The Artisan Bakery School

In 2008, bakers Dragan and Penny were among the pioneers in teaching microbakery business courses and among the first to sell real bread in Oxford. Now based in Devon, UK, their mission is to teach people how to bake real bread, pastries and pizza. Sourdough, heritage and gluten-free breads are their specialities.

Dragan's fascination with breadmaking was born of necessity in the mid seventies, when he first arrived in the UK. The bread in England then was, and still largely is, fast to produce and chemically induced. Coming from a macho culture, barely able to fry an egg, he was forced to learn how to bake a decent loaf, just to survive. Dragan's greatest pleasure is when people come to them saying that they can finally eat bread again because properly fermented dough is easy to digest.

Penny was fortunate enough to have a mother and two grandmothers who were all great cooks, and happy to have their kids in the kitchen. The teaching came almost by osmosis. Penny’s lifelong passion for creating good food made it natural for her to bake bread, but it wasn’t until she met Dragan that she really developed those skills.

“We can only change the way people bake and think about bread one person at a time. But if we do it often enough, for long enough, we will contribute to positive change. That’s our reason for being."