Hello & Welcome!

Hi!

So, apologies for the frankly unforgivable gap in blogs, but I do have a pretty good excuse, honest.

See, at the end of July I packed up my things & moved halfway across the country, to the tiny seaside town of Southwold, to start work at the Two Magpies Bakery.  (I was lucky enough to have two weeks work experience here in June, & even luckier that Jim & Rebecca offered me a job!)

So I moved into Southwold & was initially stayed with Hanna, the cafe manager at the Bakery, as she had a spare room & lived just a short walk from the Bakery.  Luckily, Hanna was very accommodating, as it took me an awful lot longer than I thought it would to find anywhere to live!

It's crazy here in the summer; half the houses are holiday lets, the town is full to bursting & there was pretty much nothing to rent in town.  Then this one place came up, but the landlady was a mean old woman with unreasonable demands, so we let that one slide... There was this one tiny flat, right in the centre of town, which I'd looked at & passed on as really it seemed too small... There's one bedroom, & my lovely fella & I were really hoping for something with two bedrooms, maybe even somewhere to grow tomatoes & the like...

So we kept looking.  And looking,  And looking.  Until finally, we gave in & went for the one bed flat, & actually it isn't that small.  There's a window seat, so that's where the tomato plants are going to go  =)

So finally I'm housed!  I have a place to call my own, until my lovely fella moves down here in November, then we'll have a place to call ours  =D

So basically, I've had near on no proper internet access since the end of July; just wifi, & that was sporadic at the best of times... Hence no blogs posts.  Now, I have genuine proper actual internet, & it's glorious  =D

But enough of my housing woes... This is supposed to be a record of my adventures in baking, so let's talk about baking!

Honestly, it's hard work.  I'm working 10-11 hour shifts 5 days a week.  Before the summer season ended at the start of September, I was working 6 days a week.  I come home & parts of me ache that I didn't even know existed before.  I feel like an old woman sometimes; my knees ache, my hips are sore, & don't even get me started on my back...

But I love it.  Even with the long hours & the aches & pains, I love it.  I wouldn't do anything else now  =)

Jim trusts me to run the bread bake, while he deals with the laminated goods; croissants, pain au choc & sausage rolls & the like.  I do the Tuesday night shift on my own now, so Jim & Rebecca can have an actual weekend, with proper days off.

It's been quite a learning curve so far, & I'm still trying to get the hang of the Friday night bake, which is huge compared to the other nights.  I'm determined that this week I shall tame the beast & successfully juggle the 14 or so breads to be baked that night!  But it's wonderful to be able to put into practise everything I learnt at School, to be an actual proper baker (although of course I'm still learning).  It's such a thrill, to stand there at the end of a shift, look at the shelves full of bread, & think, 'I made that'.  It's brilliant!  =D

I'll try & keep this updated a bit more regularly from here on.  It should be easier to do now that I have actual internet access (not that I'm excited about actual internet access, not at all...)

For now though, I need to go find some food before I head off to bed again!

See you later! *waves*

Looking Back...

Well, I've been home now for just over a week, so I think it's time to sit back & reflect on the last 10 months.

I suppose the biggest question is: Did I get everything I wanted from the course?

And mostly the answer is: Yes, I did.

I set out on the course with the intention of learning how to bake bread, from scratch.  And I think I can safely say that I now know how to bake bread!  Proper, lovely, handmade, tasty, beautiful bread.  I've even picked up a little bit of cheese making knowledge along the way, which is a bonus I think  =)

I still find it hard to believe now how far I've come  =)

So then the next question I guess, is: Was it worth it?

And, yeah, I think it was.

Let's not beat about the bush though, it is an expensive course.  I was lucky; I applied for a bursary & I got one.  Without that I'm not sure I'd have been able to afford to do the course at all.  Yeah I probably could have found a part-time job somewhere, but I was always reluctant to do that because I was conscious that there would be written work to do & I didn't want anything else distracting me or taking up my time.

I've gained new skills & met some really wonderful people, & generally had a bit of a ball  =)

There are still some aspects of the course which could be improved, but then the School is still only three years old.

One of the things I was most excited about before starting the course was the 'Creating an Artisan Business' module.  Now, you may have noticed that I never really blogged about the business stuff... The reason for that, if I'm being honest, is that it was a bit of a let down.  I'm not really sure what I was expecting from it, but I don't feel as though I've really learnt anything...

