More Bread!

Amazing how much I have learned about bread, and amazing how much there is to learn about something categorized under one word--bread! In an attempt to get caught up on the last two weeks of my bread/dough class I am going to make this post short and carb-filled (that is rather than sweet!).

Our production item this week was Danish. This is a bread many of us are familiar with as a morning pastry. The dough is made in the same method as croissants are made, a laminated dough which is rolled out several times with butter, creating all of those flaky, buttery layers. The center is traditionally filled with a fruit filling or something sweet. We used strawberry and apricot fillings, which were both pre-made, but the best Danish were those with cheese and apple-cinnamon filling, both of which we made.

Caramelized Onion and Fresh Oregano bread. This was made with pate fermente, which is a pre-made batch of dough, which is set out overnight to ferment (called pre-ferment). This is used to give a deep, developed flavor to the bread.

Cibatta. One of the best breads yet! This was a very strange dough to make, as it was very light and sticky and couldn't take much handling, but the product is worth it! There are huge air pockets in the crumb, which is very tender.

The cibatta made wonderful grilled sandwiches. This one was steak and blue cheese--I am nostalgic just remembering how good it was.

Our last production item of the class was making baguettes. Above is a photo of several prior to baking. Nothing beats a good baguette with a chewy crust and tender crumb!

Pane di Como, a white bread that was made with biga, a pre-ferment from Italy.

Pane Pugliese, these were great little guys for sandwiches. A rustic looking bread with a crusty and flour dusted outside and a tender crumb inside.

One week to go with bread making! Next week will be filled with sourdough made from our own sourdough starters which we have been nursing for over a week. Just like a baby, the starter has to be fed and changed everyday! Half of the mixture is discarded (so that it doesn't grow out of control) and then water and flour is added. Can't wait to taste the results!

I'm a Carb-a-holic!

I live and breathe bread! For the past 4 weeks I have been making and/or eating bread 16 hours a day, and for the other eight hours I am dreaming of eating or making bread! My apartment counters are covered with loaves of 1/4 eaten loaves and neighbors and co-workers are begging that I stop giving them the leftovers (it seems that Mr. Atkins has really given bread a bad name).

This week started off with three days of making Butter Braids--simply a butter rich dough that is formed into braids. We did 3, 4, 5 and 6 strand braids (I could handle up to 4 and then my brain shut down!). I also made a star braid, which used a 4-braid (in photo above). It was fun making these shapes, although I didn't care for the density and texture, which was almost cake-like and the flavor of the product.

As for special projects, this week we made many varities of rich doughs. Rich doughs are doughs that contain more than 10% butter. First we made Brioche, both as individual "a tete" forms, meaning that they have a "head" (shown above before baking) and in loafs (no photo).

Here is a photo of the individual "a tete" Brioche after baking.

Chocolate Croissants are a laminated dough, which means that butter is rolled into the dough in several "turns" or separate rolls. First the dough is made and a "butter block" is made, which is creating an even layer of butter the width of the dough so that it can be folded together with the dough. Both dough and butter are chilled and then the butter is added on top of the dough and the rolling begins! Between "turns" there is an hour chill period in the fridge, then the dough is pulled out again, rolled again and so on. The whole process takes quite a long time, but is very rewarding in the end! Above are the chocolate croissants produced from this process. I also made plain and almond croissants (no photos). I now have the official right of passage into the pastry world after having made croissants from my own dough!

On of the most decadent projects were our sticky buns! A rich buttery dough filled with sugar, cinnamon, raisins and pecans! Really sweet, but as a carb-a-holic I couldn't stop eating them! In the past I have always made them in individual muffin tins, but I liked baking them all together in a cake pan so that they pulled apart from each other and shared the sugary glaze.

Lastly, we made a Babka Coffeecake (no photo), which is a traditional Eastern European coffeecake made much like the sticky buns, but instead of cutting the log of rolled dough, it is coiled onto itself in a cake pan and baked whole and topped with streusel.. This coffeecake had a perfect texture, not too moist or dry and was not too sweet. Some of the more devout Seinfeld watchers may even recall an episode in which Elaine states "you can't beat a Babka" and, yes, she is referring to this most delightful coffeecake!

