Baking week two

Coconut cream pie

What is the most important in bread?

That was our second week in Baking and Pastry skills development. The week in general was really good, except for Thursday, when the chef was extremely bitchy and barked at everyone. I go bollocking for using a wooden board to cut salami. I tried to say that it was ready to eat food and the cutting board was from the hot side, not from the baking shop. He yelled at me and all I could do was to say 'yes, chef'. Other than that the week was good. The chef struggled with our class, he did not expect to have so many people who do not pay attention and doing what seems easier for

Baking week one

Chocolate hazelnut cake

How difficult is to make pie dough?

We started Baking and Pastry Development skills last week. This is school practise - send bakers for three weeks to the kitchen and send cooks for three weeks to the baking side. Our instructor welcomed us on the 'bright side' (he calls kitchen 'dark side'). Baking shop is very different from the kitchen side. It has different mentality. You have to use exact measurements and for large volume they are grams and ounces (or pounds), not spoons or cups. As soon as you form your product and place it into oven you are not able to change anything, it's done. In the kitchen you can adjust seasoning, add some flavor, and so on. Our instructor is really

Garde Manger week two

One of our plates from Friday

Salt perception on the same product when it cold or hot...

The second week of Garde Manger was even more intense, but interesting. We made a lot of forcemeat (galantines, terrines, pates) and we made very interesting flavours.

Monday was the sausage day. All class was busy making sausages. I made sweet Italian sausages. Before I mixed seasoning I asked the chef if the recipe is accurate in terms of salt. I remember making similar sausages in meat fabrication class and the recipe was really off for the amount of salt. The chef said the recipe isfine. So I made sausages as per recipe and it was over seasoned. Later I realized why did this happen. I was making half a recipe and used full amount of spices and salt. I poached them first and then grilled. The poaching