Before we started, he showed us the chocolate decorations that he made for the Halloween cake that we were all going to make eventually. Using a combination of chocolate moulds and piping, he made trees, tombstones, bats, a haunted house, among other things. I don't love that the trees were piped without any sort of pattern in mind... freehand chocolate trees? Um.
The tasks for today were:
- Chocolate chip cookies (using 2 eggs, instead of 3)
- White rolls (using 500g of flour instead of 3kg)
- Dough for shortbread cookies
- 6 sugar cages
The optional tasks were:
- Chocolate sponge cake (for a Halloween cake)
- Chocolate decorations (for the same Halloween cake)
And, just for me:
- Zimt brotchen (aka the most delicious looking cinnamon buns in the world)
We could do the recipes in any order we wanted. We also had to calculate the adjustments... so much math for so early in the morning. While we worked, Jean-Luc walked around observing what everyone was doing and writing things down on an ominous yellow notepad. [The notepad wasn't actually ominous.] He also yelled things randomly throughout the morning (e.g. "Don't forget there are buns in the proofer and in the oven") and also sang the lyrics to What Does the Fox Say? repeatedly.
I started with my cinnamon buns to get the non-test-recipe out of the way. First I mixed the filling until it was properly blended and then rolled out the dough to a square the size of a rolling pin. Then, the filling went onto the dough, the edge was egg-washed, and the dough was sealed and sliced into 16 pieces. Then they went in the proofer for about 20 minutes until they had pretty much doubled in size. After that, they took between 15-20 minutes in the oven, and were turned around at 7 minutes. While they were baking, I prepped a glaze made of milk and corn syrup heated up, mixed with icing sugar, so that once the buns were done, I could glaze them immediately. They looked SO good.
Then, I moved onto the white rolls. We didn't use the mixer for these, because it was a significantly smaller batch than the ones we did in the bread section. [Side note: I didn't actually make these when I was in the bread section. Whoops.] So, we had the option to use a KitchenAid or to just mix the ingredients by hand and Jean-Luc recommended by hand, so obviously that's what we all did. The best part about mixing the dough by hand is that to get the gluten to form and build elasticity you literally have to SLAM the dough on the table repeatedly and it really helps get out any residual anger you have kicking around. I forgot that we had mixed dough by hand earlier in the year, so I'm glad that we revisited it. Once the dough was sufficiently beaten up, I set it aside to let it double in size (it probably took about an hour, but honestly, I sort of lost track of time).
Next, I made the chocolate chip cookies. We didn't have to bake them today, just set them on a baking tray, ready for the oven tomorrow. I want to make the same batter at home and then just freeze it and then just eat frozen chocolate chip cookie dough all the time, because it is actually that delicious. I think it has to do with creaming the butter/sugar/brown sugar at the beginning, because it is the smoothest, most delicious chocolate chip cookie batter in the entire world. Maybe that's a bit of an exaggeration, but when I was waiting in line at the dishwasher, I may have been eating the leftover batter in the bowl.
Jean-Luc had said that we would start cleaning up at around 12:30, and at this point, it was around 11:50 and I still had to make my shortbread dough and my sugar cages, so I was starting to panic a little. I decided to make the shortbread dough first, because I knew the sugar cages would be tedious and/or frustrating. The shortbread dough was fairly straightforward to make (blend butter/sugar/salt, add eggs and vanilla, add flour slowly) and because it contains butter and margarine, it is super soft, which is why it can't really be used on the same day. The cookies will be baked and iced tomorrow.
I finished this at around 12:10 and I think Jean-Luc could sense my anxiety from across the room, because he said that it was okay if I didn't finish right at 12:30 and had to stay til 1:00... or 1:30... He wanted me to take the time to make good sugar cages. So, I hope I did him proud. The decoration syrup was already made, so we just had to heat it up, and then make a bunch of cages. We needed at least 6 good ones, and I think I may have made around 12 or 15 (and kept 9 for him to see). After we were done, we left them at the front for him to evaluate. I know I had at least two or three really awesome ones, but other than those, it's hard to say.
I was a little disappointed that I didn't get my chocolate sponge done today, but I do think that I'll have more time tomorrow, when I'm not trying to catch up on something from the day before. [Though, I do still have to catch up on one day of chocolate that I missed. But I think I'm doing that outside of class time.] I also resigned myself to not getting it done about halfway through the day, so at the end of the day when I hadn't, it wasn't really a surprise.
I like that we're not all doing the same thing and it's up to us to plan how we want to get everything that we have to get done. Tomorrow I'll have an even better idea of time budgeting, so I hope that I finish as early as some of the others did today. But, I'm okay with taking the time that I need. Doing things quickly hasn't been my forte so far, so I won't expect it to be now.
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Today's Recipes
Zimt Brotchen
1 kg flour
550 ml cold milk
100 g sugar
15 ml honey
1 egg
2 yolks
60 g yeast
18 g salt
1/2 lemon zest
15 ml vanilla
Filling:
50 g butter
100 g sugar
100 g brown sugar
10 g flour
15 g cinnamon
Sugar Glaze 1
900 g icing sugar
200 ml milk
50 ml corn syrup
10 ml vanilla
White Rolls (makes about 12 rolls, 80g each)
500 g flour (original: 3 kg)
35 g yeast (210 g)
30 g sugar (180 g)
10 g salt (60 g)
1 egg (6)
300 ml milk (1800 ml)
Chocolate Chip Cookies (makes about 15 cookies)
183 g butter (original: 275 g)
150 g sugar (225 g)
150 g brown sugar (225 g)
2.6 g salt (4 g)
10 ml vanilla (15 ml)
2 eggs (3 eggs)
300 g flour (450 g)
5 g baking powder (8 g)
266 g chocolate chunks (400 g)
Shortbread Cookies
100 g margarine
300 g butter
8 g salt
300 g sugar
15 ml vanilla
2 eggs
25 ml milk
750 g flour
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