Some of the guest speakers were great; Kenneth Hill's social media talk was brilliant, as was the talk from the chap who came to talk to us about branding (whose name I foolishly can't recall).  But other then that, I don't really have anything good to say about it!  Which is a shame, it is, because I think quite a few people who might be interested in the course might also be keen to go out & start there own business, & I worry that the module in it's current incarnation just won't deliver...

The flour confectionery part of the course could have been improved as well... I mean, Clive is such a lovely guy, he really is, but he is a little bit retro in his approach... =)

A lot of the stuff we were doing was quite basic, or quite old fashioned, which is fine, but I would have liked to learn more modern, complicated techniques & skills.  But then I think this is the first year the School has done an actual flour confectionery module, so I think they're still finding their feet in that respect.

But overall, I'm still so glad I did the course; I think I've achieved pretty much everything I set out to achieve, & while we haven't had our final grades yet (should know in the next couple of weeks though), I'm hopeful that I've done well  =)

I've also been incredibly lucky, in that I've come out of the course, knowing exactly what I'm going to do  =D

Following on from my two week placement at the Two Magpies bakery, I've actually been offered a job with them!! =D

I'm so pleased!  =D

It really is a great opportunity to work with some really lovely people, in an amazing new bakery, in a really beautiful part of the world.  I've got a few things to do here at home first, but I should be moving down to Southwold towards the end of July  =)

So my time in Shropshire is drawing to a close, at least for now.  I'll be sad to leave; it's a beautiful county & I've got a lot of friends & family up here, but I'm also really excited to start this new chapter of my life.  My lovely boyfriend will be moving down to Southwold as well, once I've gotten somewhere to live, so it'll be the next chapter of our lives too  =)

Exciting times indeed  =)

For now, I'm going to enjoy the next couple of weeks, take some time out, relax, enjoy the sunshine, celebrate the numerous family birthdays we have in July (including mine!) & then begin to pack up my life!

I'll still continue to blog, after all, there's a whole world of baking related adventures out there waiting for me!

The End of an Era...

Well folks, that's it.  Last essays handed in, final practical assessments all completed, I've officially finished my time at the School!

This has been quite an odd week really.  My prep hour was scheduled for Wednesday afternoon, with the big full days practical assessment on Thursday, so I didn't have to be in School at all until then, but I went in anyway (those lunches are hard to turn down!).

So while I started out on Monday morning feeling quite calm about the whole final assessment thing, I found that by Monday afternoon, I was getting more & more nervous!  Those folks who had their prep hours on Monday were obviously nervous, & I guess it rubbed off  =)

Wednesday afternoon rolled around & me & Clare went into our prep hour feeling nervous, but organised.  We had schedules, an order of what to mix & when... So in theory, we had nothing to worry about, right?

Well, that was the plan.  In reality, as long as an hour is, when you have to mix two doughs, one of which is a brioche, it really isn't quite long enough!  I ended up mixing my brioche dough in 19 minutes, which is certainly the fastest I've ever seen brioche be mixed.  It was a crazy stressful hour, not helped by Wayne counting down the minutes & the knowledge that if we didn't get all our pre-ferments & doughs mixed in that hour, we didn't mix them at all... But eventually we got it done, well, almost.  I had planned to soak the fruits for my brioche overnight in raspberry tea, but I ran out of time...

So we left the School Wednesday afternoon feeling a little bit drained & stressed... Not the best way to start the evening...

I didn't sleep very well Wednesday at all; thoughts of the assessment, everything I had to do, all the brioche I had to scale & shape, all kept me up.  So I woke up Thursday already feeling tired, & worried, & nervous, & slightly unwell...

Clare & I had taken in all our presentation materials the day before, so all I had to do was grab my energy drinks, snacks & bottles of beer (I'll explain later) then off we went.

I felt a little better once we were actually at School, so I wasn't too bad by the time 8.00am rolled around, & the assessment began...

The first couple of hours were fairly relaxed really; again Clare & I were fairly organised, knowing what doughs we needed to mix first & all that, & we worked together really well, sharing out the single multi-speed mixer as needed.  Wayne kept up a fairly constant stream of questions, asking what we were doing, what effect we thought it would have on the dough, that sort of thing, which was a little distracting at times, but we got used to it pretty quickly.

