From Down to Up

You know those days? The ones where everything just goes wrong? Well Thursday was one of those days.

Thursday was my group's first day on the new rye and whole wheat bread station. First days are almost always filled with some confusion as we try to figure out how to organize ourselves and familiarize ourselves with the new products we are supposed to make. But normally they're not this bad, haha. I really should have taken some pictures to show you what you don't want bread to look like, but I was so frustrated I really couldn't think of anything else. In the end, none of the breads were so bad we had to throw them out, so that was good. Apparently all the other groups were having issues as well. One group forgot the yeast!

On the total flip side, Friday was awesome. Everyone was in the groove turning out amazing product after amazing product and we all finished much earlier than we had before.

Whole wheat bread is pretty good, but isn't it a bit boring? We spiced it up and mixed in spinach, sundried tomatoes, and feta. The finished loaves looked rather Christmas-y.

The sourdough rye got a kick of parmesan, thyme, rosemary, chives, onions, and mushrooms - my favourite out of our batch of loaves.

Rye sourdough about to head to the proofer

Rye sourdough flipped out, scored, and ready for the oven

All prettied up and cooling down

Ready for tasting!

This station has a bit more time than the other stations so during a lull in action, I tried out a recipe for Korean mochi balls. I mixed in some mozzarella and parsley flakes for flavour. To bake them, I put them first into a deck oven because our deck ovens can shoot a blast of steam. Then I transferred them to the cooler rotating oven to finish baking. The final mochi balls looked a little closer to the original than my previous attempt, but they still seemed too dense. 

Mochi ball attempt #2

The white bread group made these cheese buns topped with bruschetta. Absolutely amazing! The Chef looked at the last few buns and said "If everyone keeps eating them, we'll have none left to send to the Marketplace" as he reached for another one to eat. I think this is the tastiest thing the class has produced thus far. Bravo white bread group. Make more, please!

On Friday my group really came together and just cranked everything out. I hope this groove thang we've got going on continues. If so, the rest of yeast fundamentals is going to be a breeze. :)

It was really interesting to see the whole class rebound after disaster Thursday, but mess ups are to be expected. It's a fundamentals course, after all! I sometimes have to remind myself that I am here to learn and this is the best time to make mistakes, experiment, and grow. This is one reason, actually, that I take advantage of the freedom we have over our flavours. What other time am I going to get the chance to make peanut butter and bacon doughnuts? Or rosemary mushroom muffins? The frustrations of Thursday really made me re-realize that sometimes you have to risk something to learn. Better to mess up a few loaves here than to botch a $300 order in the real world. :P