On day one we did a test with yeast. First bottle had basic ingredients of bread; flour, yeast, and water. Second bottle had yeast and flour. The third bottle had just water and yeast. All of the bottle was covered with balloon. This test was to see what happens if there is no salt in the bread. All of my class matte had to pick which one will rise fast. I picked the bottle with flour,yeast, and water. After few minutes later, bottle that contains water,yeast,flour,salt and water,flour,yeast's balloon blew up. The bottle with no salt nor flour did not even blow. This tells us that salt and flour are both needed in bread to rise. We also watched chef demoing for the next day. Base on the first day, I think this class will be fun and I will learn lot of hand work.
On day three, we made pretzel and bagel. My group was supposed to make only pretzel. However, we got through everything faster than other group, so we also made bagel. Pretzel was made with lean dough. The dough was cut and divided by the press machine by 80g and pre shaped. Bagel was divided into 120g. Rolled out to hand size. And rolled around hand. Because our group made our bagel early, we covered pan with pan liner and put them in the fridge.
On the day seven, our group made challah bread. We had hard time trying to roll the dough into strip. Two braid was divided and stretched to 28 inch. 6 braid is divided and stretched to 22 inch. I tried to do two braid first. It was my first time trying because I was not in the class when chef demoed in the class. It was not easy as it seemed. I had to re-do it 3 times. After 3 of two braid, I tried 6 braid. I didn't know the number pattern, so I struggled. My group member helped me what order I have to move. I think I should practice on the weekend.
on days 7 and five our group mixed Challah dough and twice it didn't turn out like it was supposed to. we were looking at the recipe and both times we realized that the water was wrong. we learned that we always need to use the recipes that we have made important notes on so we don't unnecessarily waste resources and time fixing something that could have been done right the first time
day six was for certain our most hectic day hands down. at first I thought our day would roll smoothly because we had all made a production schedule, but that went off track almost immediately and we were down to the wire until we were in the ovens, but part of the reason was that we didn't delegate tasks as well as we should have, but day seven went very smoothly and we worked well together as a team and we ended up right on track.
on day 6 my group and I made pita, when we scheduled out the times for resting shaping and so on, we figured that even though we had never shaped them before that it would not take too long. well, we learned that if we have never made a certain kind of dough that we need to budget out more time than we think we need and have a larger margin of error.
Day five was interesting for my group. Our main project on wednesday was foccia bread, and although foccia bread itself isn't too time consuming, the prep that goes into the toppings can be. Being a group of three makes it a little difficult to keep up to speed with all of the other groups and with one member having to cut and caramelize onions for foccia on wednesday, it made it a little more difficult. This gave me insight of what its like to run a bake shop when there are extra tasks to complete in a day and things are slightly hectic. We struggled a tad on day 5, but i think we did pretty well at keeping up to speed, the only thing we missed out on making was scones.
On day 6 I learned a lot about challah bread. Challah bread isn't too hard to work with, the dough is easily manipulated if mixed right and is pretty sturdy. I learned that braiding is the most difficult to do when forming challah. You don't want to pull on the challah dough when braiding because it will make your braids look uneven (skinnier in some places compared to others). I also learned that if you're not paying attention to the braids and the technique behind it, you WILL forget which braid you just moved, and if you continue on without realizing, you will end up with a split in the braid that you can pull apart to reveal a hole.
Day 6 was definitely one of the hardest days that my group and I had as a whole. We came into class with a plan, but no time that we planned had matched up with what had actually happened in class. Our timing for our pita bread and our baguettes overlapped and we ended up having to allow our pita to sit so that we could get our baguettes cut and into the oven. Our products turned out pretty well on day 6, but we learned that our timing needs to be a little more efficient and well planned out, especially in a kitchen where you're producing multiple products at the same time.
Day 3 was a tough day for my group. We mixed the poolish for our focaccia on Day 2, however, when we went to stretch and fold our dough, it was very wet. We realized their was a miscommunication between teammates. One teammate got water for the dough to put in with the poolish, but only made sure it was the correct temperature, they did not scale it. Another teammate put the water in the poolish thinking it was scaled, causing us to dispose of our dough and make pita instead.
Day 4 was a lot more easy going. Since it was a long weekend, we did not make poolish to make baguettes or focaccia. We also couldn't finish our pretzels or bagels because they were still frozen. It was nice to have a day with less production to regroup and relax before having to do so much production the rest of the week. We learned how to make Challah and Pain de Mie, which are two breads I have never heard of or had. I was very excited to see what they were and try them out. We also ran out of cranberries for scones and got to use chocolate, I've never had a chocolate scone. They came out great.
Day 5 was very hectic. Because we messed up our focaccia dough on day 3, we had to make focaccia and baguettes. We had to finish our bagels and practice braiding Challah, along with making Pain de Mie, and making poolish and biga for the next day's production. However, even with so many tasks, my team worked really well together and we ended up finishing everything we needed to
Day 5: Considering I missed day 4, today was a mess. This was probably one of the most overwhelming days yet. There was a lot of production today. I had watched the videos the night before, but seeing and doing were two different things. This was the first day that we had to shape Challah. Surprisingly enough, the braiding technique was easier to catch onto that I had previously thought. Braiding the Challah might be my favorite thing to do in class.
Day 7: Today we were down one teammate, so as you can expect things were a little hectic. We were assigned to make bagels, challah, ciabatta, and scones. I think the hardest product to make that day was the ciabatta, partially because we were confused on how to divide the dough and get it onto the sheeter. Personally, I think ciabatta is much easier to make than focaccia because of the technique and also because there are more things you have to be attentive to in focaccia.
Day 8: Today was the first day of the practical. We had to make bagels, baguettes, and I had to make biscuits. I thought the biscuits came out well as well as the baguettes. I actually enjoyed making everything today, because everything seemed easier with all of the experience I’ve acquired throughout the duration of the class.
