Bread Workshops

with @breadtimestoryteller

‘Whose bread one eats, whose world one speaks‘
Old Dutch proverb

My approach

My workshops are lovely immersive days including milling flour, bread tales, folk wisdom and mindfulness. My groups are kept small giving you time to absorb and connect to the process and ask lots of questions.

Naturally leavened bread is the ‘folk song’ of the people, valued for its cultural importance as well as its nutritional value. As we have progressed this natural skill has been lost or is seen as an artisan product that needs elite training and equipment. This is just not true – it is everyone’s right to make healthy satisfying bread.

Learning to make sourdough is a journey, a journey I walk and now wish to share. What began as a simple need to make homemade bread led me on a path of nutrition, nature connection, environmental action with even the ‘process’ lending me metaphors for a healthy mindset and life. From my experience people fail or give up with sourdough because they are not willing to accept it is a journey with its oracular nature that can’t always be explained but has to be felt – even smelt! With practice and holding things lightly sourdough making is a joyful, intuitive and therapeutic experience with delicious health enhancing results….. before you know it, it has slipped into your life and you wonder how you could ever live without it. For me it is a love story.

Workshop dates can be found over on my Workshop Dates Page or at @breadtimestoryteller
I welcome group bookings too. Find a group and we can find a date and bespoke the workshop to your needs. Please contact me for further information.

Workshops – what others say

You have created something very special and precious.

Thank you for such a wonderfully engaging day.

I heartily recommend it, a very beautiful experience.

I absolutely loved the workshop – I want to come again!

Thank you for filling me with stories, food, new experiences and a new skill. It was such a special day.

I had a wonderful time at the Sweet Romance day learning about enriched dough fabulousness. Thank you for hosting and nurturing me with food and knowledge.

Such a magical and transporting time. It was a privilege to know how to do something simply and dooably without getting bogged down with tons of detail.

Current Workshop Offerings…

Short Story – Let’s make a tin loaf

Designed for the absolute beginner.
Using a condensed method and by baking in a loaf tin you gain not only convenience but also that classic sourdough flavour and the health benefits that we all love.
9.30am – 3.30pm
Group size – 6 participants
Price £100pp including loaf tin, toast breakfast, lunch, refreshments, bread to bake at home, handouts, starter and gift.

Chapter One – Let’s make a country loaf

Designed for the beginner or a home baker wishing to engage with the process in a more therapeutic way. We will make a communal country loaf based in tradition and I will also show you how to adapt the process to fit in with your lifestyle.
9am – 5pm
Group size – 6 participants
Price £125pp including toast breakfast, lunch, refreshments, bread, starter, handouts and gift.

Sweet Romance – Enriched dough

Designed for bakers already familiar with the sourdough process .
Learn how to adapt your dough for sweet baking adventures including an inclusion loaf inspired by the season, sweet rolls, cardamom buns and crumpets.
9.30am – 4pm
Group size – 6 participants
Price £90pp including morning coffee and sweet bake, lunch, refreshments, handouts, fresh bakes to take home and gift.

Bread Alchelmy

“To nurture the dough is a lesson in life,
Connect the senses, don’t force or rush,
Adapt and pause as the dough shows the way,
With lover’s hands, so they say .” Sharon Elizabeth, The Baker’s Song

A therapeutic day where we surrender to the pace of our rising dough and delve deeper into the soul of bread through story, folklore and song. We will make a communal sourdough loaf with our own freshly milled grain and explore what it means to make ‘panis vitae’ – bread of life. Looking to the past and calling in the goddesses we will also explore how we can build in ritual to deepen our connection to earth, spirit and process. The day will be light on technical skill but will be rich in rural heritage and the unique wisdom that nurturing the dough can bring. The day will conclude with soup and the breaking of our bread.

N.B Women groups only. Group booking.

Birthdays, celebration of a pending birth, honouring the mother, celebrating the sisters gathering.
9.30am – early evening
Group size – 6 participants (POA)

It’s was such a very special bread baking experience. So much information and ancestral connection to the story of bread making. Working lovingly with the ‘mother’ it felt both intimate and a togetherness in creating the perfect sour dough loaf. I personally benefited and learned so much from the very full yet gentle experience. Highly recommended, nourishment and richness of wisdom, all in one day.

Thank you so much Sharon Elizabeth for sharing your beautiful home with us and creating such a fantastic and thought provoking blend of music, story, history, food and memory, friendship, kindness and sharing. How can so much be contained under the crust of a humble loaf until you remember that bread is the stuff of life itself.

Thank you Sharon Elizabeth, really enjoyed yesterday but it was so much more for me. I was genuinely moved. Sharon you have a gift of stories and nurturing.

Also Available…
Savoury Thriller – savoury bread, focaccia and flat breads

Partners in Crime – delicious cheese, dips, preserves and butter to partner your bread

Sourdough Kickstarter – a starter master class and flatbreads

Flour and Friendship – Swedish cardamon bun and coffee morning

N.B The Flour and Friendship workshop uses both the sourdough and fast action yeast method making.

Vouchers….

I am delighted to offer vouchers for my 2025 and 2026 Breadtimestory workshops. Please get in contact here for further information.

BEYOND….

S
S has created a dedicated bread corner in her kitchen and gone on to pass on her new gained skills to her son and two friends and regularly bakes bread as gifts.

C and I
Bread making has become a team effort in their busy household. They make and freeze bread for their family every week.
“We haven’t bought bread all year. It’s the one thing in this family that we never argue about!” I

N
Every time N bakes she bakes one loaf for herself and one for her son and his family.
“I left my fed starter and it rose beautifully!
Two loaves… it’s a sustaining habit in the face of slings and arrows.”

For more information on any of the workshops please do not hesitate to contact me.