Today was the last day of baguette week, & it was just as full as yesterday!

First we mixed the dough for the overnight baguette.  We'd mixed the flour & water together yesterday, & allowed it to rest overnight.  It's the first time we'd used an overnight autolyse technique, so we were quite interested to see how it affected the finished baguette. 

The dough mixed in no time at all, so then it was onto the baguette with a rye levain & poolish, which took ages to mix!  We held back the levain until the rest of the dough was fully developed; we'd tried the same technique yesterday & found it mixed in quicker that way, but it still took an age.

Eventually, the dough was mixed & we moved onto the last batch, the multigrain campagne baguette, which didn't take too long to mix at all  =)

While we were waiting for the doughs to rise, we got back to the dead dough to practise our plaiting!  Wayne decided he wanted everyone to make 4 four-strand plaits, to see if we could get them to the same size & shape.

Now, I'm not one to brag, but Wayne did get the rest of the class to look at mine because he thought they were rather spiffing... I was quite pleased with them anyway  =D

Eventually the doughs were ready to divide & shape, & then it was onto baking!

We had ourselves quite an impressive array of breads again; the baguettes came out quite well, a really lovely colour to the crust & some great textures to the crumb  =D

Some of the dough was shaped into batards, just for a bit of variety  =)

Without a doubt the best flavour came from the multigrain campagne breads; a really lovely light crumb, wonderful crust & a great nutty flavour  =D

Sadly, today was not entirely a positive day...

My lovely new temperature probe vanished!  =(  We were using it to monitor the temperatures of the doughs as they mixed; one moment it was there, the next, vanished!  We searched high & low, but to no avail...

But, I did leave a note for the cleaners; perhaps they'll find it  =)

Tomorrow, I'll be back in the dairy!  Well, training room one, but we'll be making yogurt!  =D  I'm quite looking forward to it if I'm honest; I've never made yogurt, so it should be really interesting  =)

I'll let you know how it goes tomorrow!  Night all!

My word it's been a busy day today!  We had three batches of baguette dough to make, shape & bake, as well as setting down the pre-ferments for tomorrows bake, so it was all hands to the deck!

The first batch we made was the baguette dough using old dough (otherwise known as pate fermentee), then the baguette using a poolish, & finally the baguette using a wheat levain & poolish.

Once the doughs were made up & bulk fermenting, we had some free time, so out came the lovely 'dead dough', & it was back to practising our scaling, moulding, shaping & plaiting!

Think I've finally gotten the hang of the single knot; they came out much better today & I found it quite a lot easier to shape them, which was rather pleasing  =)

My plaiting wasn't too bad either.  I'd like some more practise (which I think we may get tomorrow!) & I'd also like to try plaits with more strands, see if I can get the hang of those too!  I have done an eight strand plaited loaf before, but it was quite a while ago & I've only done it once!

The baguettes made with old dough, & those made with a levain & poolish worked rather well; the dough proved nicely & they were quite nice to shape, if a little sticky.  I think my scoring has come on a lot; I found it easier to place the blade correctly, & while they weren't all perfect, they did look quite good  =)  Once they were all baked off, we had quite a fetching selection of bread!

The baguettes made with poolish however, were another story...

The dough was quite difficult to handle, very sticky, but we managed to get it divided & pre shaped all right.  When we came to final shape the dough, the pieces had gone very flat & limp almost; they had no strength left to them at all.  We got them all shaped & on a couche to prove a final time, but when we came to lay them out for baking, we had rather a surprise...

The dough was extremely extensible, ridiculously so, as you can see from the photo above!  It was stretchy enough to be used as a skipping rope!  It was hilarious!

We think this was because the poolish we set down yesterday was rather warm once it had been mixed; 32 degrees C!  Although the poolish was kept in the back room overnight, which is always nice & cool, it may not have cooled down quickly enough, meaning the yeast in the mix worked too quickly, exhausting itself before it was mixed into the main dough today... It was a bit disappointing, but we've all learnt a lesson from it & that's what counts really  =)

There was no way to rescue the dough & salvage any sort of baguette, but we baked it off anyway, for Jill to take home to feed to her pigs  =)

Once we had recovered from the skipping-rope-dough incident, we moved onto setting down the pre-ferments for tomorrow.  A rye levain & poolish for the first set of baguettes, then a seed soaker, poolish & levain for a multigrain campagne baguette  =)

Finally, we were done & it was time for a brisk walk home in the drizzle with Clare  =)

It feels really quite good to be back at School & baking again, I've missed it more than I realised! 

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!

Howdy folks! 

Hope you all had a great Christmas & a smashing New Year!

I've been a busy baking bee this last week or so, & it hasn't stopped yet!  As a poor student I was a little restricted money-wise, on what I could get people for Christmas gifts this year, so I decided foodie hampers were the way forward.

