The Alan Scott Oven at Sunnybrae

While Sunnybrae has been on sabbatical we have continued to hold a number of workshops and events and one of the first was to build this wonderful wood fired bakers' oven. We asked Alan Scott the renowned ovencrafter http://www.ovencrafters.net to come to Sunnybrae and conduct an oven building workshop in 2003. With 12 enthusiastic visitors over 3 days of action-packed building and conviviality this wonderful oven was built. I am happy to say that many of the participants of that workshop both amateur and professional have now built ovens and those ovens in turn have inspired others to do the same. The oven will be a major new focus for activities in 2008. This year as a prelude to the opening we were delighted to host John Downes for two workshops. For those of you too young to remember, John, he practically started the sourdough revolution in Australia with Feedwell Foundry, Natural Tucker, Firebrand Bakery. His book The Natural Tucker Bread Book is still in print and for my money arguably the best book on naturally leavened bread available. Do not be put off by its small size, every word is carefully chosen and I can recommend it to anyone embarking on this wonderful voyage that is naturally leavened bread
This is the class photo from the non professional day. John Downes can be contacted at http://www.sourdough.com.au/
A display from 14 of Victoria's finest bakers from the professional day at Sunnybrae. Full notes will be available on the new website.
We were also pleased to have Dan Lepard the celebrated expatriate Australian Baker to another workshop-lunch. Dan has for many years been doing wonderful things in London and has published a brilliant book called The Handmade Loaf and his workshop was a part of the launch of the book in Australia.http://www.danlepard.com/