Day 3 I missed day 2 so catching up was difficult. However I feel that I could catch up with the rest of my teammates. I learned how to make the baguette dough and how to shape scones. I am grateful that my teammates helped me figure out the formulas and baking and proofing times. Day 6: We were told to create a schedule of all the things we needed to do today. My team, team 4, was able to stay almost perfectly on task. We all had our doughs mixed right at the start of class and timed everything else around the resting and shooing times of those doughs.
Day 7: Six people didn't show up to class today. But our small group of students came together and finished every bit of production that needed to get done. We all managed to make baguettes, ciabatta, focaccia, and scones.
On day 5 for the baguettes when is time to cut the dough I was so afraid to cut t wrong,but chef helped me a lot by holding my hand and showed how the position to be to make cuts on the baguettes.
On day 6 for the Challah dough,it's confusing to braided into 2 and 6 braided.But chef gave us the braiding board to take home and practice the braiding. And finally I got it, it doesn't that confuse when you remember the pattern of the 6 braided.
On day 5,chef demon on how to dip the pretzel and bagel in the rye liquid, I learned how danger that liquid it's and when we working with the rye we need to use Goggles and 3 layers of gloves.The differences between a rye pretzel or bagel are very obvious.The one that dip with rye will have a darker in color.
on day 1 I was much expecting the environment of this lab to be similar to viennoiserie but was surprised by the change of pace
on day 6 i think my group had a really good day and we accomplished a lot with time left over, i still cannot get the cut of the baguette dough perfect but i do feel as if i have been making positive progress with it.
on day 7 some of our class was missing so it was definitely a huge change of pace and combining with another group of students doing two groups of work was a little challenging as far as time.
There is one thing that I learned right away when it comes to making bread. Always make sure to wet your hands or any other object before you touch a sticky dough. If the dough starts sticking to you, you will have to pull more and rip parts of your dough. This is not always good for the dough and its gluten development.
Day 5 of production, challah required to do a quick conversion of the yield. but while doing so there were miscommunication among our group that lead to a factor of water being left out. This lead my group to redo everything and making us fall behind schedule. I learned that day to make sure everyone have the same idea of what we are doing. It is a bigger group than the other classes so there is more chances of blunders.
When chef provides a demo for you, write down all the equipment that is used. And if he asks you to have something ready for the production, have it ready, don't make it half way through the process. Chef will call you out on it.
It's already day 4 of this bread lab and I cannot believe that time has gone by so fast. It still feels like I just started this class even though I am sure that I already know a lot more about breads than I did before I started. Aside from the fact that we learn a lot from our teacher, I believe that we learn even more from our mistakes. Today was definitely a learning experience. As we were making our dough for our pita bread we started noticing that the gluten was not developing as wells we hoped; so we called chef over for some advice. He came over and looked at the dough, felt it and then took a piece and tasted it. He looked at us and said one thing; There's no salt in this dough. Me and my other group members looked at each other and answered yes there is. Because we knew for a fact that one of us put salt in the dough. So chef walks over to the salt bin and tastes it. He looks at us again and says this is half sugar, half salt. So this is technically not our fault because we were not the ones to mix the salt and the sugar together but it did teach us a valuable lesson. Always taste everything you make. It could save you from a lot of troubles later on.
Day 5. This was a big learning experience for me. We were making focaccia. Focaccia takes very long to make, because it needs a long time and 4 stretch and folds to proof. After all than proofing you divide the dough into 3 sheet pans and press in down with piano fingers. The valuable lesson I learned was that you really want to be gentle with this dough when pressing it down. You don't want to stretch it or be too rough with it because that will affect the volume the dough will have once it's baked. It will be flatter which is not as good.
When shaping challah bread a good thing to keep in mind is that you have to work quickly. You do not want the dough to ferment more while rolling it out. You also want to make sure you roll it out correctly which means having it thinner on the sides and a little thicker in the middle like when making pretzels. You want your strings to be somewhat uniform in size and length so you can have a clean braid in the end. These are just some things to remember so you can have a beautiful challah braid in the end.
One big thing that I learned in this class is how important communication is and how much can be messed up if you lack in this subject. Communicating what needs to be done, when it needs to be done, how many times it has been done are all very important. My team struggled with this and that created a few hiccups in our process. Communication helps things get done faster and smoother.
Day 7 was yet another success in my book. My groups baguettes get better and better every time and with a little fine tuning we can do great on the practical. For some reason a few of our baguettes came out dull. That is usually caused by not steaming them in the oven but other baguettes in the same oven had a shiny crust. We will have to pay closer attention during the practical to assure all of the baguettes are cooked properly. I am actually very excited for practical. We also made pretzels and they were really nice. They are much easier to roll than any other dough I had worked with so far in this class. I look forward to making them on day 8 to see the final product
Doing the reading really helps with taking the quizzes. They might be a bit long but definitely worth it on the long run, they are just good. The project is not hard, but it is time consuming. Make sure that you take pictures everyday to insure you have them for the project, sharing them with each other also helps. My baguettes came out really weird, chef said it being the lack of steam but others in the same oven were fine. The only thing that was different was that I was the one who shaped and cut those baguettes. Pay attention to each other during production to see if everything is done correctly.
What a day it was! Day 8 was as hectic as can be. I did a lot of mise en place for the practical tomorrow. My group is doing ciabatta tomorrow which I am very excited about. During today's portion of the practical I had to make scones and that is something I struggle with. They came out okay. I think I need to make more layers by folding it a few more times in the future. We also made pretzels. They came out really nice and we even made some with cheese. We ran out of silpats so we had to use sprayed parchment which I would not recommend. It made the bottoms extremely greasy and unappealing to me personally.
Day 6 was a productive day for the most part. We mise en placed everything for our practical foccocia and we made bagels and scones. Our bagels were overdone and they were to brown on the outside.