All my doughs behaved quite well, helped I think by the fact that it's been a lot cooler this last week.  This meant that they moved a little slower than I had planned for, but they were all manageable, even the dreaded brioche...

Every other time I've made this brioche, it's been a bit of a nightmare to handle, needing to be chilled down for at least 30 minutes between each stage, so I'd scale the 100g pieces of dough, then have to chill them before they could be shaped.  But not yesterday.  Now, I was disappointed I didn't manage to soak my fruits overnight, but really I think that was the best thing that could have happened.  The dough was much firmer, but still with that soft silkiness of brioche, & it didn't need to be chilled at all.  It even sat out on the work surface (covered of course) for a good 40 minutes while I sorted out my baguettes, & it was fine!

And as for my baguettes... Well, remember the other day I joked about waking up Thursday morning with the sudden & unexplained ability to shape baguettes?  Well, I kinda did...

The pre-shaping was great, the final shaping was even better - I was astounded!  The dough was really well behaved though, & it had bulk fermented for the right amount of time, so it was pretty much perfect when I came to shape it.

It all got a bit hectic towards the end of the day, with a number of breads needing to be baked off at roughly the same time (not what I'd planned but there you go), & I actually ran over the allotted time by 17 minutes.  That wasn't too bad though, & I only lost 1.5% off my total mark because of it, so I think it was worth it  =)

So here it is, my final display  =)

I was really quite pleased with how it all looked.  I'd played around with the wicker baskets & blankets a few times, so I knew roughly how it would look, but I never imagined it would look so good!

My lovely ciabatta - I actually scored full marks for these, which I'm really pleased about!

And the notorious brioche - 88 individual buns at 100g each, all combined to produce 11 lovely loaves  =)  These were the best they'd ever been, so it was definitely worth it!

My white tin loaves - Quite pleased with how these came out, although they were a little above the weight tolerances, but hey, they look good!

Pain de Campagne!  Really pleased with these too, the cuts came out very nicely & the flavour was great  =)

And my baguettes!  I'm so pleased with how these came out, they're the best baguettes I've ever done! I certainly picked the right time to figure it out!

My lovely beer barm bread, which was a little underproved, hence the crazy bursts... Which is a little disappointing, but I'm very pleased with how the stencilling came out  =)  Oh, & just note the glasses with hops flowers & freshly poured beer (anything for an extra mark!)  ;)

And last but not least...

Me!  Enjoying a well earned glass of beer while surveying the results of a hard day's bake  =)

So that's it.  It's been quite an emotional day really.  We had an indoor picnic at School today (silly British weather), & most everyone came, so it was nice to catch up.  We're going out for curry tonight, then a final farewell BBQ tomorrow...

I'll post a proper review of my time here in the next few days, for now, I'll just say that it's been an amazing journey.  I've loved every minute & am so glad I decided to take this chance.

It's been bread-tastic!  =D

The Final Countdown...

This is it; we're now into the last few days of School!

Last week was all about final preparations for the big practical assessment, so there were literally hundreds of baguettes, tin loaves & dinner rolls floating around, not to mention the mountains of pain de campagnes & ciabattas!

For the most part, my baking went alright last week.  I've finally fixed on the presentation & shaping of my lovely spiced fruit brioche, although, as much as I love it, I am dreading making it on Thursday...  I'm going to have to scale & shape 88 balls of brioche at 100g each!  It's going to drive me mad!

This is the final loaf - I really am fond of the way it looks, & I've been told it's rather tasty, so hopefully it'll all be worth it! =D

I've decided on the shapes for my dinner rolls too, so hopefully they'll come out alright, & the new stencil for my beer barm bread looks a treat!

The only thing I'm worried about is my baguette shaping; it's such a tricky thing to get right, & so far I haven't quite managed to do it properly, although the texture & flavour of the finished baguettes has been great... But, all I can do is my best, & you never know, Thursday may turn up & bring with it the sudden & unexplained ability to shape the perfect baguette!  (We can but hope!)

I think I'm pretty much prepared now; I've got the schedule sorted & printed out, although I doubt very much my day will actually run according to the times I've estimated!  But that's the nature of baking; you can plan & plan, but in the end it's all down to the dough... So we'll see  =)

There's a few people already done their final practicals, & all their breads looked amazing!  If my day goes half as well as theirs, & my breads come out looking half as good as theirs, I'll be a happy bunny  =)

So now, just an essay to write & a hectic couple of days to get through, as well as a few picnics & parties (of course!) & I'll be done & dusted!

