Gluten Free Baking in St Bresson, France!
Register on our Menu App! We have a very exciting week planned for participants. Class participants will arrive on Sunday, July 2 (presumably in morning to mid-day.) Sunday night we will have an aperitif (cocktail party) courtesy of the Mayor’s office, where the class will be able to meet and mingle with the villagers. Then we will have our first dinner, made by the local chef who will be preparing all the week’s meals.
This class is intended for home bakers only. The class is limited to 30 people.
Meals
Meals will accommodate vegan, diary free and those who are dairy/meat eaters. And will be served under light strung plane trees, next to the bocce court, and across from the town hall. We think it will be fun to teach people bocce and have bocce tournaments at night after dinner. The Mayor’s office is hosting a Spectacular (basically a french style music or theatre production) one night, either on Crepe night or Pizza night, to be determined.
The owner of the local Creperie will come to the village Weds night for a crepe soirée. Villagers will be invited to participate. Friday night will be pizza night. We will be making the dough and one of the sauces, rolling and assembling our personal pizzas from ingredients provided by the chef. There will be vegan cheese as well as a dairy cheese selection for the pizzas.
Classes
Class-wise we will have two sessions a day Mon/Weds/Friday, and one a day Tues/Thur/Sat. This will enable us to go on organized trips. Our class schedule is not yet set in stone, but it will look something like this: first session: bread. Second cakes/cupcakes. Third: Frostings, decorating tips. Fourth. All things pastry. Fifth: Scones and Cookie mania. Sixth: Pizza dough, Pop Tarts, low sugar jam (for pot-tarts). Seventh: macarons, cobbler, béchamel (for pizza). Eight: Finishing cobbler, and rolling out and assembling pizzas for dinner. Ninth: Quiche (for picnic) and recap of items of interest. Those who are particularly wanting to learn bread, also can join us early each morning as we make the daily bread for meals.
Trips/Events
On Tuesday afternoon we will go to Saint-Guilhem-le-Désert There one can visit the historical sites, visit artist studios, shop, hike to the top of a mountain where there is a deserted monastery, or go zip lining down in the river below. We will have dinner in St Guilhem. (Dinner not included in price of trip.) On Wednesday night the owner of the local Creperie will come to the village for Crepes night. There will be a choice of savory crepes and sweet crepes and some of the villagers may join us. On Thursday morning we will go to the market in Anduze. After the market we will either stay in Anduze for lunch, or will drive the short distance to Sauve, another medieval village. (Lunch not included in price of trip.) On Saturday we will have class in the morning and then leave for a picnic in a lovely area of the Cevennes where Robert Louis Stevenson wrote Travels with a Donkey in the Cévennes. We will return Saturday evening to St Bresson where we will have a simple meal of traditional pistou soup.
Please note, good walking shoes are imperative for this trip. High heels are likely not needed.
Housing
All the housing in the Village center are homes belonging to villagers. In some cases, we have rented the whole house, and in others 1-2 rooms in a house that will be occupied by its owner. All of these rooms are 1-5 minute walk to the town hall where the class is being held. These accommodations are for singles, or couples. No families. Although each house has a kitchen, there are no cooking privileges in the village center accommodations.
If you want to cook for yourself, please sign up for one of the gites or chalets outside of the village (2+km walk in hilly country terrain.) We will have a van that will pick up/drop off at these locations at specific times each day. These accommodations are appropriate for singles, couples or families. The bonus is the gites and chalets all have pools–with the chalet pool having stunning views, although one gite has specified no young children due to the pool.
The Package:
The class is priced as a package. Each package includes housing, food (3 meals a day, except for the two meals we’ve excluded), and the class. We have also listed an option for Class + food only, for those who might want to stay in one of the two hotels we recommend. Both hotels are approximately 10km away and require a rental car. One is a medieval chateau.
You will be able to sign up your Plus 1/family for the meal plan as well if you choose. If traveling with a family, please choose either a whole chalet or one of the gites in Le Camp. The chalet’s sleep 6-8 but we are treating them as 2 bedrooms. So if you are traveling with more than yourself and a partner you will need to book two rooms in the same chalet. We highly recommend that your entire party sign up for the food plan. There is no source of food in the village. Only down at the bottom of the 7 km hill (either side of the hill.) We will be busy all day, everyday, so if you want to see your partner/family, meal time is the time to do so.
You can also purchase meals by giving 2 days notice (so the chef can buy enough ingredients) for your Plus travel partners. The cost, however, will be much higher as a one of meal ticket because it will have to factor in the cost of going and getting additional items, whereas, the chef plans to purchase in bulk ahead of time, to keep food more cost effective for the class. We are planning on food for 30, unless people sign up in advance for food for their plus 1/family.
Registration:
Register on our order app. It is the last item (after delivery) on the app. At registration you will need to pay 25% of the package cost. 50% will be due January 15, 2023. The remaining 25% will be due May 15, 2023. These payments are non-refundable, unless someone from the wait list takes your place. If there is a major event that prevents travel, the trip will be postponed. We have costed this trip out based on prepaying for many things, including bringing in what we need to St Bresson for the class. We expect there will be a waitlist, as many more people than we have room for have indicated interest. Plus we are pricing it to be affordable for most people.
Activities for your Plus One/Family:
After people have registered, we will send a survey to registrants of possible activities we can organize for their Plus 1 or family. We thought we would organize activities on Monday, Weds, and Friday –days we have classes all day. Activities could include wine/cheese tasting, biking along bike trails made on old railroad tracks (some go thru hills and all go between interesting places), canoeing (hugely popular in this region), etc. We plan to hire someone to be a guide for each activity, to make it easy and fun.
Waiver Requirements:
By signing up for the class, participants are certifying that they are not professionals in the food industry, and aren’t planning to become a professional. All recipes are the proprietary property of Violette Bakers (Violette LLC) and are part of the value of our business. This class is for home bakers only. Participants must sign a waiver that they will not use, give or sell our recipes, or any similar recipe (if tweeked) for commercial purposes or to a commercial enterprise. We reserve the right to cancel the reservation of anyone who we discover has commercial intent.