On day 4 we made our we made foccocia and baguette poolish because our dough was ruined due to to much water in the mixture. It caused our dough to become very liquidy and soupy.
Day 3 was frustrating with my group. At first we had everything mised out and the beginning of the day was going smoothly. My partner and were working on the ciabatta bread while our two other group members working on the pretzels. My partner and I took turns folding and stretching the dough which was fine but, on the last fold is were we messed up. After the last fold you are supposed to let the dough sit for another 30 min then take it out and scale it. We did not do that and went straight in to scaling. After this mistake we had to leave the dough in the proof box longer. This is because we had to let the dough rest because we were agonizing the dough too much. The ciabatta ended up looking okay but, not like chefs so this was a lesson for my group to not repeat the same thing next time.
Day 6 went smoothly for my group. We got everything done around 4:00. Most of the things were mising but, we did finish our bagels and making scones. Our scones were okay but, we need larger butter strands to make the folds show in the scones (layers). My team was able to finish well because of good communication. We were able to divide and conquer and really push through. Later when we got everything done, chef called the class over and told us what to do for tomorrow since wednesday is our practical. It will be a long day since we have to double up on everything and were going to be out later than normal. I know my group can do it I just hope it doesn't get too stressful
Day 5 for my group felt like a second chance. Whatever we messed up on day 3 we were able to fix on day 5. You don't normally get that in lab. Sometimes the class is structured where you learn something new everyday and then your practical is something you did day 4. Today we were able do the ciabatta bread again which I was grateful for. I felt this way because me and another team member messed it up before and we were able to be prove to ourselves that we can do this. Today was also the day I got to make biscuits. I didn't really know how to do it and got a little frustrated with my group. This is because they told me last minute I had to make the biscuits. If they told me towards the beginning of class and not towards the end when were done with everything I feel like we wouldn't be in such a rush. Anyway we got it done around 5:00 and helped with clean up. We were able to get the biscuits out by 7:15 I think.
Today’s a was day 7 and it was a little nerveracking. My group started the day it with a messed up challah dough so we were only able to practice making the braiding part of the dough. I’ve gotten the hang of the braiding and remembering how to do both the 6 and 2 strand braids. We also did baguettes again today. I’m still struggling on my shaping but my sizing is becoming more even. I also struggle doing the scoring because I dont go deep or long enough. Overrall baguettes aren’t my strong suit. For today we also make whole wheat bread with seeds and the process went pretty well because it was similar to making hte multigrain bread which we did before. In the last hour of class, my group made scones too but when I was doing the rubbing method, I kept the butter at chunks instead of flat shards so it affected the layers after bake.
Day 2: Day 2 of the lab was the most nerve racking because it was the first day of production. A learning experience that came from this day happened to be about making scones. My group and I decided to mix our scones while waiting for our baguettes to rest. after adding the liquid to the mixture our baguettes were ready to shape meaning wed have to stop working on scones. Since we added the liquid and couldn't finish them our final product of scones could be affected due to the chemical leavener being activated. From this we learned that you shouldn't mix something together unless you know you have enough time to finish the product.
Day 4: Day 4 was a learning experience with shaping baguettes. My troubles began with not having a consistent length throughout my baguettes. I feel confident in my pre shaping and the bringing of my shaping but when it comes to the length of the baguette I miss the mark. Another thing that was a learning experience was the scoring of the baguettes. The scores should be deep enough to provide the ear when baking but mine weren't deep enough.
Day 7: On day 7 my group couldn't make our challah bread because our dough had not risen at all. When making challah bread you have to use osmotolerant Yeast because the amount of sugar that is in the bread. This is most likely the reason our dough didn't rise because we used the wrong yeast. This worried me because I wasn't very confident with my Challah braiding yet and this was a chance to make myself more confident. Overall the learning experience from day 7 is to carefully read the recipe and its ingredients to make sure you're doing everything correctly.
For the first day of the practical, my group had to do our challah, baguettes and scones. This was probably the smoothest day for us because we managed to stayed on top of everything and get used to the flow of things. We managed to be the first ones done with our baguettes and challah. Unfortunately my challah was a bit over baked and I still couldn’t do my scoring on the baguettes properly. Fortunately we managed to complete day 8 early and make our quick bread and scale for Monday’s class.
Here we are on day three and my group and I have forgotten one crucial thing...salt! When pre-scaling the night before we must have forgotten salt for our dry ingredients for our baguette dough and it was not pretty. When looking back at the day's production I can of course now recall that the dough looked more deflated than usual but as a new bread baker I didn't think of anything of it, which I now know is a huge mistake. While working with our dough something seemed off when fermenting the dough being looser with little strength and structure. After baking Chef Hitz, who already knew what went wrong asked us to taste the baguette and the taste was like paper and the shape wonky. We lost our preferment and wasted time for a final product that went to the food waste bucket, but we learned always make sure all the ingredients are right and always ask questions!
Day 7 didn't turn out as we had planned. Our Challah mix from the day before was off either from not using osmotolerant yeast which is necessary due to the amount of sugar used in this dough or not allowing it to preferment for the full two hours before going into the fridge. These mistakes cost us our production, but we had the opportunity to practice shaping the dough just not baking and having a final product. I now have a better understanding of the two and the six strands and how to braid I just need to work on the finishing end appearance and making sure the pieces are all tapered at the same length. Also the bagels mixed this day were 800 grams over in flour which resulted in denser, larger bagels that were tough but looked okay. Another day of learning for my group but we pushed through!
The first day of the practical with jam packed with production o accomplish. My team had to make ciabatta, help Chef Hitz finish the pretzels for the Christmas bread tree, and make whole wheat rolls. Starting off with our Ciabatta I new something wasn't right when I pulled the dough off the mixer due to already being able to do a stretch and fold which the dough is usually too wet to do at first. Due to being too high in hydration the dough took longer to proof in the proof box but we were able to make a good final product. We finished the pretzels, and I was able to make my scones for the practical which turned out really good. I'm looking forward to day 9 and making pizza!
