Hello one & all!  Today was our first day back at School, & it was fairly relaxed, easing us back into the swing of things  =)

This week we'll be mostly making baguettes, so the first task today was to set down the levain's & poolish's ready to use tomorrow.  I mixed the poolish for the first recipe, & refreshed the rye levain ready for use in the week.  Both of which were quite messy jobs; poolish is a very wet mix, sort of a porridge-like consistency, & the rye is much the same! 

After that we made up some 'dead dough', a rather unappealing mix of flour, salt, bicarbonate of soda, water & oil, so we could practise scaling & shaping.

We each had a kilo of dough, to be scaled at 50g each.  We shaped each piece of dead dough into rounds, then half the batch into finger rolls; the rest into buns  =)

The finger rolls weren't too bad; a few good ones, others that need some more work!  (But it is the first day back, & we have had three weeks off, so I won't be too hard on myself!)

We then made finger rolls out of the bun's, simply rolling them up & out into a sausage shape.  Armed with a large collection of finger rolls, we were ready to tackle some plaiting!  First up was a simple single knot, which is actually quite tricky to get the hang of!

They weren't too bad really, the middle knot on the top row was probably the best!  The way we were shown to create the knot involved moulding it round the left thumb, but I must admit I found it easier to shape round my right thumb, even though I'm left handed!

We then moved onto plaiting!

The one on the right is a four strand plait, the others are three strand plaits.  I was quite pleased with how they came out; I enjoy plaiting bread (even if it is only dead dough) & I know we get to do more of that this term, so I'm quite looking forward to that  =)

The lovely plaits from another angle  =)

We then broke for lunch!  I do so love the lunches here; they're just amazing, & so very tasty.  Today was quiche day  =D  I was very good & just had one slice of lovely quiche, & lots of salad.  I'm going to try to make more of an effort to be restrained when it comes to lunch this term, particularly as we haven't gotten back into cycling to & from School yet.

After lunch we had one to one meetings with Wayne & Shelia, to discuss how our placements went & see if we had any ideas about where we want to go for the next lot.  I'm really not sure where I'd like to go next.  I think it would be great to go to a larger bakery & see how that works, & how it differs to a small bakery like the Shrewsbury Bakehouse... Whatever I decide, I need to do it quick; the next placements are only 8 weeks away!

I got the rest of my reports back from last term as well, & I'm pleasantly surprised & pleased with the results!  Turns out I can write reports, & they make sense!  Huzzah!  =D

Speaking of reports, I really should get back into it & see if I can't get ahead this time  =)  Plus, I've got a Zumba class to get to!