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
them (does not matter what is the right way).
Here is recap for the week.

Monday

Palmieres

My partner left me along and I worked by myself. The day was dedicated to puff pastry. Even though I worked by myself I was able to accomplish full production for the team. I used the puff pastry we made on Friday. From this dough I made palmiere (sometimes called pig ears), turnovers with blueberry filling (ok, here I cheated a bit - I used the filling the chef prepared for demo), and the most complicated Napoleon.

Napoleon

Palmiere was really easy - roll in sugar, fold, cut in 1/2 inch thick slices and bake. Turnovers were easy as well - roll dough, cut in squares, place some filling, fold dough so you have a triangle and seal the edges. It's time to bake. My turnovers opened during baking. The reasons could be that I did not seal them properly or put too much filling.
Napoleon was more collaborative. I had to bake a
sheet of puff pastry absolutely flat. To achieve this it was places on the back of baking sheet pan with three other pans on top. Then it was time to make Diplomat cream - mixture of pastry cream, whipped cream, gelatin, and some liquor (I used Garde Manier). The chef said my cream was perfect - good texture, not so sweet, and just enough alcohol.
As soon as puff pastry sheet was baked it was cut in four identical pieces. One piece was decorated with fondant and chocolate. The it was assembled and chilled for the service. Just before service I cut my Napoleon (it was not easy at all) and served it. The feeling of completed task was great!

Tuesday

Bread made in the class

We started bread making. What was new for me is that very important HOW you mix your bread. I knew that bread needs gluten development and therefore you mix it for a long time, to develop gluten. What I did not know is that you can develop gluten intense, moderate, or easy. As a  result bread will differ quite  a lot, even though the ingredients are the same, and not only in texture but in flavor as well.
That day there were class activities by scaling bread and dinner rolls, shaping them and baking.


Wednesday
We continued working with bread. We made sourdough bread - multigrain, ciabatta, russian black bread and formed bagels to retard them overnight. Ciabatta was difficult to work with. The dough suppose to be very loose and sticky. But the final product was good, how ciabatta suppose to be.
Russian black bread was not very authentic for me. It remind in some way rye bread from my childhood, but flavor was a bit different. Probably I did not like cumin in my bread (in general cumin is not my favorite spice).

Thursday

Soft pretzels and pretzel
sandwiches

Conchas

Was the last day of bread making and it called 'world bread day'. In our production list there were items from all around the world. Our team made conchas (small mexican bread with bright colored top) and soft pretzels. That was the first time I tried conchas, I always avoided them because extremely bright top with food coloring does not appeal to me. Conchas was ok, nothing spectacular.
Pretzels on the other hand were good. They were soft.
We made two shapes - a classical pretzel shape and pretzel rolls. Rolls were used to make sandwiches with mustard, salami, and cheese. They were very popular on the buffet.
The chef that day was extremely bitchy. Probably one reason for this was that he worked double shift for the whole week and by Thursday he was tired. Still, that was not pleasant to see him in a crazy mood.

Friday

Chocolate work from the whole class

We worked with chocolate. Chocolate is another world inside pastry. It is not difficult, but quite technical. Chocolate has to be tempered. That means that it need to be heated gently to be completely melted (120 F for dark chocolate and 110 F for milk and white chocolate), then it has to be cooled with agitation. During this process crystal structure is formed and chocolate gets shine and 'crispiness'.
We made rochas - small piles of slivered almonds mixed with chocolate. Also we made Mendiant au Chocolat, which is very small rounds of chocolate with four pieces of dried fruits and nuts. That is very difficult to make. It seems simple, but the fruits and nuts are small, chocolate round is small as well (a size of a penny). We piped four or five rounds at a time and by the time we put the last piece of fruit or nuts the chocolate round was almost set. All chocolate work for the buffet was places on the mirror and it was really great to see.