Day 7 was probably the best class for me and my group the day before was a mess. My group and I were getting very angry and frustrated at each other. But before are day 7 class started, we all got together before class and talked everything out. we all walked into class and left the attitude outside of the door and all the frustration. We all went about are day and finished are baguettes are scones and are challah bread and we finished the day off strong working as as team to get the kitchen nice and clean for the next day
Day 6 this day was probably the worst day for me and my partners the reason is because me and my partners were very mad and frustrated with each other. This was only because one of my partners thought that my whole group kept trying to rely on her and because we kept asking her questions about what we were doing so she then snapped at all of us. My and I partner just let it go and continued with are work and making are biscuits. I had a really fun time with my group over all I especially enjoyed teaching are new partner everything their is to know about baking and what to do so that he could become a better student overall and a better baker. My and I group didn't have the best day but we finished are baguettes and are scones. We also made some pretzels which iv never made before which was really cool. First we made the dough and then we shaped it and froze it and then we dipped it into something called lye. After we dipped it we put salt, seeds and cheese on top of some of them and baked them. We also made this bread called challah and I had a lot of trouble making this bread just because it had to be braided a certain way and I was really struggling with the three braid.
Day 8 was the first day of are particle and it was a pretty easy day for me. I made my challah, scones and I think that was it. First we made are dough for the challah and then let it sit and folded it when needed and then when we finished that the dough was ready to divide, we divided it and rolled it and let it sit again. Once the dough was ready to work with I made a three braid and I was really struggling this time and I just couldn't figure out how to do it but then I looked at the video that I took of chef hitzs doing it and I finally got it. I think I did make some mistakes but it was good enough for me. Once the three stand was done I made my two stand which was pretty easy for me, once all my breads were done I topped them off with some sugar and some sesame seeds and put them in the proof box. When they were done in the proof box I put them into the oven and they looked really good I was proud of my self and just really happy it was done and over with. As for my scones my final product didn't come out so well as I wanted it to just because I wish that they had more layers and that it rose more but they still looked very good and hope fully tasted good.
The third day of labs, I had a "once in a lifetime experience’’ as Chef Hitz would call it. He showed us the steps of dividing our pain de mie and I did some my group of three other people. We marked the mass of dough into five pieces then I cut dough in order to begin the final shaping. After dividing the dough, I ended up with five long rectangles, which I then proceeded to put into the pans for proofing. If you fold the dough to much it will get tougher. Once the dough gets tough, it makes it more difficult to roll out into the desired shapes for the pullman pans. Also, the side that was folded be will be a lot harder to roll out than the side that was not, making it almost impossible to roll out a piece of dough. In addition to never folding pain de mie dough, I also learned that you should try to divide dough into as close to a square shape. Since we cut the dough width-wise. You should always roll the dough back and forth so it will have toughness all around the way. I did good with my group with our first time together making pain de mie. Chef hitz taught us that every time we divide the dough try to divide it into squares also handle the dough less, avoiding making unnecessary folds to avoid making mistakes.
On the first day of lab I saw some familiar faces and a lot of new ones. we started by meeting chef Hitz and getting to know the people at the table I was sitting at. Chef Hitz things off with a part of the lecture and after about an hour or so we broke off into groups and interviewed each other. After that we sat back down and continues to talk and have the lecture until the end of the day.
on day 7 my group members and I began to mise en placed most of the ingredients we needed for the practical on day 8 and also made baguettes. at the end of the day we cleaned up lab fairly fast and talked about the practical the we where going to have on day 8 and day 9.
on day 8 we had our practical. we made ciabatta, baguettes, challah and I made biscuits. they didn't turn out the way I wanted them to but I think I did good on them.
On day 3, I walked into the class and saw Chef Hitz’s sourdough that he had baked, sitting in a basket. My first thought was “There is no way that’s bread!” It was so beautiful! It got me thinking. I remembered looking up at the ceiling of the restaurant in which I work, beautifully and intricately carved. It had all been done by hand. This bread was no different. They were both done with such care and specificity. It struck me how much of a lost art it is to put so much effort into one single thing at a time. To care so much and use the best ingredients, to cut at just the right depth, in just the right place. To bake it to just the right color. No one does this anymore. We are so caught up in being as efficient as possible. Making as much as we can, as fast as we can. That sourdough was one of the most beautiful things I had seen in a long time, and it reminded me of why I’m here, at this school, at 29 years old. I want to slow down and pay attention. To be just one more person that keeps the art of beautiful and difficult things alive.
Coming into this school in the winter trimester, everyone else in the class was clearly more comfortable and more acquainted with all of the rules and where everything was and so on. Days one through three were a bit daunting in a way. I did not feel at all like I knew what I was doing. And there was so much information. I was already 1/3 of the way through the merely nine day long course and I wondered how in the world I was going to get it together in time. But! On day four, I walked in and sort of knew what was going on. I realized I was already getting more acquainted with where things were, with how my team was going to work together. It was the first day where I actually felt like I was starting to be a valuable contribution to production. I was also starting to be able to separate my strengths from my weaknesses, rather than just constantly trying to figure out what was going on and what I was supposed to be doing. I realized that my mise en place technique needed work. But also that I wasn’t afraid to dive into something new. I needed to find a good balance between those two things. I needed to allow myself to be excited about starting a new project, but that I needed to take a step back and think about the whole process before I got going. I needed to get everything together, make sure a mixer was going to be available at the right time, think about when the ovens would be available later based off of proofing and resting times for everyone in the class. This is something that is slightly frustrating to me because I like to be in constant action; I don’t really like to slow down once I get going. So it will take me some practice. But I know that once it becomes second nature, I’ll likely see it as just another fun part of the process of making something I’m proud of.
