Reclaiming our daily bread from supermarkets requires time, a little science and passion

We couldn't have a lesson from anyone better qualified, as, amongst other things, our teacher, 63, founded Melmerby's Village Bakery in Cumbria in 1976 (pioneers when it comes to wholemeal bread), and is the author of Bread Matters, a definitive bread-making book.

He even looks like a typical Mr Bun - in top-to- toe white, with rosy cheeks and hands as big as butter pats.

However, his expertise doesn't mean that this course is going to be easy. In our feeble attempts to 'air knead' the rustic pain-de-campagne dough (one of the seven varieties of bread we learn to make over the weekend), some of us seem to be grappling with an 'air accordion', or 'air yo-yo'.

"There's always one messy person," Whitley sighs, as he scrapes my papier-mache-like mixture off the table, and miraculously solidifies it with a quick pummel.

However, after 30 minutes of kneading the class is completely exhausted. We could have used a mixer, but Whitley wanted us to witness the magic moment when the 'gluten matrix' develops and the mixture becomes stretchy and pliable.

"If you understand the process, you can make bread without slavish attention to recipes," explains Whitley. "You may think this is an impossible task over two days, but there aren't many ways to make bread. For example, there's the basic yeasted sourdough, or there are versions that have been enriched, with fat, sugar or spice, or bread that's been made for a purpose, like the Jewish Challah, which is eaten on the Sabbath."

As part of this course, we discover how to make the latter, as well as ciabatta, pain-de-campagne, a wholemeal loaf, croissants, rye sourdough and borodinsky - a dark rye bread, studded with coriander seeds, which Whitley regularly baked as part of his stint in a Russian bakery in the early 1990s.

I've never attempted baking bread before, it has always seemed like a complicated ritual, with a secret language (for example, terms include knocking back, leavening, starters, proving and overnight sponges) and Frankensteinian ingredients (yeast, bacteria) that are alive. However, our teacher is at pains to unpick the myths that over-complicate this craft. For example, Whitley instructs us not to bother making a 'well' in the mixture when adding water. And, he's not so keen on the term 'feeding', when it comes to topping up the fermenting micro-organism that is a 'starter' (the preparation that allows the live yeast to grow), preferring to use the term 'refreshing'. Possibly because it doesn't imply that this mixture is a pet that's going to die if you don't give it a snack.

"I wanted to come on this course because I was sick of my bread machine churning out the same shaped loaves, with that hole in the bottom" says Annie Mackellar, a research assistant at Edinburgh University. Dr John Croll, 52, a medical microbiologist from Chester, explains: "I've been trying to make bread since the Seventies, but sometimes you need a hacksaw to slice it."

Then there's Julian Schad, 43, a tree surgeon from Dunblane, who describes himself as "an aspirational peasant"; and Ann Begg of Milngavie, who, now retired, dubs herself "a frustrated earth mother".

It's an interesting mix of people, many of whom have a scientific or medical background.

Sandra Munro, 56, from Aberdeen, compares her new understanding of changes in the dough's structure, to one of her previous jobs.

"When I was a midwife, we learnt how to tell where the baby was positioned in the mother's abdomen," she explains. "I'd never be able to do it now, as it's one of these things - like the bread-making process - that becomes intuitive."

The biological link arises again, when Whitley likens the process of inserting the bread into the oven to sex. The class titters. "Well, it's obvious symbolism, isn't it?" he says. "Even the famous boulanger Lionel Poilane wrote about it."

"Don't poke it, handle it as you would like to be touched," he says as I roughly shape the bread onto the baking tray. Ooer.Only then do I get to fling my creation into the wood-fired oven (which was heated to 350 degrees a few hours earlier, and then allowed to cool) with the heavy wooden peel.

It's obvious that this organic baker is, in more ways than one, passionate about bread. He co-founded the Real Bread Campaign (www.sustainweb.org/realbread/), which promotes the benefits of properly made loaves, as oppose to the supermarket stuff.

"The startling possibility is that British consumers, without their knowledge, have been taking part in a flawed experiment," he writes, in his book Bread Matters. "Back in the early 1960s, the national loaf was fundamentally redesigned. The flour and yeast were changed and a combination of intense energy and additives completely displaced time in the maturing of the dough. Almost all our bread has been made this way for nearly half a century. It is white and light and stays soft for days. It is made largely with home grown wheat and it is cheap. For increasing numbers of people, however, it is inedible."

In fact, Whitley reveals that he is currently working with King's College, London, on research that aims to prove that naturally fermented bread has a positive nutritional benefit.

However, even without the health perks, I would have enjoyed munching the produce I made on this course. Borodinsky is my favourite.

I've also discovered that, despite my messiness and poor air-kneading skills, making bread isn't so scary. As Elma Parkins, a retired Home Economics teacher from Milngavie says: "It's like being a child, as getting your hands dirty is relaxing. You can let the mind drift and there's magic in the process."

The next Bread Matters Fundamental courses are on the 2-3 April and 7-8 May, 415 including meals (tel: 01968 660449, www.breadmatters.com for these and other courses). Bread Matters, by Andrew Whitley, Fourth Estate, 16.99.

• This article was first published in The Scotsman on March 12, 2011