Rolling with the Punches and Buns

Let's start on a good note. Let's talk about today first and leave yesterday to later, kay?

Today was test day. In an attempt to improve upon the disasters of yesterday, my group split up the work. A and I would handle the baguettes, cheese buns, and fancy buns while M and J would handle the kaiser buns and cheese bread. A fairly even split considering there are twice as many kaiser buns to stamp as there are fancy buns to roll and shape. And off we went.

A and I wanted brie. We needed brie. What goes with brie? How about turkey? And cranberries, of course.  If we had gravy, I would have thrown that in too. I had the idea of turkey dinner in my mind the entire time.

Giant dough baby

We ended up with over 130 little delicious buns.

And each one was topped with more brie, turkey, and cranberries.

After the cheese buns, A and I banged out more fancy buns as quick as we could.

At the end of the day, A and I had some leftover dough and leftover pizza bread toppings from yesterday. So what did we do? We made pull-apart pizza bread of course! It was delish and the class devoured it.

There's bread in there somewhere

Now for yesterday the disaster-day. There will always be people that clash with you. People whom you just can't seem to agree with. Is it because that person is a *insert choice words here*? Is it because you're a *insert more choice words here*? It's probably a combination of both - a lack of communication and understanding. Or perhaps it's due to expectations not met. In my case, when I entered this program, I expected my classmates to be motivated, driven to learn, interested in baking and/or pastries. After all, we all had to go through a selection process to prove we were, at the very least, very interested in this career path, that we understood what we were getting into. It turns out, however, that this is not the case. A real-life slap in the face. It is really disappointing to come to class and have to work with people who are not motivated whatsoever - and not just in the current class, but baking and pastries in its entirety! Either way, you've got to make it work or nothing's going to work at all. 

Yesterday was a people-clash day. The result? Dough was left to over-proof, baguettes were almost burnt, and everything took so much longer than it really should have. Note to self, I really need to work on scoring my baguettes. Jagged ripped edges don't look good. :P

But let's focus on the good parts of yesterday! There will almost always be something good about a terrible day. Like this:

Chef made us breakfast again! An Austrian sweet...thing. It was like a super fluffy pancake that then got scrambled like eggs. The most important thing: it had rum...lots of rum.

He also made a really tasty spread from lard. Most of the class stayed away from it, but it was mighty tasty. Just a little salt, paprika, and thinly sliced onions.

Yesterday's cheese buns were pizza buns! (If you couldn't guess already.) The Chef really liked them and kept burning his hands trying to eat them before they were cool enough.

Big balls of pizza bun dough turns into...

little balls of pizza dough

A and I also had some fun with the fancy buns. We ended up with some straaaange looking buns.

Most days are good, great in fact! But some days, oh those days, I just wanna...!

There's always bound to be some drama, but hey, it's life. :P I know I want to learn as much as I possibly can while I am here so like the rain, I'll just let these incidents roll off my back and keep on roll'n.