I'd already decided on making panettones, & had mentioned this to Wayne, our tutor at School, with the purpose of getting suggestions for alternatives to osmotolerent yeast, which is tricky to get hold of over here.  Luckily, Wayne was generous enough to let me have 6.3 grammes of the stuff, so my dilemma was solved!

And they did come up a treat =)  I was really quite pleased with them.

Along with the panettones, I decided on Yuletide Cookies!  They're made with mincemeat & some lovely spices, so they're really quite festive.  As nice as they looked on their own, I felt they needed a little decoration, so out came the icing sugar & edible glitter! =D

Next up; biscotti!  I'd never made biscotti before, but thought I'd give it a whirl, & actually, they're quite simple to make  =)

There they are, awaiting their second bake.  I made them with figs, almonds & cherries, so again they were quite festive.  I also made Florentines, but foolishly forgot to take a photo!  They went down a treat though, some with dark chocolate, some with white chocolate, all of them with cherries, almonds & pistachios =D

All packaged up in cellophane & tissue paper, they looked quite pretty =)  (But again, forgot to take a picture!)  I used brown luggage tags for the gift tags, with a gold snowflake stamp; just finishes the whole thing off nicely =)

After Christmas, there was still more baking to be done!  My grandparents were coming for dinner on the Sunday after Christmas, & my Dad was quite convinced I could replicate a cheesecake we'd had for dessert at Wagamama's the day before; a white chocolate & ginger cheesecake to be precise.

So I scoured the Internet to see if there was a recipe I could work from, & I found quite a few.  Turns out that particular dessert is remarkably popular, & there are more than a few people out there who've made their own versions, most of them fridge set cheesecakes.  The one we had at the restaurant was a baked cheesecake, & I must admit I prefer a baked cheesecake anyway.

I couldn't find a recipe for a white chocolate & ginger cheesecake I liked, but I did fine one for a white chocolate cheesecake, here.  I used ginger nut biscuits in the base instead of oatcakes, & threw 35g of finely chopped stem ginger into the filling mix instead.  I skipped the rhubarb compote & made up a ginger caramel sauce instead, from caster sugar, double cream, butter & some of the syrup from the stem ginger.

It came out a treat!

Even then I wasn't done!  We had some folks over for New Years Eve, & I wanted to make something sweet to nibble on.  So I thought I'd try my hand at macaroons!


I went for three different flavours; Pina Colada, Mojito & Cranberry Cooler, all non alcoholic of course =)  I'd wanted to make macaroons for a long while, but had always put it off as they're supposed to be quite tricky to make.  But actually, they weren't too bad, just quite time consuming really =)

I wasn't really sure about piping methods, so I tried a couple of techniques & they all came out quite nicely =D

From left to right, we have Mojito, Pina Colada, & Cranberry Cooler =)  I made quite a mountain of macaroons...

See? =D

They were mostly gone by this morning too, just a couple of each left over =)

So all in all it's been a busy last week for 2012; plenty of baking done & all of it fairly successful =)  I'll be back at School as of the7th January, so they'll be plenty more baking to be done, & I'm really quite looking forward to getting back to it  =)

So that's it, I've now finished my two week placement!

I had the best time, & I've learnt so much, I'm still trying to take it all in =) 

The last week ran to the same schedule as last week; lots of weighing out, mixing, scaling, shaping, scoring & baking!  We even experimented with some ciabattas & baguettes as well; it was nice to try my hand at baguettes again, & nice to know I can still remember how to shape them!  My baguette scoring could still do with some work, but it's getting better =)

The nights seemed to run more smoothly this week; Dom did a lot of the weighing out the day before, so we were able to get started on the mixing & baking earlier.  I went out on deliveries with Dom on Tuesday too.  It was nice to get out in the fresh air after a long night baking, & it was great to see some of the restaurants the Bakehouse supply =)

Dom commented that I'd improved over the two weeks, particularly in my shaping, which was lovely to hear.  I could certainly see the difference in my shaping of the dough, & by the end of the week my scoring had come on leaps & bounds as well.

I was totally in charge of the sourdough bakes Wednesday & Thursday night; everything from setting out the breads on the baking sheets, scoring the tops, loading the ovens, monitoring the bakes & then finally unloading the loaves.  By the end of the week, my Pain de Campagne's looked almost as good as Dom's, & he even remarked on how well the sourdoughs had come out =)

I found it easier this week to get into my crazy sleeping pattern, although I found I wasn't as tired as early as I was last week, which made getting enough sleep a little more tricky.  But I think I managed it well enough.  I've been just as achey, & got a couple more burns the first two nights, but they weren't as bad as my first burn!  My hands have been worse this week though; incredibly sore & dry, but tonnes of hand cream has helped enormously!