That's it for now. I continue to eat my way through loads of bread, croissants, sticky buns and coffeecake, just as would be expected of a carb-a-holic!

Week Three of Bread Making

Our bread/doughs class works on a rotation of 6 stations, which I outlined in a previous post, where each student works on each station for three days straight. This is a great way to learn each method of bread making and work through the challenges of each. My first assignment this week was focaccia. Each day we experimented with different flavors. Above shows two of the most popular flavors--focaccia pizza with mozzarella and pepperoni and the other was fig, walnut and goat cheese (this was my favorite).


These are fresh mozzarella, tomato with fresh basil (back) and apple with blue cheese and walnuts, another delicious combination!

Along with the focaccia our special projects included Rye bread (not pictured, but looked same as above photo), as well as an Onion Rye (pictured above). I was interested to learn that in using different types of flours in bread, a portion still must be white bread flour because the bread will not hold up with many of the other flours. This is why we don't see 100% whole wheat or other whole grain breads often. The gluten in the bread flour is very important to create a desirable texture.


Another project was Jalapeno cheddar rolls, which were filled with jalapenos, red bell peppers and cheddar cheese. They had a beautiful color, but the texture was gummy (maybe not baked long enough) and the flavor was not my favorite.



This is Pane Siciliano, a bread made with semolina. Of course this comes from Sicily, an Italian town that knows semolina well because of all of the pasta they make! This bread has a wonderful crumb and texture.

The last project of the week was pizza! Our chef instructor called it "student appreciation day" as we all made 2-3 pizzas and ate them for lunch! Considering the quality of the cafeteria food we are served (terrible!) we were really excited about today's lunch! Above are two pieces of my cheese pizza. We were required to make one with cheese only and the other pizzas could be topped as we liked. I am typically not a huge fan of cheese only, but the quality of the dough and sauce were so good that no other toppings were needed!

The end of the week we moved to the Levain production station. Levain is a bread that uses a natural leavener in the place of yeast. The natural leavener is a starter, which was initially made by Peter Reinhart, the author of The Bread Baker's Apprentice, 14 years ago while he was a chef instructor at CCA. Each day the starter has to be fed (flour and water) and changed, just like a baby!!!

Levain is a great bread made with a little whole wheat flour, but overall it has a slight sour taste. The interior is soft and chewy and the crust is hard--a perfect combination of textures. The dough is formed in a banneton, which is a reed basket that makes the beautiful lines on the bread. It is then baked directly on the deck of the oven making a thick, dark, semolina coated bottom. In one batch we added raisins and walnuts to the dough and the result was delicious and beautiful purple colored bread due to the reaction of the dough with the walnuts.

A Cake to Celebrate 60 Years

Over the weekend of Jan 19-21 I made a surprise visit to Southport, North Carolina for my mom's 60th birthday! It was my chance to try out all of those classroom skills and make a birthday cake like never before! I packed my suitcase filling it with with all of the essential cake decorating equipment--I can't imagine icing a cake without my offset spatula. I also brought a bag of Meyer Lemons, which I knew I would never find in small-town North Carolina! Very few people outside of California have even heard of these wonderful lemons which are a cross between a lemon and tangerine.

The cake was a 4-layer Chiffon (a school recipe) layered with Meyer Lemon curd (my own recipe) and frosted with Lemon Italian Buttercream (based on a school recipe). The decorations were leaves and lemons all made from marzipan that were brushed with a luster dust and which I made the week prior and brought with me. The 60 was piped with royal icing and the other piping was done in the Lemon Buttercream.

The cake was delicious, light and lemony. My one critique was that there was not enough buttercream on the outside layer. On many cakes there is too much frosting on the outside, but in this cake because the Lemon Buttercream was so tasty everyone wanted more! Overall, a wonderful cake I would gladly make again!