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 33 - Practical #1

Today was my first practical in BK 110 class. I first made the Milk Bread (Pain Au Lait) [in the bottom left corner]. They came out better in weight, but a hair darker than I would have liked. Also, a few of them didn't hold their shape very well. This was because I forced some of them into their shape when I should have waited a little bit longer for them to rest then roll out and form them.

I then used the sponge method to make the Baguette Epi (top left) and Fougase (top right). For some reason the dough was not working for me today. It was drying out on me, and the gluten was to tight. Both made it hard to work with. The Epi came out a little darker than I would have liked, but came out nice. The Fougase came out nice as well.

The last thing was Baguettes (bottom right) made by the straight method. The color was beautiful. Only I didn't let them bake long enough. When I checked in the oven they were hard and I took them out, after they cooled a bit I checked them and they were soft. Not good for Baguettes. So I put them back in the oven, but sadly, it didn't fix the problem. Another problem is that although I thought I cut the slices on top the baguettes like the teacher said, some of the slices were slit too long. Only one of my Baguettes came out perfect on top (the left baguette of the three).

Day 30 - Baking Wheat Bread, Pain au Lait

After our daily lineup, we started working on making our dough. I made a loaf of whole wheat bread and whole wheat baguette with the same whole wheat dough. It came out good.

I also made pain au lait (milk bread). Two of these were plain, two were topped with poppy seeds and two were topped with sesame seeds. I also made french bread baguettes, but was unable to bake them since I ran out of time. Poop!