Before we got started, Jean-Luc demonstrated how to make royal icing and iced some of the shortbread cookies he made from the dough we saw yesterday. He also piped an intricate spiderweb on one of them and an adorable ghost saying, "Boo!" on the other. I am excited to choose my own Halloween designs. Also, shortbread cookies with royal icing? Yum. I almost ate the ones that he had sitting at the front of the room, while he was still demonstrating. I wonder what happened to them...
Today we made:
- Almond cream brioche
- Cheddar/jalapeno cornbread rolls
- Kaiser rolls
I was sort of confused about what "brioche" actually is, so then the Internet told me. Essentially, it's made like a bread dough, but it's more pastry-like because of the high butter and egg content. So, while it is made like bread, it has more golden, flaky, and delicious texture. Oh, god, is it delicious. The brioche we made today were similar to the ones yesterday, except after cutting the rolls, we cut them in half again but not all the way to the end, and then twisted one half onto the other half, making sort of a figure eight. These were filled with a "tant pour tant", which is equal parts almonds and sugar, and pastry cream all mixed together and then spread onto the dough. This obviously happened before we rolled and sliced it. We let them sit for a while before we put them into the oven, but honestly, it's hard to keep track of how long we do everything for.
The cheddar and jalapeno ("Southwestern") cornbread was awesome. It was fun because we used a lot of spices that we haven't used for anything yet (cumin, garlic powder, and paprika). The batter sort of reminded me of making pakoras. The method was a "sponge method", not to be confused with the sponge method that we used for our sponge cake... because it's totally different. Basically, we mixed some of our ingredients together, and let it sit so the yeast could do it's thing. Once that was done, we put this mixture into our giant mixing bowl and added the rest of the ingredients and mixed it on low until it was blended. Then, we mixed it on high for about a minute. We didn't want to mix it much longer than this, because since we were rolling it out right away, if we mixed it for too long, it would be too soft to work with. After it was rolled out to the length and width of our rolling pins, it was time to add the filling. For the jalapenos, Jean-Luc told us to remove the seeds and then chop them finely. To which I responded, "Did you say remove the seeds?" He said, "Yeah, otherwise they'll be a little too spicy. But... you can leave them in if you want. Just tell them when you take them out to the cafeteria." He then proceeded to tell us about how he couldn't really handle spicy food, and that's when I ate half a jalapeno, seeds and everything. In the end, though, my rolls weren't even that spicy (even according to Jean-Luc, not just me). The cornbread really neutralized the spice. I probably could have added double. (Some people didn't even add any. Come on!) I think if I made something like this again I would add more of all of the spices, just to give it a bit more of a kick. But they were really delicious. Especially right out of the oven. There was no way I wasn't sampling every single thing we made today.
The order in which we did things today was totally a blur because we are just constantly mixing things, taking them out, putting them into containers, storing them, letting them rise, covering them, uncovering them, and so on... so, at some point, we made kaiser rolls. Before we could make the final dough, we had to make something called a pre-dough that had to sit for an hour before adding it to the final dough. The pre-dough had the yeast in it. After we'd made it and let it sit, we added the rest of the ingredients to it and mixed everything together. After this was done, we set it aside again. Then, we cut the dough in half, and used the divider to divide and separate it and made little balls with two pieces of the separated dough. Apparently, I am good at rolling the dough. That could be why I like this section so much. Which is probably good because after I finished rolling all of the first half of the dough, I had to do my second half too. Everyone else worked with partners, but I guess that's what happens when you have a group of 5. After the dough was rolled, we used a kaiser roll stamp to create a pattern in the top of the rolls. None of us really pressed hard enough, because the design was more of a faint remnant of a design than anything once they were baked. But, next time. These would be hard to make at home, because when they were in the deck oven, we injected them with steam for a few seconds. Jean-Luc said that when he makes these at home, he uses two pizza stones and sprays the pizza stones with water before putting the rolls in the oven, but it doesn't work as well as having an oven that has a steam function. Oh well. Cooking them with steam helps them puff up and be really soft on the inside but with a harder crust. I have to say, eating these warm out of the oven was amazing. AMAZING. I covertly gave away a lot of baked goods today. There were just so many of everything. And warm bread is just the best.
The actual best part of the day was when I got to take the second half of my brioche dough home, since it's Friday and it won't stay good over the weekend. And, even though I do now have a fully stocked pantry and lots of baking equipment, I do not have an industrial bread mixer, so having dough that's already made definitely lends itself to being turned into delicious dessert. I also bought a kitchen scale last night so that I wouldn't have to worry about trying to figure out conversions for each ingredient in a recipe from grams to cups. I think I may finally be ready to bake some of the things I've learned in class at home. My kitchen table is covered in unopened ingredients and equipment.
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Today's Recipes
Brioche
1 kg flour
500 g bread flour
250 g sugar
30 g salt
100 g yeast
12 eggs
200 ml water
375 g butter
375 g margarine
Almond Cream
500 g ground almonds
500 g sugar
500 g pastry cream
Southwestern Cornbread
100 ml water
320 ml buttermilk
50 g yeast
2 eggs
110 g sugar
200 g flour
4 g paprika
4 g cumin
6 g garlic powder
Later, add
14 g salt
80 ml olive oil
100 ml milk (28 degrees)
600 g flour
Kaiser Rolls
Pre-dough
15 g yeast
5 g sugar
480 ml water (32 degrees)
800 g bread flour
Final Dough
1 L water (32 degrees, 45 if using cold pre-dough)
55 g yeast
45 g salt
100 g honey
85 g butter
1.5 kg bread flour
Pre-dough
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