On day 5, Chef Hitz asked my group to do an extra project. We were to mix Pain de Mie: 7 pans at 100g per inch. This meant we needed to measure the length of each pan and multiply the inches by 100g. After that, we needed to multiply that amount by 7 pans. This gave us our total expected yield of 9450g. (This was my first time using the conversion factor in an actual recipe, so I was slightly nervous about messing it up, and therefor extra careful.) I did the math and found that the expected yield when taking into account the conversion factor was going to be 9479g. We got to work gathering our ingredients, including a very large bowl and over 5000g of flour. In the middle of measuring the flour, the scale gave us an error message. We panicked slightly, but got another bowl, used our memory of the last number read on the scale, and continued to weigh out the rest of the ingredients. Fast forward to the mixing process and the dough just wasn’t coming together. It was taking far too long to get to the desired gluten development, so we called over Chef Hitz. He took out the dough and weighed it…it was 1000g short! I redid the math to see if maybe that’s where the mistake was, but everything was correct. Everyone in our group was certain we had included all ingredients. Then it hit us…that scale error. What if we hadn’t zeroed the scale before adding the flour? We added the remaining weight needed in only flour, started mixing, and waited to see what would happen. It turned out we were correct in the end and everything worked out. But it was an excellent lesson in paying attention to details from the beginning. It made us pay more attention from then on to how we scaled and separated things. None of us will make that same mistake again.
Yesterday after mixing, shaping and baking our challah dough we tasted it at the end and realized there was no salt in our dough. I learned that Challah without salt is very very sweet. Even though we messed up the product I was actually okay with it because we always get told what salt does to a dough and the importance of it but to see it at first hand was a great learning experience. The color of our dough was a bit off and just how the dough proofed and baked was different. The dough itself didn't taste bad just not correct and too sweet. Ill forever be more careful to add salt.
On day 3 of labs this breads class was different than I expected. It is more difficult than I thought it was going to be. But this is also the first day there was a major mistake with one of the items my group had to produce. my group was making scones and we ended up mixing the batter too much and that causes the layers in a scone to be destroyed. it was a little upsetting because scones, to me, are a easy product compared to the other products we will have to make in this class. Other than that baguettes were more difficult than I had expected. it was really hard just trying to do the pre shaping of the dough, I just couldn't get it. and then when I had to score the dough, that was a nightmare. it was all wrong, but I know that I will just have to keep working hard and as questions when I need too.
On day 5 it was not a good day at all. Everything that could have gone wrong went wrong. First off my group did an extra 45 min proof on our baguettes. that really set everything off because we were the group that had to wait 30 min after another group so we threw off the entire schedule for the ovens. Then I missed braided my challah, I don't even know how because I thought I did everything right with it but it did not look right. And then we used the wrong recipe for the biscuits, even though they turned out pretty good, they were not the right recipe. Then we had these other two doughs, the whole wheat and the multi grain. They looked very similar and my group had a hard time telling the difference and we kept confusing one another. It was just not a good day because my whole group screwed up the timers so we didn't know when things needed to stop proofing or how long we had on certain products. Today was just not our day and I know that we need to work even harder and to stay more organized that we did today. Today was like a giant wake up call and it is true that some days are not your days.
On day 6 it was a better day. I can now visibly see my groups production improving. In the beginning of this class, our products were mediocre but now our braids are really good. And we didn't mess up the biscuits and the scones again. We also learned lots of different ways into making certain products from our Sub Chef. It was a good day and our products reflected well. Even though our ciabatta was a little rough looking we tried a different thing that everyone else. I now know that I'm not suppose to use a whole lot of flour like I originally did and I need to make sure to cut the pieces more evenly.
On day 1 I had sort of an idea of what this course will be about. Since we had viennoiserie first, there was already a few things that I knew. It was a good first day of breads and it was very informational as well. Our chef had a few experiments and explain the whole class in general.
On day 3 of bread. I was actually surprised of the amount of time it takes just to make a bread. Making baguettes, stretching and fold , then pre shaping , and making cuts. It was a lot. I was all over the place and couldn't focus on what I needed to do. Our group also made sconce and it didn't came out so well due to the fact the we over mixed it. when it baked , there wasn't any layers but it was okay becuase it was a mistake and we can improve on it
On day 6 , our production was very good. When making the scones , the layers were much better . Our braids for our challah improved a lot becuase on our first one, We didn't know what to do and they didn't came out so well. we were able to finish quite early and I felt happy about that. One small thing the we did to early was adding the cheese to the focaccia. Nothing major. Overall our group did well and got everything that we needed to do .
On day 5, there was a large amount of production. i did not realize how much time and proofing it takes just to make bread. the amount of stretch and folds, rolling, shaping and scoring just takes more time and precision than i ever imagined before i started working with breads so much. practicing doing baguettes every other day has been good practice, still need alot of work at it but it is getting better.
Day 6, was one of the days that everything that could go wrong went wrong. it was a very busy and crazy day for me and my teammates. it was just a very heavy production day and we were not good at keeping track of times for proofing and baking, which caused a set back for the whole team. but it was a good learning lesson for me on how high pressure it could get in a bread lab and how important it is to be on top of the time managment.
Day 8, today was one of the easiest days of prodcution but i think its also that me and my teammates are getting the hang of the movement of mixing, production, proofing and baking and we are getting more efficent in the whole process. unfortunately were starting to get better at this when the class is about to end.but have loved every seconf of this learning experience
On day 2, it was very overwhelming because i had no clue as to what we were doing, but production was good. I made baguettes for the first time and they came out... okay. Definitely need to work on the shaping and cuts, but overall I was proud of myself. Couldn't wait to see what else this class had in store.
