Artisan Bread - Day 5 & 6

Another week is over. I'm getting close to throwing in the towel with all this bread. I've finally quit bringing so much home and have instead started giving it to one of my classmates who takes food to needy families and the homeless. I wish I had started doing that sooner. Maybe then I wouldn't feel so fat. Can't complain too much though because I haven't really gained any weight since starting the school. I think I was up 2 pounds this week (all from the bread I'm sure) but hey it's only 2 and I can burn that right back off (much to the chagrin of my wife lol). Guys have it so easy haha.
So the last couple of days have been pretty easy and relaxing. We made pizzas both yesterday and today so guess what I had for lunch?? Along with the pizzas we made focaccia, rustique, sour dough and pain chocolate. So not as much to have to bring home and not a constant running around the kitchen. Just a nice relaxed pace. We also had our bread quiz today and our midway review for breads. I got another 100 on the quiz and another great review. So, still looking good.

Artisan Breads - Day 4

The ovens were fired up today that's for sure. All the preferments we did yesterday were mixed for final doughs, shaped, proofed and baked today. The only thing we didn't use was the whole wheat starter. For that we took out more than half of it and added more bread flour, whole wheat flour and water to it and covered it back up and left out to continue fermenting. We will feed it again tomorrow and then make a sour dough on Thursday.
So what came out of the ovens today? Two kinds of baguettes, rustique, rye, and multigrain. That's quite a bit of bread if you ask me. Think it's time to go see the neighbors.

Artisan Breads - Day Two & Three

Didn't get to post anything after class on Thursday and was too lazy to get to it over the weekend so I'm catching up today. Sad I know. Thursday was day 2 for breads and what a busy day it was. The whole day was spent mixing, shaping, proofing and baking. After the smoke cleared (not literally), we had baguettes, ciabatta, rustique, soft rolls and bagels. Talk about a carb overload. That on top of the ciabatta and challah I brought home the day before. It was good though. The ate half of the ciabatta with butter and then sliced some up to make bruschetta. That was delish! I think the rustique we devoured with some butter as well. One loaf of the challah we ate as is and the second we sliced up and made a baked french toast bread pudding. Also...delish.

Today was day 3 for Artisan Breads. We made whole wheat bread which we did some in loafs and some as rolls. Pretty tasty. That's the only thing we baked off. We made and shaped a bunder rye but ran out of time to bake so we wrapped them up and put them in the fridge for tomorrow. The rest of the time today was spent making other starters that we will use tomorrow. We did two different baguette starters (one a poolish and one a pate fermente), a multigrain starter, a whole wheat starter that we will be feeding the next couple of days and will make a sour dough with it on Thursday. Needless to say a ton of bread is on the way to being consumed. Good grief I better start running again soon.

Artisan Breads - Day 1

Time to close one chapter and move on to the next. Today marked day one of Artisan Breads. After finishing our practical yesterday we made a starter for Ciabatta. Today we scaled out the rest of the mix for the Ciabatta and after resting, we cut the dough into three or four pieces to proof and bake. While that was going on we made dough for Challah and made four 3 braid loafs. We also baked some soft rolls, always yummy. At the end of the day we made starters for Baguettes, Ciabatta and a Rustic which will all be ready to make doughs tomorrow. I think we will be making Baguettes 3 times over the next 9 days so we can really get the shaping down strong because our practical will definitely include them.
Chef Notter is back in town and came in to talk to everyone today and get a little background from each of us so he could put a face with a name and learn a little more about us. I think we'll be seeing him around alot more from here on.

Breakfast Pastries - Final

Today was our Final for Breakfast Pastries. That was 10 fast days but I'm glad to be moving on to something new. Started off with the written test which was a breeze. Then we started sheeting our croissant and danish doughs, shaping, proofing and baking them. We had 4 hours to finish and with all the prep work we had done by mixing and then laminating the doughs last Wednesday and Thursday and then making the fillings for the danish yesterday, today was so easy.  Everyone's danish and croissants turned out really good. There was a huge improvement from when we started 10 days ago.

Also for all you cake fans out there, I forgot to mention that I spent this past Saturday at the school being a chef's assistant for Collette Peters. She was in town teaching a 3 day cake decorating class. I assisted her and the class by finding and fetching things they needed throughout the day. After class was over I had to make sure the room was clean. For the most part though I got to just hang out and watch Collette and the students work on their cakes. Sorry I don't have any pics from that. I started to get my camera out and take some pictures but it felt a little awkward since I was supposed to be "working".  Maybe I'll get some of the next guest chef we have in for a class.

