"Queen of Bread"

Today was our last day in the bread section and I'm honestly a little bit sad about it. I admit, I was totally scared of working with yeast and thought that this section was going to be the worst and super intense and scary. But, it was kind of awesome. While I was rolling out and knotting little herb bread knots, Jean-Luc said, "Safia, you're getting really good at this. You're like the queen of bread now." Maybe against all odds and expectations, this is my section. Also, when Jean-Luc jokingly said that our test was going to be to make 120 rolls in 20 minutes, I was like, okay, no problem (before I knew he was joking). Then he (also jokingly) said, and also 120 sugar cages in 20 minutes (after which my face fell dramatically). Ha, ha.

The demonstration today was just how to colour chocolate, which I don't think warrants more than a couple of sentences. Don't use water-based colour. If using powder, use a fat-soluble, rather than a water-soluble one. And mix the colour with a small amount of chocolate first, before adding it in to the rest of the chocolate. It basically took as long to demonstrate as it did for me to type out that paragraph.

Then, I started with making a new batch of herb bread. I added my herb bread from last week to the bottom of the mixer, and added the new ingredients on top. In the new batch, I added 2g of mint instead of 2g of basil totally by accident and was too scared to tell Jean-Luc/anyone, so I was a little worried about how it would turn out. I may have even googled "mint in herb bread" to see if that was a thing... but in the end they turned out great, so nothing to worry about.

While that was rising, I made a double-batch of milk bread, which we made during the first week of classes. I think the knotting of this results in a really-cool looking loaf of bread, so I'm glad we did these ones again. The first time I was definitely too anxious to understand what was happening. I made four good-sized loaves and one tiny one (that I got to take home!).

Then, I made new dough for the zimt brotchen (we had to throw the one from last week out, unfortunately), which are German-style cinnamon buns. Yum. I am going to finish those off tomorrow, even though today was our last day in the bread section.

I was working totally separate from the rest of the group (again) today, so while I was doing my thing, they were making a variety of things we'd already made this section (white rolls, whole wheat rolls, cheddar/jalapeno cornbread, milk bread).

Once I was done the zimt brotchen dough, the herb bread had just about doubled in size and they were ready to be rolled out. I used the divider and then each piece of dough was rolled out into a long strip that was approximately the size of two hands side-by-side. Then these were formed into a single knot and placed on a baking tray with parchment paper. I felt like I had to do a million of them because it was just me knotting a double batch of herb bread, but part way through I think my muscle memory started taking over and I felt like I was getting the hang of knotting the bread. Once I had finished all five (!) trays, we went on our break. When we came back, they were ready to go in the proofer, and stayed in it until they were pretty soft to the touch. Then they were egg-washed and baked in the convection oven for about 10 minutes, til they were lightly browned on top. They looked really good. Even Jean-Luc said so. And they tasted yummy too (even with the mint...).

 

While those were baking, our group knotted our milk bread. 200g pieces of dough were rolled out into strips and then one is placed on top of the other (like a giant plus sign) and then they cross over left and right, up and down, until there is no more dough left, and then the edges are pressed together. We did this until we used up all of our strips of dough. I had one left, so I cut it in half and made a little loaf of milk bread, which was definitely my favourite one. Then we put them in the proofer for a bit, then they were egg-washed and put in the oven.

And, aside from the zimt brotchen that I'll finish off tomorrow, that signals the end of the bread section. I'm not sure what's on the docket for the rest of the week, though I do know we're making Halloween shortbread cookies at some point. With royal icing. Yum.

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Today's Recipes

Herb Bread
1250 g flour
75 sugar
30 g salt
200 ml olive oil
700 ml water (32 degrees)
75 g yeast
2 g sage
2 g basil (or 2 g mint, by accident)
1 g thyme
+ 1 batch of previously made herb bread 

Milk Bread (double batch) 
500 flour
35 g fresh yeast
30 g sugar 
10 g salt 
1 egg 
300 ml warm milk (30 degrees)

Zimt Brotchen
1 kg flour
550 ml cold milk
100 g sugar
15 ml honey
1 egg
2 egg yolks
60 g yeast
18 g salt
1/2 lemon zest
15 ml vanilla
150 g butter