On day 6, we talking about practical production, which is going to be quiet the load for my group, since we are making baguettes and focaccia on the same day. I think we can do it though. We also made baguettes again. The cuts were better, but the shaping got worse. We won't talk about that though. We also made challah dough and are shaping it for the first time tomorrow. Looking forward to that.
On day 7, we shaped the challah dough! We did the six braid and a two braid. My group practiced the two braid last week on the pretzels, so we got a little more practice in than others. Overall, they came out pretty good. Not too terrible to the point where they were unrecognizable, but pretty swell if i do say so my self. Super proud of my group's challah, but we're aiming to do better for the practical tomorrow.
On Day 2 of this lab, I learned the wrong way to make a biscuit. The problem began during the mixing process. The biscuit dough was over mixed and then over-folded on the bench. This led to a biscuit that was very tough to cut. I also twisted the biscuit cutter when cutting the biscuits from the dough. This is not a good thing to do because it makes the sides of the biscuits less open.
On Day 4 of this lab, I learned how crucial every lab day is. Day 3 of lab was cancelled due to a snowstorm, so Day 4 turned into a combination of Day 3 and Day 4 which was very stressful for all involved. I had no idea what was going on half of the time and felt like I was running behind the entire class. I never skip days of lab, and this experience maintained my motivation to never miss a day of lab.
On Day 7 of this lab, I learned how to braid Challah dough with the help of Chef. The way that I remember how to braid the six braid loaf is by memorizing the number sequence. To braid the two braid, I developed a system to ensure my hands are always holding the correct strands. My system starts with making a cross with the two dough strands. Then, I keep my left hand in the top left corner of the cross and my right hand in the bottom right corner of the cross so that I don’t get confused.
Loosing a day of labs due to a snow day really seemed to throw us off a little bit. Since day 2 was supposed to be our first day of production, we lost quite a bit. However, I think in the end we pulled through fairly well. We were still able to make all the products we needed for our finals successfully.However it is still unfortunate we lost a day of practice, as practice makes perfect
Day 7 was quite a busy day for everybody. We needed to make whole wheat bread with seeds, pain de mie, focaccia, and baguettes, and my group partners needed to make scones and biscuits as they hadn't been able to make both previously. The day felt stressful, and there was definitely some weight on my shoulders in regards to being able to get everything done in a timely manner.Our focaccia turned out good, as well as our whole wheat bread and pain de mie. Baguettes seemed to be where I struggle the most. The calculations I did were a little off, so my group ended up with one baguette quite a bit shorter than the other. I also had, and still have, a bit of trouble with shaping. While my shaping could definitely be improved, and I definitely need more practice, my baguettes for my practical still came out decent and I was happy with them.
Day 3 and 4 we did baguettes, biscuits, and scones, switching who did biscuits, scones, or helper each day. Making biscuits didn't seem too intimidating to me as I had made them quite a few times in the past. While they came out mostly good, I did have an issue with a few going sideways. I discovered this was due to how I rolled them, that being too much in one direction and not enough in the other. One of my pans of scones came out good, however the other pan one was still a bit under-cooked. So from now on I need to watch how much I'm rolling my dough in one direction, and make sure I keep an eye on when my scones should be coming out, especially if one pan needs more time than another
On day 3 when my group and I were making poolish to make baguettes on day 4 we mixed the flour water and yeast directly in the plastic container. Which was not ideal for getting everything incorporated because of the sharp corners of the bin. When we opened up the poolish on day 4 I learned how obviously important it is to mix it in a bowl before transferring it to the plastic container because the poolish didn't increase in volume at all. After observing it and seeing pockets of yeast we came to the conclusion that we got bad results due to the fact that the poolish wasn't well incorporated. Because of this mishap we had to adjust the amount of yeast in the actual dough and adjust the proofing times. I learned that when there are so many different steps to a product it's important to get each one right because when you mess something up it affects the rest of the process.
On day 4 when my group and I were baking our baguettes the steam setting on the oven wasn't set up. Which prior to this lab I didn't know there were even ovens that existed that gave you the ability to control the steam on it. But, after seeing the baguettes when they came out of the oven they were dull and almost ashy looking. We realized these results were due to the lack of steam in the oven. It was interesting to me that something I didn't even know was a part of baking bread could visually effect the final product so drastically.
On multiple days my group and I were diving and pre-shaping our baguettes and we had forgot to set the tables up like Chef Hitz suggested. The way we had out tables set up just made things harder for ourselves. After Chef Hitz made an example of us on what not to do, everyday after that we had remembered to set up the tables as Chef Hitz suggested, which made our lives a lot easier. The way Chef Hitz suggested to set up the tables made it so that everything flows in one direction making everything move smoothly, while we had the tables set up so that we were working in more of circle.
On day 8 when we had our baguette practical, Chef Hitz got us together and talked about how we would be putting our baguettes in the oven so that they would all go in, in a timely manor. I made a mistake and put my baguettes in before another person in my group had their baguettes ready. I went over to Chef to ask him to make sure the oven was set up properly and he quickly told me that I should have waited to put my baguettes in the oven till another person in my group was ready, because now no one else could put their baguettes in the oven. In other words, don't be like me and always make sure that if someone else needs to put their baguettes in the oven that their ready before you put yours in.
On day 6 or 7 my group and I mixed our baguettes and the dough was roughly at 77-78 degrees F and we thought it would be best to leave in the proof box. When it came time to final shape our baguettes Chef Hitz brought to our attention that we probably should not have left them the dough in the proof box for the full hour and a half. He said our dough seemed very gassy and that the dough had probably over fermented. The over fermentation made it harder for us to final shape our dough because of all the gas bubbles in it.
On day one we did a test with yeast. First bottle had basic ingredients of bread; flour, yeast, and water. Second bottle had yeast and flour. The third bottle had just water and yeast. All of the bottle was covered with balloon. This test was to see what happens if there is no salt in the bread.a few minutes later, bottle that contains water,yeast,flour,salt and water,flour,yeast's balloon blew up. The bottle with no salt or flour did not even inflate. This tells us that salt and flour are both needed in bread to rise.
