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 =)