On Saturday 17 April a number of students joined chef Richard Curtis on our famous Artisan bread course. During the day the team learnt all the skills associated with this specialist baking skill, culminating with the students taking home arms full of fresh tasty bread. Date for your diary – on 15 May will be running a pastry day – [...]

If you are looking for a unique Mother’s Day gift then Shires has the answer. On Saturday 13 March we are running our popular Artisan Bread course, there are just four places remaining. We are delighted to offer these places to your special Mum at just £65, that’s £20 off the usual student rate of £85. When booking enter [...]

A huge thanks to everyone who paid us a visit at the Holdenby Show – we had a great weekend with some fabulous demos taking place. We had over 150 entries to our competition to win a day with Shires – we are delighted to announce that our winner is Caroline Sweetman from Daventry Many [...]

A recipe from our Aritisan bread day     Basic Bread recipe Ingredients 1kilo    Strong White Bread Flour  100% 10g       Fresh Yeast  10% 20g       Salt   20% 600ml  Warm Water 35c (hand hot)   60% 60g   Oil   6% Method Weigh all ingredients, oven  temperature 240c. Put the yeast, oil and water in a jug and mix. Sieve flour and salt. Make a [...]

August 1 saw the launch of our first course at Northampton College – students joined Richard Curtis to learn the art of Artisan bread making. The students where taken through a brief history of bread making before measuring, kneading and fermenting their first batch of dough. Richard said every student went from the kitchen loaded [...]