Guess what we did today? We baked more bread! duuuhhh. Today we made Kaiser rolls, brioche almond, and herb rolls.
Kaiser rolls and myself are not friends. Its a very sticky dough and just making them in general was a pain in the butt. I'd watch my teammates pushing out beautiful buns and mine look like they were squished by an elephant. In the baking process we got use something we haven't used before, which was neat. Normally everything we baked went in to the convection oven, but today we got to use the deck oven. To make bread with a hard crust you need to use the steam injector! So we put them in the oven and I asked chef why we didn't need to egg wash them like we have done to pretty much everything else - and he explained it...I don't really remember what he said. He said "and this is why..but don't worry about remembering it we will be going over it more in class." Sooooo as soon as he said "..don't worry about remembering it.." my brain went "OKAY!" and replaced the information that I had just taken in with pictures of bunnies.
So yes, we put the kaisers in the oven and then I pushed the steam button quickly and a little shot of steam came out of the oven. I was told to do it again and hold it for a good 5 seconds. Do you have any idea what happens when you push a button that sprays water in to a 400 degree deck oven? You get a serious steam facial! But we all survived that process and made the damn kaisers.
Now, Brioche with almond cream. You will all be happy to know that I was 95% successful in rolling a rectangle shape today! hazaa! I was very proud of myself. For the almond cream we mixed pastry cream with a 50/50 mixture of ground almonds and sugar. You combine them until you get an oatmeal consistency then let the cream and brioche dough make sweet love together *insert Barry White music here*
We had to cut them and roll them in to these what I call "brioche butterflies" - we were all saying how ugly they were before they were cooked. In the end though, they turned out lovely! Again today, this was my lunch.
When we first started this course I thought "I have no idea how people gain weight..seriously." I'm figuring it out now. You get one of mostly everything you make and these things are not low in calories, fat and sugar. I mean in my delusional mind they are just as healthy as carrots - thats what I tell myself. I went to the gym today to make me feel better. Balance. Got to find a balance.
Oh! Chef also introduced us to something called none melting icing sugar. With normal icing sugar when you sprinkle it on something like fruit or certain cakes the moisture in the dessert makes the icing sugar melt away. But this none melting icing sugar does exactly as the name indicates - It doesn't melt. So he encouraged us to taste some, I was standing the closest to it so I dove right in. It is the most vile tasting "sugar". You could give me two options, lick the floor or eat a spoon of that icing sugar. I would lick the floor. It tastes like burnt plastic. Chef says he doesn't use it because you should never compromise taste for decor. I would never serve that stuff on a dessert. Nasty Nasty Nasty.
So If you ever get a dessert take a taste of the icing sugar. If its nice and sweet and melts when it comes in contact with liquid - you're good. Its real. If you taste it and you want to lick a pile of shit to get the taste out of your mouth - Its none melting. Send it back or scrape it off. Don't eat it.
Today we also made herb rolls. I did the math at home tonight to cut my recipe in thirds so I can make this at home with Davin. I do need to learn my herbs though. Most of them I know..or at least I thought I did. We needed basil, thyme and sage for the bread. I skipped off to the fridge to get some but I could only find two..not three. So I told chef we only had two out of three and he said "well, which ones do you have?" and after staring at him blankly I said "The stick one and the leaf one." - He got a chuckle out of that one. So next time I'm at the grocery store I need to spend some time with the herbs lol.
We are not in the kitchen tomorrow. We have to spend a day in the classroom doing first Aid. Apparently it's important to know how to save someones life, or stop them from choking, or help them when they burn themselves... This.should.be.fun. I've taken so many of these over the years that this should be easy. Unless they have changed everything. We shall see.
Here are some more pictures of bread! Don't worry, On wednesday we start in our new rotations which is stuff like puff pastry, upside down cakes, oatcakes and cupcakes!
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| Almond Brioche "butterflies" ready to proof. |
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| See, not very pretty. |
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| VERY PRETTY! |
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| mmmmm |
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| Herb dough balls |
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| Add caption |
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| Herb rolls all baked and ready for sale |
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| Kaiser rolls |
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