Spoil Yourself With Crusty Bread

I imagine that many people don't give much thought to bread, bakers included. Compared to the media's promotion of the cake and pastry world, bread gets a little shunned. I mean, grocery stores have started to bring in "artisan" breads, but they really don't measure up. Have you read an ingredient list for a simple Farmer's loaf? What ARE those unpronounceable things?

But these last two classes are really inspiring the bread baker in me. I had a bread stint a few years ago when I got my first (that's right, first) cookbook, The Bread Baker's Apprentice by Peter Reinhart. I know I mentioned it before, but there's really nothing like the mind-blowingly flavourful crust of a freash crusty artisan loaf. :) So I really encourage you to stop by a specialty bread store (Cobs is quite good!) and try a loaf if you don't know what I'm talking about. Or even stop by SAIT downtown or The Marketplace right when the bread comes out around 12pm. That loaf might just spoil you for life. :P (Unless you head overseas, that's a whole 'other story.)

Yesterday's demos were of three kinds of croissants, plain, chocolate, and almond, danishes of different styles, bread pudding, brioche, and a bialy.

A terribly fuzzy picture of an almond croissant, but you can see the filling poking out.

Chocolate croissant

Our Chef showed us a neat trick to create a swirl of raspberry jam and cream cheese for the danishes.

Brioche a tete - brioche with a little head.

Day old danishes, even at 50% off, don't sell downtown, so we turn them into bread pudding! This version had raspberries and white chocolate mixed in.

The only savoury item yesterday was the bialy. A bialy is often described as Italy's version of a bagel. The texture is similar but there is no hole. Instead, a bialy is pressed down in the middle to create a craddle to hold all sorts of fillings. These bialy's were filled with bacon and sauteed onions. (As bakers, we make a lot of sweet things so we always seem to crave salty things.)

Today, fougasse, multi-grain bread, red wine and sausage bread, and coconut ensaymadas were up. 

Fougasse is similar to ciabatta except that it is shaped differently. Traditionally it looks like a leaf. Although it has yeast in it, it gets rolled out so it ends up more like a fluffy flatbread. Ours were brushed with olive oil and topped with herbs and cheese. I added garlic powder to mine because I love garlic!

The red wine and sausage dough is very similar to ciabatta and fougasse dough - it is very very soft. So soft, it can start to 'melt' between your fingers while you hold it. I bet it would make an amazing pillow if it didn't deflate all the way. :) I personally wasn't a fan of the flavours, probably because I am not a fan of red wine or salami.

We twist the dough

My group was incharge of the multi-grain bread. Multi-grain and other hardy breads are some of my favourites. They produce some of the best and most flavourful crusts.

Our big dough baby about to head into the proofer

A little dark but so good with garlic butter

The last item we tasted was my favourite (other than the multi-grain) - the coconut ensaymada. Coconut ensaymada is a Philipino sweet bread. It can have all kinds of fillings but we do coconut here at SAIT. It's a rich dough similar to brioche or challah but it gets a little bit of filling and a macaron topping. After baking, the topping is a lot like a meringue cookie - chewy, crispy, and sweet. It's like a Philipino version of the Chinese pineapple bun or the Mexican concha.

One more day of demos and then we finally get to start our rotations. :) I'm sure I can speak for everyone in my class when I say we're itching to get started. Just standing for hours is really hard on the knees and backs.

Downtown Campus