Day 43 - Baking bread for Practical

Today was my last practical for this class. I had to bake lavosh (to the left), baguettes (top), plain and braided pain au lait. Monday I'll begin Basic Patisserie Techniques. Patisserie is French Pastries.

Day 36 - Assorted breads and crackers

Today started out with the Chef demonstrating how to make the bagels. Then it was off to our table to start our production. I took the bagels I formed yesterday, simmered in water and inverted sugar. Then I dipped the tops of the bagels in Parmesan cheese (yellow tops), salt-n-pepper (white topped bagels), or sesame seeds (black topped bagels) and baked them in the oven.

Next I made the lavosh and crackers. The lavosh was not my favorite. I like the crackers a lot and I would have liked some soup to throw them in. Here is how to make the crackers.

Crackers (recipe from school)
Bread flour - 5 oz.
Sugar - .125 oz.
butter - .8 oz.
Cayenne - pinch
Onion pwdr - pinch

Mix ingredients together, roll out into sheet about 1/8" thick. I cut 1" squares and place them on a sheet pan lined with parchment paper. Bake at 400 degrees till hard (about 15 minutes). Take them out and check if they are still soft, put back into oven till hard. It will not hurt putting them back in the oven.

Day 35 - Test Results and English Muffins

Today I got the results for last Friday's practical. The overall grade is 94%. We were graded on four areas:

A) Sanitation/General (grade: 16 out of 16)
- Organization / Work flow
- Hygiene and Safety Practices
- Timing
- Professionalism

B) Pain Au Lait (grade: 14 out of 16)
- Texture (-1 point for being overcooked)
- Taste
- Color (-1 point for being too dark)
- Shape

C) Epi (grade: 16 out of 16)
- Texture
- Taste
- Color
- Shape

D) Baguette (grade: 15 out of 16)
- Texture (-1 point, just bake longer)
- Taste
- Color
- Shape

Today we made cracker dough and lavosh (an Armenian unleavened flat bread). We also finished making our bagel dough and we formed the bagels. We also did our second build to our Apple Sour Dough. Also I made English Muffins.