Home Courses - The School of Artisan Food Breads & Baking Christmas Baking

Christmas Baking

£215.00

Beginner

Duration:

1 Day

Timings:

All Day

Course start dates

15 Dec 2026
19 Dec 2026

Hourly Schedule

Time

9:00
Arrival & welcome
Tea, coffee and warm pastries from the kitchen.

9:30
Course Start

13:00
Lunch
Seasonal lunch prepared by our catering team.

16:30
Course End

Embrace the rich traditions of festive baking on this hands-on Christmas workshop with renowned baker, author and tutor Emmanuel Hadjiandreou. Christmas baking has long been at the heart of seasonal celebrations across Europe, from the fruit-filled breads of Germany to the spiced pastries and sweet treats enjoyed around the festive table.

Throughout the day, you’ll learn the essential techniques behind some of the season’s most treasured bakes, developing the skills and confidence to recreate them at home. Working with puff pastry, enriched doughs and marzipan, you’ll gain an understanding of the ingredients, methods and traditions that make Christmas baking so special.

Whether you’re looking to impress family and friends over the festive season or start new baking traditions of your own, this course will leave you inspired and ready for Christmas.

What You’ll Learn

Through hands-on baking and expert tuition, you will:

Master the techniques behind enriched festive doughs
Learn how to work confidently with marzipan
Develop an understanding of puff pastry and its uses in seasonal baking
Explore the ingredients and traditions behind classic Christmas bakes
Gain practical skills to recreate festive favourites at home
Build confidence in producing bakery-quality seasonal treats

What You’ll Bake

During the course, you’ll create:

German-Inspired Stollen
Learn how to make this iconic Christmas bread, traditionally enjoyed throughout the festive season in Germany. Rich with dried fruits and carefully spiced, stollen is distinguished by its buttery texture and marzipan centre. You’ll discover the techniques that help create its characteristic flavour, structure and appearance.

A Modern Twist on the Traditional Mince Pie
Reimagine a festive classic while mastering the pastry techniques needed to produce beautifully finished mince pies. You’ll explore contemporary flavour combinations while retaining all the warmth and nostalgia of this much-loved Christmas favourite.

Who Is This Course For?

This course is perfect for home bakers, festive food enthusiasts and anyone looking to expand their baking repertoire with seasonal classics. Whether you are new to baking or already have experience in the kitchen, you’ll gain valuable skills and plenty of inspiration for the Christmas season.

The School of Artisan Food makes a conscious effort to reduce waste and packaging, so we encourage you to bring your own containers to transport your food home.

No prior baking experience is necessary; just enthusiasm and a willingness to work alongside other food lovers.

Refreshments will be available throughout the day, as well as a buffet-style lunch prepared by our catering team. All ingredients, equipment and recipes will be provided.

Please Note:
Whilst we make every effort to adhere to best practices regarding allergen control and cross-contamination at The School of Artisan Food, we sincerely regret that we are unable to cater for severe food allergies or coeliac disease. This is due to the continuous and varied use of our teaching spaces, common areas and food preparation areas.

If in any doubt, please contact us to discuss your individual circumstances prior to making a booking, as this will then enable us to produce a personalised Risk Assessment based on your own specific circumstances and better judge if we can safely accommodate you on site.

Your Tutors

Tutor

Emmanuel Hadjiandreou

Emmanuel Hadjiandreou

Emmanuel has a real passion for artisan bread. Having trained as a baker in South Africa, he has baked around the world.

In the UK, Emmanuel has worked for Flour Power, Gordon Ramsay, Daylesford Organic and Judges Bakery.

He has a special knowledge of continental breads, having baked in Germany, where he learned to make a world-class stollen. While at Daylesford, the award-winning organic farm shop in Oxfordshire, Emmanuel’s bread won a Soil Association Organic Food Award, with several other bread creations earning the Highly Commended award.

Emmanuel has also published three books:

How to Make Bread won a coveted Guild of Food Writers award.
Making Bread Together – step-by-step recipes for fun and simple breads to make with children
How to Make Sourdough – 45 recipes for sourdough breads that are good for you as well as being great-tasting.
Along with Wayne Caddy, a fellow baking tutor at the School, Emmanuel has represented the UK at the baking Coupe du Monde.