Breakfast Pastries - Day 9

Today was our final prep day for our practical tomorrow. We'll start off with a written exam and then we'll have to make croissants and danish. Since we laminated our two doughs last Thursday all we had to do today was get some fillings for the danish prepared so they'll be ready on hand tomorrow. It was a nice slow day. We did make some baking powder biscuits and swiss carrot cake. I didn't like these biscuits as well as the buttermilk biscuits we made earlier. The carrot cake was different from any carrot cake I've ever had, but was pretty good.
We had a lot of free time after lunch so Chef tempered some chocolate and let us practice piping with chocolate. That was pretty fun. Sadly it was the first time I've ever piped anything with chocolate and haven't really done much piping at all really. Chef walked over as I was doing some filigree and said I had some piping skills. He said I had nice control. That made me feel pretty good.  Definitely going to be practicing that some more before we get to plated desserts and any other module that will use that skill. I didn't have my camera on me today because I knew it was going to be a slow day. Guess I'll share my mad piping skills later :-)

Breakfast Pastries - Day 8

It's Thursday! Which is my Friday...so sweet! Today was a pretty easy day. We sheeted, cut and shaped our croissants and popped them in the proof box for a bit while we worked on our croissant and danish dough for our practical coming up on Tuesday. To get those doughs ready, we had to laminate both of them (butter block, 3 fold, rest 30 minutes, roll out, 3 fold, rest 30 minutes, roll out, 3 fold) and then wrap them in plastic and throw them in the freezer for the weekend. Monday we'll move the laminated doughs to the fridge to bring them back down to a workable temperature. I'm not sure if we'll go ahead and run the doughs through the sheeter and then cut them on Monday or wait until the practical on Tuesday for that step. I'm sure Chef Issac told us three or four times today, oh well, always a million things going on in the kitchen. If we go ahead and sheet and cut them Monday, the practical on Tuesday will be a breeze. All we'd have to do then is shape the croissants and danish and proof and bake. Pretty darn easy since we have 4 hours to do complete. Of course while that's going on we will have to do two quick breads as well. I believe Chef chose banana bread and biscuits. Nice! This should be a breeze.
I think I forgot to mention the other day that we had a quiz. We were supposed to have a little "progress check" with Chef the other day after the quiz but that didn't happen until today. Maybe that's why I forgot to mention it. Anyway, I made a 100 on the quiz Yay Me. I also have 100% for professionalism and teamwork as well as attendance. So I guess it's safe to say I'm doing ok. :-) The only thing I need to work on is my speed. I need to work a little faster. But really I think most of the problem is everyone is trying to scale their recipes at the same time or run dough through the sheeter and even with only 11 people in the class it tends to get hectic. I guess I need to start beating everyone to the sheeter because it's hard to get a place in line because you start working on other things in the meantime and then someone jumps in front of you. Oh well. One remedy for the scaling will be easy. I'm going to start taking my own scale that way I will make sure I have a scale of my own and not have to share one with my table partner and wait on them to scale so I can finally scale my ingredients. Anyway. All in all...I'm doing good...putting out good products....working clean...
While our croissants were baking, we made voulavents using the puff pastry dough we laminated yesterday and then rolled and cut into rounds. Chef also showed us how to make Napoleons with some of the puff pastry dough. So so good. I wish I had cut and saved a straight sheet of puff pastry dough so I could make some myself. I'll have to try them at home for sure.


 These are the voulavents made from puff pastry rounds. You can cut the top circle off (made by making another smaller cut in the dough with a circle cutter...but don't go all the way through the dough with the cut) and then stuff with your favorite stuffings and serve as appetizers.

Chef Isaac demoing the Napoleon. 

 

My croissants today...

Breakfast Pastries - Day 7

Another day another whirlwind of activity. Today started off with boiling and baking the bagels we shaped yesterday. Once that was done it was on to laminating croissant dough for Thursday. In between laminating folds we scaled and shaped up our Swiss brioche and threw those in the ovens. Then we moved on to rolling out the danish dough from yesterday on the sheeter and cutting squares to shape our danish. After they were shaped they moved to the proof box while we worked on scaling ingredients for more danish and croissant dough. This dough will be laminated tomorrow I believe and then will be used on Monday and Tuesday for our practical exam which will close the books on breakfast pastries. Once that was all scaled we took out our puff pastry dough to make Palmiers. All I can say about these things is GEEEEEZ. Talk about awesome! Everyone should try these at home. Roll out a rectangle of puff pastry (made and laminated yourself of course and not out of the box!!), lay it on a bed of sugar, sprinkle sugar all over it, do a book fold (fold top half down halfway and then fold the bottom half up to meet the top...like the middle of a book...hence bookfold), then fold the top onto the bottom to make a rolled up log shap and then cut slices about an inch or less. Take these slices and press them down onto some sugar and then put on a sheet pan for baking. All that sugar caramelizes and you have all those layers of puff pastry dough. The cookie is crisp and sweet and oh so good!