Alien Homeland!

The last three days have been a bit of a trial and error period. We're all still feeling out the stitch, trying to adjust our timing. But it's all coming together and we're turning out some beautiful products.

My group is responsible for making danishes, bee sting buns and fruit crumble yeast cakes, banana bread, and farmer's bread.

Nothing can happen without a nutritious breakfast though! Yesterday I snagged a broken half of a baguette and made my group a little sandwich. Slices of salami, a smear of butter, and melted mozza.

Today our Chef made us breakfast! It was heavy, but so so good. He called it Swedish muesli. It had muesli, almonds, raspberries, and bananas, all in a mixture of yogurt and heavy cream. Lots of heavy cream!!

Today's danishes were topped with a swirl of cream cheese and homemade raspberry jam or cream cheese and blueberry pie filling. One group decided to make a braided loaf filled with a cream mixture and a rosemary raspberry jam. The rosemary wasn't nearly strong enough but it was still luscious and delicious.

The customers downtown are very much the single-portion crowd as they usually come in to grab some lunch. As such, we don't make many large items like we did when baking on campus. Normally, the fruit crumb cakes are 6 inches in diameter, the same size as a regular cake, but today, I decided to make mini fruit crumb cakes. They looked more like muffins really, but were amazingly popular. The cashier ladies reserved half the tray for themselves!

Filled with a little pastry cream surprise

Can't forget the bee stings - simple and delicious. Today we had a little bit of dough leftover so I made a mini version. I called it my "baby sting", but Chef laughed at me and said "It's not bee sting, it's just a mosquito bite".

Baby sting got a little bit of raspberry jam too

The banana bread we make is interesting. It's not the quick bread version most people know and love. This is a yeast version so it is very much like a whole wheat bread with the flavour of bananas. The recipe also calls for dried mango and coconut. It is a very tropical bread and quite popular, but I just can't seem to like it. I think it is the mixture of whole wheat with overly sweet chunks of mango and random bits of coconut. Also, it needs more banana. :P

Banana bread gets braided

And topped with apricot glaze, fondant, and coconut

Do you know the first picture is? It's a preferment! A preferment is a mixture of flour, yeast, liquid and sometimes salt that you mix together several hours before you make bread. A good example is sourdough. Preferments are used to impart flavour, help to balance the pH of the bread, and can shorten the length of time required to proof a whole batch of dough. There are four major types of preferments. This one is called a sponge. The major difference between them is the amount of liquid added. I think it looks so cool - like the homeland of an alien species!

Each group gets to choose a recipe of their own to make on Friday. I wonder what we should make... :)