Let's start with the more everyday stuff then ramp up to the strange and the wonderful, shall we?
Although our current station is called the doughnut station, we are also responsible for baking no-time breads. A bread is called no-time when at least a portion of the ingredients come from a pre-made mix. The pre-made mix often has something added to it to speed up the relaxation of the gluten, allowing the mixed dough to be shaped sooner than traditional bread. We made an ancient grain loaf. I love grainy loaves and luckily, so do my team mates.
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| Shaping the dough |
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| Dark, crusty, and chuck full of grainy goodness! |
Next up for interesting flavours is our version of a savoury fritter. Fritters are normally sweet so our Chef was surprised when I asked for cheese and ham. These fritters turned out fantastically! We filled them with emmental, chunks of prosciutto, and basil. It tasted a lot like a pizza in doughnut form!
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| This mess turns into fritter heaven |
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| It looks like a chicken cutlet, but it's delicious, honest |
A huge hit with our class was A's orange creamsicle doughnut - a flavour that most people knew as a child turned into a doughnut. Filled with a creamy orange whipped cream kissed with rum and sprinkled with white chocolate shavings. Little mandarin sections helped to cut through the creaminess.
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| Almost half the tray was eaten before the end of class! |
Now onto the more adventurous doughnuts - salty peanut butter and candied maple bacon and chocolate and strawberry pop rock!
I searched online and it seemed like peanut butter and bacon was a surprisingly popular flavour pair! I took it a step further by candying the bacon in maple syrup and salting the peanut butter, flipping the traditional flavours of each. It's a flavour most people wouldn't dare think of, but it works quite well!
It took a few tries, but I finally got pop rocks to stay poppy in buttercream icing. The trick is to coat the pop rocks in some sort of oil. In my case I used cashew butter. The other tip is to minimize the pop rock's contact with liquid. I didn't add any cream to my simple buttercream, opting to just whip it lots until it was light and fluffy. I felt that a chocolate buttercream would pair better (and be more appealing) with strawberry pop rocks so I added a lot of melted dark chocolate.
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| Ignore that terrible glazing job... |
The recipe still needs tweaking. I hadn't thought of it at the time, but I realized that to eat the doughnut, one would chew the doughnut. As a result, most of the pop rocks would be crushed and not have the chance to pop. Oh, you'll still get some pop and crackles in the back of your mouth, but nothing like the surprise and delight I was aiming for. Either way, it was a small success towards the final goal. I am not going to give up on this one.
There was an attempt at blackmail in class yesterday. For some reason, the school scheduled for us to have 5 hours of lab work, 1 hour of theory, an hour break, and then another 2 hours of theory after that. After the first 5 hours, we're all pretty tired so we tend to be less than enthusiastic about more school time. Who did this? I'll never tell. :P
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| Chef's most favourite tool |
Tomorrow will be the start of rye breads and whole wheat breads for me and my group. It doesn't seem like a heavy load, thankfully, as I am exhausted. My brain is ka-put. So tired, in fact, I have no creative ideas for flavours tomorrow!
Actually, that's a partial lie. I have something I want to try, but it is not a flavour for rye or whole wheat breads. I stumbled upon a youtube video of Yuna Kim (the 2010 Olympic Korean figure skater) baking something called mochi bread. If you have ever had mochi before, imagine the crispy crust of a bun with the chewiness of mochi inside. It's not as chewy as a piece of mochi, but it retains the same reminiscent texture. If you have never tried mochi before I really recommend heading to your nearest Asian market and scoping out a box. Mass produced mochi like that isn't going to be spectacular, but you'll get the wonderful chewy sweet idea. Fresh mochi has more of a melt-in-your-mouth chewiness.
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| Mochi bread from: Yochana's Cake Delight |
The recipe for mochi bread is much coveted. Ideas have been thrown back and forth in the online community but no one has really gotten it down. All, in the end, resort to hunting down the boxed mix as the only means to satisfying their craving. The youtube video I am using as reference is entirely in Korean. I more or less figured out certain ingredients, resting times, baking times, and temperatures, but there are two ingredients that remain a mystery. It is two of the first three flours. The first (38g) is bread flour. The second I am assuming is mochiko or glutinous rice flour because mochi balls are, well, made of mochi flour (mochiko). The last flour (30g) shares a very similar name to that of the previous but I have no idea what it is.
Here is a link to the video. If you can tell me what those two flour ingredients are that would be awesome!
Are you an adventurous eater? Do you like to walk on the wild side and challenge your tastebuds, or do you like the safe side, tastes you know you're going to like and not regret? I am definitely an adventurous eater. I'll try almost anything at least once. To me, trying something before judging is part of the "spice of life". :)
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