On thursday, we made baguettes again and I really think I've got the scoring down, because they had really nice ears. I think the only thing I need to work on is shaping.
After I made biscuits on day 2 using the rolling pin rubbing method I made the scones on day 4 using hand rubbing method. When the scones came out of the oven the edges had some pockets where the layers split open too much. After they were critiqued I found out that this happened because there were pieces of butter that were too big. So the next time I made scones the used the rolling pin rubbing method and they turned out much better.
On day one we did a test with yeast. First bottle had basic ingredients of bread; flour, yeast, and water. Second bottle had yeast and flour. The third bottle had just water and yeast. All of the bottle was covered with balloon. This test was to see what happens if there is no salt in the bread. All of my class matte had to pick which one will rise fast. I picked the bottle with flour,yeast, and water. After few minutes later, bottle that contains water,yeast,flour,salt and water,flour,yeast's balloon blew up. The bottle with no salt nor flour did not even blow. This tells us that salt and flour are both needed in bread to rise. We also watched chef demoing for the next day. Base on the first day, I think this class will be fun and I will learn lot of hand work.
ReplyDeleteOn day three, we made pretzel and bagel. My group was supposed to make only pretzel. However, we got through everything faster than other group, so we also made bagel. Pretzel was made with lean dough. The dough was cut and divided by the press machine by 80g and pre shaped. Bagel was divided into 120g. Rolled out to hand size. And rolled around hand. Because our group made our bagel early, we covered pan with pan liner and put them in the fridge.
ReplyDeleteOn the day seven, our group made challah bread. We had hard time trying to roll the dough into strip. Two braid was divided and stretched to 28 inch. 6 braid is divided and stretched to 22 inch. I tried to do two braid first. It was my first time trying because I was not in the class when chef demoed in the class. It was not easy as it seemed. I had to re-do it 3 times. After 3 of two braid, I tried 6 braid. I didn't know the number pattern, so I struggled. My group member helped me what order I have to move. I think I should practice on the weekend.
ReplyDeleteon days 7 and five our group mixed Challah dough and twice it didn't turn out like it was supposed to. we were looking at the recipe and both times we realized that the water was wrong. we learned that we always need to use the recipes that we have made important notes on so we don't unnecessarily waste resources and time fixing something that could have been done right the first time
ReplyDeleteday six was for certain our most hectic day hands down. at first I thought our day would roll smoothly because we had all made a production schedule, but that went off track almost immediately and we were down to the wire until we were in the ovens, but part of the reason was that we didn't delegate tasks as well as we should have, but day seven went very smoothly and we worked well together as a team and we ended up right on track.
ReplyDeleteon day 6 my group and I made pita, when we scheduled out the times for resting shaping and so on, we figured that even though we had never shaped them before that it would not take too long. well, we learned that if we have never made a certain kind of dough that we need to budget out more time than we think we need and have a larger margin of error.
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ReplyDeleteDay five was interesting for my group. Our main project on wednesday was foccia bread, and although foccia bread itself isn't too time consuming, the prep that goes into the toppings can be. Being a group of three makes it a little difficult to keep up to speed with all of the other groups and with one member having to cut and caramelize onions for foccia on wednesday, it made it a little more difficult. This gave me insight of what its like to run a bake shop when there are extra tasks to complete in a day and things are slightly hectic. We struggled a tad on day 5, but i think we did pretty well at keeping up to speed, the only thing we missed out on making was scones.
ReplyDeleteOn day 6 I learned a lot about challah bread. Challah bread isn't too hard to work with, the dough is easily manipulated if mixed right and is pretty sturdy. I learned that braiding is the most difficult to do when forming challah. You don't want to pull on the challah dough when braiding because it will make your braids look uneven (skinnier in some places compared to others). I also learned that if you're not paying attention to the braids and the technique behind it, you WILL forget which braid you just moved, and if you continue on without realizing, you will end up with a split in the braid that you can pull apart to reveal a hole.
ReplyDeleteDay 6 was definitely one of the hardest days that my group and I had as a whole. We came into class with a plan, but no time that we planned had matched up with what had actually happened in class. Our timing for our pita bread and our baguettes overlapped and we ended up having to allow our pita to sit so that we could get our baguettes cut and into the oven. Our products turned out pretty well on day 6, but we learned that our timing needs to be a little more efficient and well planned out, especially in a kitchen where you're producing multiple products at the same time.
ReplyDeleteDay 3 was a tough day for my group. We mixed the poolish for our focaccia on Day 2, however, when we went to stretch and fold our dough, it was very wet. We realized their was a miscommunication between teammates. One teammate got water for the dough to put in with the poolish, but only made sure it was the correct temperature, they did not scale it. Another teammate put the water in the poolish thinking it was scaled, causing us to dispose of our dough and make pita instead.
ReplyDeleteDay 4 was a lot more easy going. Since it was a long weekend, we did not make poolish to make baguettes or focaccia. We also couldn't finish our pretzels or bagels because they were still frozen. It was nice to have a day with less production to regroup and relax before having to do so much production the rest of the week. We learned how to make Challah and Pain de Mie, which are two breads I have never heard of or had. I was very excited to see what they were and try them out. We also ran out of cranberries for scones and got to use chocolate, I've never had a chocolate scone. They came out great.
Day 5 was very hectic. Because we messed up our focaccia dough on day 3, we had to make focaccia and baguettes. We had to finish our bagels and practice braiding Challah, along with making Pain de Mie, and making poolish and biga for the next day's production. However, even with so many tasks, my team worked really well together and we ended up finishing everything we needed to
ReplyDeleteDay 5: Considering I missed day 4, today was a mess. This was probably one of the most overwhelming days yet. There was a lot of production today. I had watched the videos the night before, but seeing and doing were two different things. This was the first day that we had to shape Challah. Surprisingly enough, the braiding technique was easier to catch onto that I had previously thought. Braiding the Challah might be my favorite thing to do in class.