Back to School Time!

Well, after a seemingly endless train journey (5 hours & 22 minutes of sitting on trains & at train stations really does seem endless...) I'm back from Dunbar!

It's been an interesting & tiring couple of weeks, & if I'm honest, not my favourite. 

Dunbar is a nice enough little town, there isn't a great deal there, but the harbour, castle ruins & seaside are all very picturesque  =)

The tide went out quite a way, so there were some great rock pools, with lots of little fishes.

This was the view of the harbour, from one side at least.  If you looked straight down, you could see all the lobster pots, some of them even had lobsters in them!  It was quite cool  =)

And this was the view out to sea from the top of the castle ruins!  There's not much left of the castle, but its still quite cool  =)

I went into Edinburgh one afternoon, with Natalie & her friend Lily, where I was introduced to shopping...  Now, of course I've been clothes shopping before, but usually with a specific item of clothing in mind.  I've never really had a lot of girl friends, so the practise of wandering round shops just trying things on for the sake of it is quite unusual, to say the least!  But I think I got the hang of it in the end; even bought a t-shirt!

I went back into Edinburgh on Sunday, to be a bit more touristy.  It's a lovely city, & there were lots of street performers out & about, so it made it quite entertaining to wander around.

This chap was quite entertaining!  Not quite sure who was operating the strings, or wires, or however it worked, but it was fun  =)

I found the castle too!  Spent a couple of hours wandering round there too, & I saw the Scottish crown jewels (but we weren't allowed to take pictures...) & the views were quite spectacular.

Afterwards, I went for a walk round Princes Street Park, & had an ice cream in the sunshine  =)

This was the view of the castle from the park; quite impressive in the sunlight  =)

And this was a fairly awesome Gothic style structure, built in the name of some chappie whose name I can't recall... Apparently you can walk to the top & see all of Edinburgh  =)

As for my time at the bakery... I didn't have the best time in all honesty... The people are lovely; Ross & Natalie are great to work with, it's just that the bread wasn't quite my sort of thing really...

They do a lot of tin bread, which is fine, but they use shortening, & that's really not my idea of good bread!  They do a fairly restrained selection of breads as well.  I think they'd like to do more, & do different sorts as well, but they're governed by the committee, & obviously, if the customers aren't keen on different sorts of bread then there wouldn't be much point...

This last week I was on days, working with Ross.  I had hoped to learn lots about how they make all the fancy cakes & tartlets, but sadly there wasn't much to do, so I didn't get to make any!  I did get to make lemon cream, raspberry mousse, confit some lemon peels & decorate the milk chocolate & tonka bean mousse's, but that was it...   Didn't do a single macaroon or eclair either!

But that's that.  I've only got two weeks left at School, & I think they're going to be fairly stressful!

We've got three days next week to practise our assessment recipes, then there are Business Pitch presentations to get out of the way, & one last essay to write, then that's it... All over...

It's crazy to think how fast the last 10 months have gone past, & we've all learnt so much...

I'll do a proper reflection of my time once it's all actually over, but for now, I'm going to relax, drink lots of tea, & perhaps tinker with a recipe or two...  =)

Round 'Em Up!

So here we are folks! The first two weeks of my last placement all done with, & I’m now three days into the last two weeks!

Before I talk about Dunbar though, I feel it’s only right to sum up my last week at Two Magpies  =)

I had a fair bit of fun last week actually, even though the cake shift is far more stressful than the bread shift!

They do a fairly wide range of sweet treats at Two Magpies; cookies, muffins, various full sized cakes, little brownies, cake slices, gluten free treats, granola bars, all of it made on site, & mostly by Rebecca!  The bakery is so popular these days that she’s struggling to keep up with demand, but she manages to do it every day, & it all looks amazing  =)

Cake is a complicated beast, full of fiddly, time-consuming stages, whereas bread is really a fairly simple creature, & while I do love to make the occasional cake or tart, it’s generally only for a special occasion (or if I’m really feeling the need).  I really don’t think I do it all day every day, I just don’t think I’ve got the patience!

But it has been rather nice to be all delicate & fancy, decorating little cakes & what not  =)  I even got to make my lemon & poppy seed madeleine’s, which was great!

