Breads Week 4- sorry, pictures are all I have time for!

This is a light rye bread made with caraway seeds (the seeds give it that rye bread taste). I formed it into a boule (rounded look) and slashed the side.

This is my 5-grain bread. Flax seed, millet, sunflower seeds, and more! Same shape as the Rye and same cut. Much more water in this one and I don't think I proofed it long enough (last resting period for dough in warm proof box).

I am so proud of this one. Our chef said it turned out well. It's a semolina bread (has toasted sesame seeds) and I shaped it like a betard (what you see in the picture) and slashed it sausage style (3 cuts along the top to the sides).

Bread Pictures Week 3?

This first one is a whole wheat sourdough, I added too much water and overmixed it, it was very dense (but had the sourdough taste).

The Challah (pronounced "holla") made with eggs and some fat. Tastes like a typical roll bread. I made the 4-braid and 3-braid.

Jalapeno Cheddar Bread made with chopped green onions and cilantro. It was very light and moist and delicious! The best bread I've made so far.

A sourdough olive loaf. I made it like a fougasse (flatter bread and the special cuts I made). Not my favorite choice but it turned out beautifully and tasted great (says the roommate).

Second week done

Sorry it's been so long since my first post! I've been super busy with my baking classes and my online management course. But I'm still very happy in what I'm doing. This past week we didn't have Artisan Breads class (the MLK holiday) but I had my bakeshop lab both Wednesday and Thursday. We split up into groups of 5 and each group was responsible for something different. Many groups made a danish dough (as did ours) which required mixing on the first day, rolling out and spreading a mixture of butter and shortening onto the dough, and then rolling and folding it a bunch of times, making sure to retard (chill) it in between folds. This is why danish and croissant dough is so light in flaky: you create a number of layers in the dough and spreading on the fat keeps it light. It was very interesting and a lot of fun, although the dough turned into your literal food baby that forced you to worry about it's future, you had no idea if it would turn out the right way in the end (I'm sure that's how many parents feel).

We also made three different fillings that we used inside the dough before the baking process. We made a lemon-poppy seed filling, an almond glaze, and a cinnamon raisin filling. The second day we took our danish dough out of the cooler and rolled it a few more times, then we got to the fun/challenging part: creating different shapes.

Our group made bear claws, coffee cake (not really coffee in it, just looks like a turnover), and cinnamon rolls. It was a little difficult because none of us had done this before, and some of our products turned out to be the wrong size or didn't look quite professional. But believe me, they tasted delicious! With all of the groups making different products, by the end of class, we had hundreds of pastries to box up! Some groups made monkey bread (a cinnamon fruit nut cake), grandma's bread (the chef's polish grandma's special bread), croissants, and pinwheel danishes.

I definitely tried one of my danishes to make sure it tasted alright, and yes, it was brilliant. But, in order to keep my figure during all this, I've been sending off my goodies with my roommate to feed the Wofford staff. I think I've become increasingly popular with these people as each week passes by.

Well, that's got yall up to date with me; just working on homework this weekend and maybe Michelle and I will go hiking tomorrow. Until next time, please be sure to look at my pics! Btw, if you want the apple pie recipe, sorry, it's too precious and I can't afford giving up such a gem!

Some baking pics

An apple bear claw I made in bakeshop

An apricot danish I also made in Bakeshop
My first week in Breads (left to right: ciabatta, rustic wheat, and a poorly made French baguette) It was difficult for all three, but hopefully practice makes perfect!
The most delicious thing I've ever made. Not in class, but out of my research online + my creativity did this come out! It's an apple pie with gruyere cheese baked into the crust. My roommate approves, and it's going to be on the menu at my bakery someday!

The apprentice baker

There was a loud thump when our chef slammed 15 pounds of dough onto the table. I could tell just by watching the chef kneading the dough over and over, you need strong hands to be a bread maker. As I stood there watching my teacher's demo, I could already tell, this is what I want to do with the rest of my life.

In case you haven't kept tabs on me and what I've been doing, I'll give you a little background before I go on. I am a student (again) at Greenville Tech getting my Baking and Pastry Certificate.

It feels like its been almost a decade since I graduated from PC, but I've been really busy since then. When I got my diploma in May 2010, I flew overseas to teach English in Prague, Czech Republic (central Europe). This was a way for me to "find myself". Well, after eight weeks of traveling around Europe, I started thinking about all the things I was seeing. The thing I thought most about was the amazing bakeries I was finding everywhere. I couldn't get over it, it was especially difficult to bear in France. You wouldn't believe the amazing pastries these little shops could crank out, and there were bakeries on every corner! I mulled over this idea for a few months while in Prague. I knew almost immediately I hated teaching, well, teaching English as a foreign language. I finally made up my mind that November that I would stick with teaching until the following April, then go home to pursue baking.

Living in Europe was a great part of my life, but when I realized that baking was the path for me, I knew that I couldn't wait another minute. I believe, once you figure out what you want to be doing with your life, you can't do anything else! I got home in April 2011 and moved out to Greenville, SC to find a job and look into Greenville Tech's culinary program. I chose this school because it was cheaper than an arts institute, it had an amazing facility and great staff, and offered the main classes I wanted in a shorter degree which is a "Baking and Pastry Certificate". Since I started classes in August 2011, I will finish in Christmas 2012.

Last semester I had to get my pre-requisites out of the way. So now, this January, I am taking real baking courses! The class I was speaking about earlier is Artisan Breads. I'm also taking Bakeshop Production (like baking 101) and a management class. The first two classes are intensive hands-on labs that I will be in Monday-Thursday from morning to late afternoon. Today was my first day in Breads.

One thing I learned right off the bat from my teacher, Chef Patrick, was that the word "artisan" actually means taking the best part of a product's history and making it into your own craft. So breads, for example, I am learning the techniques passed down throughout history and making it into something I consider to be my creation; its like leaving my personal mark on breads. Isn't that fascinating? I don't know about yall reading, but that is new to me.

Today in class, we helped our chef roll out the hard and soft bread rolls, balling up the rustic breads, and shaping the ciabatta bread, and then we had to prepare our own dough that we will bake for tomorrow's class (baguettes, ciabatta, and rustic bread). This class is actually for more advanced students, and I was supposed to take the Bakeshop Production first, however, due to my work schedule, I had to cram this all in. Some of the students think I'm crazy for taking this class first, but, I feel if Julia Child can walk into an advanced french cooking course and be fearless, so can I. Besides, later on today when I was rolling dough, the Chef mentioned to one of my classmates that I was confident enough and will do just fine in the class. That's just the little encouragement I need to bake wonders!

I know this is a very long post, but I hope yall found it interesting and I plan on writing more about my classes this semester, as well as post pictures of things I bake, so please stay tuned!