Week One Pics

Here are a few pictures from the first week. We hit several areas and tried different things. Next week starts 10 straight days of breads. Things will really begin to pick up then. I'm sure the 6 months will fly by.



You can really see (and taste) the difference a small tweak in ingredients will make in a simple muffin.










Some baguettes we made today after proofing. Ok so these are not that great but hey they are the first ones many of us have made. Hopefully in the next couple of weeks you will see vast improvement.














Here the baguettes are about to go into the oven after scoring.




Here is some nice scone dough we made today. Each team made their own variation with mine choosing to add chocolate and cranberries.

The final product. So tasty.

Meet the gang.

Week One

Well week one started this past Monday. That was mostly admin stuff and a little intro to some of the equipment in the kitchen. Today we were split into 3 teams. Each team was given recipes for chocolate cake, blueberry muffins and chocolate chip cookies with pecans. For each dish there was one good recipe and two "bad" recipes where there was too much or too little of an ingredient or an ingredient was left out all together. No one in the groups knew which recipe was "good" or "bad". After everything was baked and cooled we lined up each groups cakes, muffins and cookies and everyone tasted each. This allowed us to see and taste the difference between each and how the ingredients or lack there of have an effect on the product.
Wednesday and Thursday will be spent discussing sanitation and nutrition. We may however actually do some starters and make some dough for some small baguettes to get a jump start on our first module (Breads) which begins next Monday. I plan to begin posting pictures each day once next week begins and we put out product everyday. That's when the real fun begins! I'm thinking I better get back to running since I'll be tasting all these goodies everyday and bringing them home.

Greetings

Welcome friends and fellow pastry enthusiasts. I am one of those rare individuals who walked away from a "good job" to follow a dream and do something more rewarding with my life. I've always had a love for desserts and thought what better way to really learn than to go to the best. So I have enrolled in the Notter School of Pastry Arts. There really is no other place where you will find such a collection of artists. I mean the instructors that come through here are all the absolute best in their area of expertise.
I figured I should document my progress on this new journey so I have started this lovely little blog to accommodate that need and allow others to see what I'm up to and what new treats I've created. I welcome comments and feedback so feel free to give me a shout.