It really has been my favourite placement thus far.  Don’t get me wrong, I loved working at Shrewsbury Bakehouse & at Holtwhites, but there’s just something about this bakery, about the people, about the place, that really clicked, that just felt right =)

I finally went on the Adnams Brewery Tour, to learn a little more about the history of the brewery, & of course to sample some more beers!  ;)

I’d tried Ghost Ship in the pub Monday night, & treated myself to a bottle of Innovation a couple of days later, & enjoyed both of those very much.  On the tour, I tried Broadside, Southwold Bitter, Gunship & a couple of others, including Native Britten, their newest beer.  It’s been on the shelves less than two weeks, & was brewed to commemorate the 100^th anniversary of the birth of Benjamin Britten, a composer from not so far away.  It was lovely!  It’s made with honey & thyme, so it has this lovely rich, caramely flavour to it, really very nice  =)

But alas, I’ve said farewell to this stretch of seaside, & am now in a different seaside town at the opposite end of the country!

I’m not exactly sure what I was expecting from the Bakery Dunbar; I suppose given previous feedback from students & the bakery’s stint on ‘Britain’s Best Bakery’, I was expecting something bigger & brighter than it actually is.

So far I’ve done two nights on the bread shift with Natalie, the girl I’m staying with.  The shift starts at the same time as at Two Magpies, so in theory I should be on the same sleeping pattern still, but I’m not!  It didn’t really help that my being on the night shift Sunday evening was a surprise; I didn’t know until Natalie told me as we walked from the train station.  I was supposed to be in with Ross at 7am Monday morning, but a member of staff who usually works nights was taken ill, so it was all a bit last minute & meant I only got just over an hour of sleep before doing a full nights work!

So needless to say, after a couple of days travelling long distances & not quite as much sleep as I’d normally like, I’m feeling really rather shattered…

Dunbar is nice enough though, & I should have some time to go explore properly this weekend, hopefully I'll get up to Edinburgh too, which should be fun =)

Seaside Adventures!

So I’ve now completed my first week at Two Magpies, & had my day off, & I’m just about ready to head to bed before starting week two!

This week I’ll be working with Rebecca on the cake side of the operation.  I must admit, I’m more nervous about that then I was about working with Jim on the bread!  I’m not really sure why, I think it’s just that I feel like I understand bread more than I do cake.  I suppose I just don’t have the experience of professional cake making, so there feels like there’s more pressure, especially to get it looking beautiful & sale worthy!

Maybe that’s the difference; bread is beautiful in all its rustic, unique, individual glory.  When you’re making cakes at home, for yourself or family or friends, it can be a little rustic & not-quite-perfect.  But making cakes to sell? They all need to be perfect, & I guess I’m not sure I quite have that touch… But we’ll see.  All I can do is my best & I’m certainly going to do that!

Southwold itself is really very pretty, especially along the sea front; they’ve got all these little beach huts, all brightly coloured, & it’s very sweet  =)

I went for a wander along the pier the other day, & all along the railings are these little brass plaques.  Some of them commemorate births & weddings, others are memorials to individuals & events, others still are quotes.  I saw a couple of Oscar Wilde quotes, & this one from Tolkien, which made me smile  =)

I still need to go for a wander round the brewery; I know they do tours so will have to investigate & see if I can do that before we leave, continue my real ale education!  But I did get to be a tourist, just a little!

For now though, I’m off to bed, need me some sleep before tonight’s shift  =)

Seasides & Sourdoughs

Morning all!

I’m in Southwold, having just finished my third shift at Two Magpies Bakery, so I’m tired & I ache a little!

But I’m also happy  =)

I had an epiphany of sorts at around 12.40am.  I love baking.  I bloody love it.  There really is nothing else I’d rather do for the rest of my life.

Yes it’s hard work, the hours are long & unsociable, but it’s so worth it.  It might seem a little sad, but I find it incredible fascinating; mixing the dough, learning how to tell by look & feel when it’s fully developed.  The anticipation of the bulk fermentation, waiting to see how much its grown, never really knowing how active & crazy it’s likely to be.  Then scaling & shaping the dough, letting it prove, turning it out, scoring, & finally baking.  The sense of achievement & satisfaction at the end of a shift, seeing all the loaves, each one unique & beautiful, knowing you had a hand in their creation.

Honestly, it’s all really very emotional.

