Show Me The Dough!

I can't believe it's Friday, and that means that we are about to complete our second week of Baking & Pastry. And even more so, I can not believe that after we finish this class (in just 4 more weeks), we only have one more class left, then we do our externships, and then we graduate! Wow.....time sure flies when you're having fun!

So this week of B&P is pretty well represented in the photos here. The week started out nice and tasty with the baking off of our Brioche breads. Chef Richard showed us how to make various types of brioche breads, we made Atete's, a Nantere, a 3 Braided loaf and a 4 Braided loaf. Mmmmmm.....I can't wait to make some brioche french toast with these babies.

And then the week got sweeter with Sweet Doughs! We made some pretty ridiculous Cinnamon Rolls, they were almost as big as my head, or as my friend said, looked like a horse's foot!

And then we went insane with butter and made Croissants. I never knew how croissants were made, and never really thought about it. But when the time came to make our croissants, I felt a bit nervous, because I could only assume that they are not easy. And it turns out that they are not so difficult, it just take some finesse and patience. It took us two nights to complete our croissants, but we did also make pretzels on the first night. The process of making croissants was eye opening. To see how much butter, and how the butter gets worked into the dough...well all I could say was "wow". We also made some Pain au Chocolats, croissant dough filled with chocolate. Yummy. But I preferred the cheese filled ones....

 Oh, and let's not forget about the Pretzels! We were all pretty much mad at Chef Richard for allowing us to make these, because they were so good, that we all ate about 2-3 of them after class that night! 

And last night was the first half of our first practical exam, which we finish tonight. We will be tested on Biscuits, Cookies, and French Bread Baguettes. Last night we had two hours in which I gathered all the mise for all 3, made the french bread dough and let it rest, then put that in the walk-in to bake off tonight, made the cookie dough and put that in the walk-in to bake off tonight, and made a partial biscuit batter to finish and bake off tonight. We will have another hour and half tonight to finish tonight. Wish me luck!