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.

And Pesto! It's Delicious

The last day on rye went nice and smoothly. My group turned out beautiful whole wheat loaves. The best yet, according to the Chef. :)

Deep cuts creates contrast

Creative scoring

We also used up the last of the spinach to make a spinach, Parmesan and bacon rye sourdough. Each loaf was chocked full of goodies.

Rye dough

The doughnut group made these wonderful brie doughnuts with a raspberry and cranberry compote. That was some good brie. A and I couldn't help ourselves; we simply had to keep nipping slices off that giant wheel of creamy buttery goodness.

It's brie, how can you go wrong?

While the class was busy, the Chef made crab bread! (No, it doesn't contain crab meat, unforunately.)

Mr. Krab

Today was my group's first day on the white bread station. As always with first days, we were a little overwhelmed with the timing of when to do what. Tension was running a bit high, but it eased off as we realized time-wise, we were doing well.

A and M threw together some killer pesto. We had no pine nuts (too expensive), so they substituted with walnuts, almonds, and pistachios. And since A roasted a huge batch of garlic yesterday, some of that went in as well. Simply amazing stuff. Green foods are good for you, right?

Green goodness

The green goodness got mixed in with our cheese loaves along with some parmesan.

Then A had the genius idea to try rolling some into the baguettes. To show off the swirl of pesto and cheese, Chef showed us how to cut the bread to resemble a wheat stalk.

The wheat stalk shape is very easy to do but it looks great and makes it very easy to rip off small bun-sized pieces - ideal for dinner parties.

Also part of the white bread station are buns. Tons of buns. Daily, we shape and roll about 216 buns. By the end of these three days, we'll either be bun rounding masters, or have carpel tunnel. :P

Setup for making fancy buns

On another note, the Chef made us breakfast today! He fried up some crepes and filled them with apricot jam. Then the rye table jumped in and scrambled some eggs, fried some bacon, and added garnishes for the sweet crepes. Getting a chance to break and eat something other than disaster doughnuts was very much needed.

Sweet and savoury

My group didn't plan what flavours we would do tomorrow, but there's a few pieces of roasted garlic left in the fridge and I'm excited to get into them. Unless, of course, the class devours it first. Many people were eyeing our leftovers. "What shall we do today? What shall we do today? What shall we do today? What shall we doooo?"

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