Two Magpies have a glass fronted oven as well, which is wonderful because you can see the loaves as they bake.  Far better than the oven at School, where the loaves bake behind a solid door, so you don’t know if they’ve risen at all until the damper is taken out & you can open the door.

I love it here at Two Magpies, everyone is lovely & friendly, they bake a great range of breads & some beautiful pastries & cakes.  I’m having one of those ‘wish I’d asked for the full four weeks here not just two’ moments!

Jim, who owns Two Magpies, is a former student from School, so it’s been good to be able to compare notes, see what’s changed & what hasn’t!  He’s been quite happy to let me get on with mixing on my own, & I’ve done plenty of scaling, scoring & loading of the ovens, so it’s been really great.  It’s been an opportunity to really see how much I’ve learnt, & I’ve been pleasantly surprised  =)

I haven’t had much time to wander round Southwold itself yet, but the weathers looking pretty nice outside, so I think I might go see what I can find in a bit!  See if I can’t find me some fish & chips!  =D

Catch you later!

Free Stylin' Baking Adventures

So the last three days we've been able to bake pretty much whatever we wanted.  We've all taken advantage of this opportunity to practise for the final assessment; refining our recipes & practising techniques.

Monday was very much a 'get things ready for Tuesday' sort of day; I took a short wander over to the Welbeck Abbey Brewery & got myself a pot of their finest barm (this one was from one of the pale ales I think), ready for making my beer barm starter.  I also made up a batch of brioche, which then rested in the fridge overnight, while my fruit mix soaked in a lovely blackcurrant & vanilla tea.  I also made up the levain for my pain du campagne!  =)

I did actually get to do some baking on the day; a batch of dinner rolls!  They're not the most exciting bread to eat, but it's tricky to get the shaping right so it's worth practising them... I did however, forget to take a picture... Oh well!

Tuesday was a busy, & not altogether successful day...

The major disappointment was my brioche.  In previous batches I'd put mixed spice through the fruits before incorporating them into the dough, but yesterday I decided to try cinnamon instead; I prefer the flavour of cinnamon alone to that of mixed spice, & thought it would work well against the vanilla in the tea the fruits soaked in.

The problem is that cinnamon in too high a quantity can denature the structure of the dough, turning it into a mush.  Tasty mush, but still mush.  I only had cinnamon in at 3%, but that was enough to wreck havoc with my poor brioche!

I baked it off anyway, & while it was tasty, it wasn't right.  So I made another batch of brioche!  Again this rested in the fridge overnight  =)

The pain du campagne dough was really nice, strong but with plenty of extensibility too.

Came out looking rather nice too!  I think next time it could do with a longer bake, to get a really lovely dark colour to the crust.  My scoring could do with some work too, but then I haven;t had much practise recently...

Really pleased with the texture too.  And the flavour is lovely, just the right amount of acidity =)

My beer barm bread was a resounding success too!

I played around with the formula for this one, as the last time I made it I felt it lacked any real depth of flavour.  So, this time I used 25% of the total flour weight to create the starter, rather than the 13% called for in the recipe.  For the remaining flour in the dough I used 50% Italian flour (for strength), 50% malthouse flour, which contains all the lovely malty flakes (for flavour).  Finally, I dropped the water content from 80% to 70%, for a more British texture.  I was going to drop it to 60%, but decided to stick to 70%; the flakes in the malthouse flour would have absorbed some of the water anyway.

Here it is, fresh from the oven!

And here's the inside; lovely texture, & masses more flavour this time round.  Wayne said I'd pretty much cracked it flavour/texture wise, just need to work on the visual aspects of the bread.

I'd used the stencil I originally created for Wayne, seeing as he said I could keep it, but it could certainly be improved.

Once all that was out of the way, I put down a poolish for some baguettes, & then a biga for some ciabatta, ready for todays baking!

Today was a pretty good day too  =)

The brioche was much better today; I dropped the cinnamon down to 1% & the fruits were incorporated into the dough much easier, which made the dough an awful lot easier to shape!

Which meant I could do this sort of thing!  (The one on the right only had six balls of dough in instead of seven, like the other two, not quite enough dough for seven in each!)

They baked quite nicely too.

They could do with a lighter colour on top though, & to have more definition between each ball, but that's something I can work on.  The flavour is spot on!  The cinnamon is subtle, the fruits are juicy, the dough is light, fluffy & rich - divine!

