sourdough. Twice it has happened for the popular one-day Basic, for which there now needs to be a course every month. Read More
FIRING INFREQUENTLY – A COLD OVEN
Life is easy with a wood-fired masonry oven when your routine involves much baking and daily firing of the oven. The masonry and the whole structure stays permanently warm and hence the daily firing is a topping up affair, with less time taken, less fuel used.
This article concerns the other extreme, when your baking in the wood-fired oven is sporadic, and it is allowed to get completely cold. Maybe you are an amateur baker that only gets to it at weekends, or perhaps you are a semi-pro who only fires and bakes on the days when you prepare bread for your local market. At PANARY when I am in the phases of the year when there are no courses being held, I fire and bake in it only once a week when I have my commercial baking day to sell the bread in local shops. If it is only fired once a week, while it will not have become damp, it has definitely gone back to stone cold by the next time you fire. Read More
When customers for the large ovens are finding out about technical details before they place an order, it is clear that they are often confused about the position of the chimney, and the basic simplicity of an oven that is fired on its floor.
The basic oven that is fired on its floor is the ancient and classic design that we have had for millennia. The domed chamber is built with only one opening – a doorway that is used for loading the fuel and subsequently releasing all exhaust from the firing phase; and later, it is used as the aperture through which the food to be cooked is pushed in and pulled out. This simplicity requires that the chimney base has to be placed directly outside the doorway. Read More
Often I am asked – what is it that is so special about masonry ovens?
When my interest in baking grew to an itching urge to find out all I could within a few years so that I could set up my own bakery, these ovens were always called “brick ovens” by the old bakers. They were often made with simple house bricks, perhaps with firebrick placed around the furnace area and where the flame path gushed out into the chamber across the front of the crown. The big bakers’ ovens had a twentieth century improvement – a remote furnace, placed in a front wall, and when I began baking they were more likely fired with oil or gas. At that time, the 1970’s, those I came across were already survivors, some would have called them relics of the past. But quite a few bakers still used them, more in the country towns than the cities, particularly if they were still in good condition. Read More
Dear PANARIANS all,
The 2012 programme is now on PANARY’s website for all to see. I wish to draw to your attention some of its features and changes.
The main news item is the price reduction of all two-day courses. As an aftermath of the recession, and now during this current and prolonged austerity period, the two-day courses have slumped in popularity while the one-dayers have gained. As a committed teacher, and a person who has the good fortune of loving his work, the decline in the two-dayers has been a sadness for me. It is on the two-day course that a student can really get his or her teeth into whatever baking it is that is the theme of the course. With the price reduction (£60, meaning they now cost £310)) I am hoping to draw people back to them. Read More
Dear Panarians,
All PANARY course dates for 2011 are now on the website – www.panary.co.uk – and with this newsletter I can point out a few changes.
Two theme courses have been deleted: Flatbreads and the two-day Sponges & pre-ferments. Students can still encounter a range of flatbreads by attending the Italian and Wood-fired Oven courses. The Sponges course was less popular than I expected, probably because it was an advanced level course and not thought of as mainstream. However, work with sponges of all types does occur on both the British and continental courses (including French), and a student who really wants to go into sponges deeply could request them on any three-day course programme.
A general shift in the programming that reflects our post-recession times is that I am holding more one-day courses and less of the two-day. New one-day courses are: French, British, and Sourdough. For years these have been in the two-day format, and it is now an exciting challenge for me to present these themes in the one-day format. It will take me a while to get used to hearing myself say…”and here is one that I made earlier…” Read More
The big thing to crow about here is the recently renovated PANARY website. Get along to www.panary.co.uk , and have a bit of a click around, and see if you agree that I am now entirely modernised.
New course this year (2010 programme) is Sponges & Pre-ferments. While this course really should be thought of as an advanced course, it remains open to anybody to attend without any pre-requisites, as is the PANARY way. The pitch of the course is to give such an in-depth view of sponges and ferments of all types that we cross the national boundaries, examining and making from the Continent alongside Britain. This is an all-yeast course, no sourdough in our family of sponges. The first course in May got off to a steady start, and the course programme seemed to suit very well. Next opportunities are July 13-14, and October 23-24. Read More
Master artisan baker and Slow Food member Paul Merry met with Catherine and Henry on their trip to visit the Dorset convivium. Paul has been involved with craft baking and masonry ovens for over thirty years, and has been teaching courses for fifteen years. He kindly took the SFUK team on a tour around the watermill, Cann Mills near Shaftesbury in Dorset, where a range of flours are made using its traditional stones and sieves. Next door, Paul holds a wide range of bread making courses. Here, Paul took some time away from his classes to answer a few questions… Read More
tel: 01747 823711
email: info@panary.co.uk
Newsletter 7, October 2012
Dear PANARIANS,
It is time for a newsletter as this year’s courses are drawing to a close, and all next year’s dates are now set, and flying on the website.
There are few changes, if any, to the courses offered and their programmes. Composite courses are the new thing and they were thoroughly described in my last Newsletter. It means that for Basic and British courses, a One-day format will be followed immediately by a second day which is actually turning that one-day course into the Two-day version. Students who want to book for the two-day course will stay on, and they may be joined by new people who have previously done the one-day course, but now want to complete the second day of it. The format was tried out satisfactorily in October’s Basic course, so I have gone ahead to create six of these composite courses next year.
Read More »