Running bread-making workshops: timing, places and dough
Early starts, proving times, small groups, flour and aprons: how bakers can run bread-making workshops that customers book online, with places per session.
7 min read
Hold bread-making workshops at times when the bakehouse is free, such as a weekend afternoon or a closing day, and build each session around the bread's timing: prepare doughs in advance so participants can shape and bake a batch that has already proved, while they mix their own dough to take home. Fix a number of places per session that your bench and oven can handle, and let customers book them online. Say in the description what's included, what to wear and what they leave with.
Fitting workshops around the bakery
A bakery's day starts before dawn, and the bakehouse is busy until the morning bake is done. Workshops can't run then. The practical windows are the ones where the oven and the bench are free: afternoons after production, the day the shop is closed, or a weekend afternoon. Pick one or two and keep them regular, so customers know when to look for places.
Bread also has its own clock. Mixing, first rise, shaping, final proof and baking take hours from start to finish, longer for sourdough. No one wants a seven-hour class. One way around it is to work with doughs at different stages: participants mix a dough to see how it's made, shape and bake doughs you prepared earlier, and take home either a baked loaf or their own dough to bake the next day.
Setting up the workshops
On Book, each service has a name, a price and an optional description shown on your public page. Each slot belongs to one service, with its own start and end, and its own number of places. Customers pick a workshop, then a session. Each booking takes one place; when all places are taken, the session disappears from your page.
| Workshop | Example slot | Places | Example price |
|---|---|---|---|
| Everyday bread: baguettes and loaves | 3 h | 8 | €60 |
| Sourdough: starter, shaping, scoring | 3 h 30 | 6 | €75 |
| Brioche and enriched doughs | 3 h | 8 | €65 |
| Parent and child bread class | 2 h | 6 | €40 |
Lengths, places and prices are examples: set your own. For the parent and child class, say in the description whether the price is per pair and one booking covers both, or whether each person books a place.
What to put in the description
- What they'll do: mix, knead, shape, score and bake, and which breads.
- What they take home: baked bread, their own dough, a small pot of starter, a recipe sheet.
- What to wear: comfortable clothes, closed shoes; aprons provided or not.
- Allergies: the workshop uses wheat flour, and sometimes eggs, milk or nuts.
- Where to enter: through the shop, or a side door to the bakehouse.
- Payment: Book doesn't take payments, so say how and when to pay.
The public booking form asks for first name, last name, email and phone, plus an optional note that you read in your new-booking email. Ask for their baking experience and any allergy. For a child, ask for the age.
Gift bookings
A workshop can also be a gift. Book doesn't sell gift vouchers, but you can sell them in the shop and, when the recipient chooses a date, book them into a session from your calendar: first and last name are required, email and phone optional. With their email, they get a confirmation and a calendar file.
Planning the season
Create sessions on your workshop days and repeat them each week until a date, such as the end of the season. Add extra sessions before holidays, when brioche and festive breads are in demand. If a session doesn't fill, you can move the few booked participants to another session from your bookings list, and tell them yourself, since Book doesn't email them about changes. The freed session can then be deleted.
For participants who want to go further after a first class, a follow-up sourdough class or a technique session gives them a reason to come back, and to buy their bread from you in between. Book costs €5/month, everything included: unlimited services and bookings, no commission, no contract.