The only problem is, I really like this shape... That's a problem because it means I have to shape the brioche into balls before they go into the tin.  Which isn't a bad thing on a normal day, but for assessment, I'm worried it might be a bit much to take on.  I'll have over 8kg of brioche dough to work on, & at 100g per ball, that's 80+ balls!  Something to ponder anyway...

I was really pleased with the ciabatta as well, especially as it was mixed by hand!

They baked quite nicely, although I think they could do with a darker bake.  The texture is great though  =)

But again, that could be improved, & a slightly lighter moulding is all it needs!


The baguettes were a sort of success...  The dough was great, nice & strong & it pre-shaped nicely.  Final shaping was less easy... I think it had a little too long resting; we had a sudden & dire shortage of couches, so I had to go hunting & rescue the couches Wayne had wandered off with...

Again these need a darker bake, & more steam, but they were baked in the Welbeck bakehouse ovens downstairs, which don't come with steam, instead, you have to squirt water into the back of the ovens!  The shaping is the most obvious fault on these; Wayne said the scoring was great, & the texture was pretty nice too  =)

So the next time I'm back in class after placement, guess what I'll be practising!  That's right!  Baguettes!

So all in all it's been a pretty good few days  =)

Just one more day at School, then we're off on our last placements!  Scary really... o.0

But for now, I have an essay to finish, & a brioche loaf to demolish!  Hopefully I'll have chance to blog while I'm on placement & let you know how it's all going.  First I'm off down South, to spend two weeks at Two Magpies Bakery, then I'm heading back up North to The Bakery Dunbar for my final two weeks.  Should be fun!

Catch you soon!

Epic Catch Up Time!

So, I've been a very bad blogger & I must apologise for that, the last couple of weeks have been kinda crazy =/

Not only have we had our business plans to complete & hand in, we've also had our Flour Confectionery assessments to tackle!

Well, the business plan's done, handed in, not exactly happy with it, but it'll do for now... And at least it's over now!  =)

The Flour confectionery assessments done with too.  That happened on Thursday, & it was such a long day! 8 hours, pretty much non stop.  Lunch was provided at the usual time, but I was in the second group, which started at 11am, so I didn't really want to stop an hour in to eat...

Mostly it went alright; I was pleased with how the lemon meringue pie came out, although I do wish I'd put more meringue on top... Last time we made them in class, the meringue expanded all over the place & it looked rather crazy, so I was more sparing with it this time round, & of course it didn't expand... =/

The muffins came out looking fine & dandy, & I was really pleased with my madeleines & the ginger/chocolate tartlets  =)

However, I *HATE* choux pastry!  I've made this recipe half a dozen times, & aside from a few timing issues, it had always come out nice.  It rose, coloured well, it was lovely.  Except on Thursday, when it point blank refused to rise... So I had nicely coloured, rather flat eclairs... Which was a shame, but once they'd been pumped full of creme patissiere & coated in chocolate ganache, they looked alright  =)

This was my display  =)  Looked alright in the end!

So that's all done with now, one less thing to stress about  =)

The week before the assessment, we looked at viennoiserie with Mickael Jahan.  Viennoiserie is the name for all lovely tasty laminated dough goods, like croissants, pain au chocolates, that sort of thing.

We made plenty of brioche too, so not a good week for those trying to watch their weight!

These were baguette viennoise!  A soft sweet brioche type bread, shaped like a baguette but scored a much greater number of times.

These were brioche with roasted hazelnuts in the dough, & a bundle of caramelised apples hidden in the centre!  So delicious!  =D

Oh, & these were amazing!  Little bits of orange brioche, deep fried & tossed in caster sugar  =D  Light, fluffy, so full of flavour, like little donuts of heaven!

And here's a selection of our laminated doughs  =) 

So it's been fairly full on, & it's all coming to an end rather rapidly.  We've only got one more week at School, then four weeks on our last placements, then back to School for the last two weeks, including our final bakery assessments!

This last week is a freestyle week, so I think I'm going to use it to practise recipes for the final assessment; perfect my brioche recipe & decide how I want to scale & shape it.  In the past I've scaled it at 80g & made it into buns, but I have to use a flour weight of 3kg for the final assessment, & the total dough weight I'd end up with would mean I have over 100 buns!!  Probably not the best plan for the assessment  =)

So that's that.  I should be able to blog more regularly from here on in; we've got one more essay to hand in at the end of the week, but that shouldn't take too long to get sorted  =)