I've had the best time on placement, it's been such a great experience & I do feel like I've improved a lot.  It's been a great insight into how a bakery actually works, & how much work is involved in getting the breads out in time for the shop to open.

It hasn't put me off either!  I still love baking; there's no better feeling than seeing all the bread out on the racks, ready to be bought & devoured.  It makes all the hard work, the sleeplessness, the physical aches & pains totally worth it =D

Now I'm looking forward to nice break, with some festive baking thrown in of course, before heading back to School in January.

The posts will be fewer over until I get back to School, but I will let you know how the festive baking goes!  In the meantime, have a very Merry Christmas! =D

So I've now finished the first week of my placement, & what a week it's been!

Thursday & Friday followed much the same pattern as the previous two nights; mixing the sourdoughs, shaping the yeasted breads & baking off the sourdoughs from the night before, as well as baking off the pastries etc.  Saturday was another story...

There was no mixing to be done, so I foolishly assumed it would be an easier night; how wrong I was!

While we didn't need to do any mixing, there was a huge amount of bread to be baked, far more than the other nights I'd worked.  Dominic was away as well, so I was working with Sheila, who originally set up the bakery four years ago.  Sheila doesn't do much of the baking these days, but remains the director of the company.

So while I'd begun to feel like I'd gotten the hang of things working with Dom, it felt like it was my first night all over again working with Sheila, simply because they work in different ways.  It really is true that every baker has their own way of shaping the dough, so I was learning new techniques, which threw me off slightly...

I also felt the night didn't run quite as smoothly as it should have; we lost a couple of loaves which over-proved past the point of saving, which was a shame, & it was a much later finish than either of us expected.

But, we got there in the end, & even finished a last minute order for 50 mince pies in record time!  I also had the opportunity to serve in the shop, which was daunting, but fun =)  I think it might take me a little time to get to grips with the till, but all the customers were lovely, & as most are regulars, they were very forgiving of poor inexperienced me! 

I eventually finished about 12.30, so just a short 11 1/2 shift to end the week =)  It really has been amazing; lots of physically & mentally hard work, & I ache now, particularly in my hands & back, but it's been such a great experience.  To have the opportunity to work in an established bakery is fantastic; getting to handle large batches of dough, & being able to scale & shape the whole lot, rather than just a few pieces here & there has proved so useful.  I feel like I've learnt a lot so far, & I hope I'll learn still more next week.

It's the first time the School have sent the students off to placement just before Christmas; in previous years I think they've waited till the end of term two.  I hope it will prove to have been a good idea; I certainly think it has been =)

I've spent this weekend catching up on some much needed sleep, & generally taking it easy.  Tomorrow will see me trying to get back into my bakers sleeping pattern, but I don't think it'll be too hard; I'm still shattered now!

Well, it's Wednesday afternoon.  4.27pm to be exact.  In just 30 minutes, I'll be heading off to bed to catch a few hours kip, before I get up at 11.00pm, so I can get to Shrewsbury ready to start work at 1.30am.

That's right folks; its placement week!

I'm working my placement at the Shrewsbury Bakehouse; a great little bakery, just a short train ride from my house.  I've done two shifts so far, starting at 1.30am & finishing up around 10.30am.

So far the hardest part has been trying to adjust to a new sleeping pattern.  It's so odd going to bed when most people are just finishing work, & even odder getting up when folks are thinking about going to bed!  Thankfully, its dark by 4.30pm here, so it hasn't been too weird; I think it would have been harder trying to get to sleep in the daylight.

I've been working my shifts with Dominic, who now owns the Bakehouse & has for the last 12 months.  He's been great to work with; really helpful & willing to teach, which is what these two weeks are all about.  I know I'm only on day two, but already I can see the difference in my shaping & cutting.  It's not perfect, not yet, but it's getting there =)

In my first shift, I was helping to weigh out the ingredients for the sourdough breads, scaling & shaping the sourdoughs made the night before, scoring the breads before baking, setting out the breads on the shelves & taste testing the brownies, to make sure they were still lovely & chocolaty (they were!) =D

Last night, or this morning, however you look at it, I was in charge of weighing out all the ingredients, mixing the doughs, & setting out the first bake, including the scoring, loading & unloading of the oven!  My scoring wasn't perfect, but it wasn't awful either =)

I did make one mistake; weighing out 5kg of wholemeal flour rather than white flour, but it was 2.00am, so I think I can be forgiven! 

It's hard work, physically & mentally.  I ache today, not too badly, but enough to have made a long hot bath a necessity!  My feet ache, my arms & hands are sore, & it's been quite a struggle not to fall asleep on the train home, but I'm thoroughly enjoying my placement so far.

The last two days have flown by, & I'm sure the rest of the week will as well.  Hopefully I'll carry on improving & I'll get used to the hours, but for now, I'm going to make myself a lovely herbal tea, & think about heading off to bed =)

Night all!