Day 7: Today we were down one teammate, so as you can expect things were a little hectic. We were assigned to make bagels, challah, ciabatta, and scones. I think the hardest product to make that day was the ciabatta, partially because we were confused on how to divide the dough and get it onto the sheeter. Personally, I think ciabatta is much easier to make than focaccia because of the technique and also because there are more things you have to be attentive to in focaccia.
Day 8: Today was the first day of the practical. We had to make bagels, baguettes, and I had to make biscuits. I thought the biscuits came out well as well as the baguettes. I actually enjoyed making everything today, because everything seemed easier with all of the experience I’ve acquired throughout the duration of the class.
Day 3 I missed day 2 so catching up was difficult. However I feel that I could catch up with the rest of my teammates. I learned how to make the baguette dough and how to shape scones. I am grateful that my teammates helped me figure out the formulas and baking and proofing times.
ReplyDeleteDay 6: We were told to create a schedule of all the things we needed to do today. My team, team 4, was able to stay almost perfectly on task. We all had our doughs mixed right at the start of class and timed everything else around the resting and shooing times of those doughs.
Day 7: Six people didn't show up to class today. But our small group of students came together and finished every bit of production that needed to get done. We all managed to make baguettes, ciabatta, focaccia, and scones.
On day 5 for the baguettes when is time to cut the dough I was so afraid to cut t wrong,but chef helped me a lot by holding my hand and showed how the position to be to make cuts on the baguettes.
ReplyDeleteOn day 6 for the Challah dough,it's confusing to braided into 2 and 6 braided.But chef gave us the braiding board to take home and practice the braiding. And finally I got it, it doesn't that confuse when you remember the pattern of the 6 braided.
On day 5,chef demon on how to dip the pretzel and bagel in the rye liquid, I learned how danger that liquid it's and when we working with the rye we need to use Goggles and 3 layers of gloves.The differences between a rye pretzel or bagel are very obvious.The one that dip with rye will have a darker in color.
on day 1 I was much expecting the environment of this lab to be similar to viennoiserie but was surprised by the change of pace
ReplyDeleteon day 6 i think my group had a really good day and we accomplished a lot with time left over, i still cannot get the cut of the baguette dough perfect but i do feel as if i have been making positive progress with it.
on day 7 some of our class was missing so it was definitely a huge change of pace and combining with another group of students doing two groups of work was a little challenging as far as time.
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ReplyDeleteThere is one thing that I learned right away when it comes to making bread. Always make sure to wet your hands or any other object before you touch a sticky dough. If the dough starts sticking to you, you will have to pull more and rip parts of your dough. This is not always good for the dough and its gluten development.
ReplyDeleteDay 5 of production, challah required to do a quick conversion of the yield. but while doing so there were miscommunication among our group that lead to a factor of water being left out. This lead my group to redo everything and making us fall behind schedule. I learned that day to make sure everyone have the same idea of what we are doing. It is a bigger group than the other classes so there is more chances of blunders.
ReplyDeleteWhen chef provides a demo for you, write down all the equipment that is used. And if he asks you to have something ready for the production, have it ready, don't make it half way through the process. Chef will call you out on it.
ReplyDeleteIt's already day 4 of this bread lab and I cannot believe that time has gone by so fast. It still feels like I just started this class even though I am sure that I already know a lot more about breads than I did before I started. Aside from the fact that we learn a lot from our teacher, I believe that we learn even more from our mistakes. Today was definitely a learning experience. As we were making our dough for our pita bread we started noticing that the gluten was not developing as wells we hoped; so we called chef over for some advice. He came over and looked at the dough, felt it and then took a piece and tasted it. He looked at us and said one thing; There's no salt in this dough. Me and my other group members looked at each other and answered yes there is. Because we knew for a fact that one of us put salt in the dough. So chef walks over to the salt bin and tastes it. He looks at us again and says this is half sugar, half salt. So this is technically not our fault because we were not the ones to mix the salt and the sugar together but it did teach us a valuable lesson. Always taste everything you make. It could save you from a lot of troubles later on.
ReplyDeleteDay 5. This was a big learning experience for me. We were making focaccia. Focaccia takes very long to make, because it needs a long time and 4 stretch and folds to proof. After all than proofing you divide the dough into 3 sheet pans and press in down with piano fingers. The valuable lesson I learned was that you really want to be gentle with this dough when pressing it down. You don't want to stretch it or be too rough with it because that will affect the volume the dough will have once it's baked. It will be flatter which is not as good.
ReplyDeleteWhen shaping challah bread a good thing to keep in mind is that you have to work quickly. You do not want the dough to ferment more while rolling it out. You also want to make sure you roll it out correctly which means having it thinner on the sides and a little thicker in the middle like when making pretzels. You want your strings to be somewhat uniform in size and length so you can have a clean braid in the end. These are just some things to remember so you can have a beautiful challah braid in the end.
ReplyDeleteOne big thing that I learned in this class is how important communication is and how much can be messed up if you lack in this subject. Communicating what needs to be done, when it needs to be done, how many times it has been done are all very important. My team struggled with this and that created a few hiccups in our process. Communication helps things get done faster and smoother.
ReplyDeleteDay 7 was yet another success in my book. My groups baguettes get better and better every time and with a little fine tuning we can do great on the practical. For some reason a few of our baguettes came out dull. That is usually caused by not steaming them in the oven but other baguettes in the same oven had a shiny crust. We will have to pay closer attention during the practical to assure all of the baguettes are cooked properly. I am actually very excited for practical. We also made pretzels and they were really nice. They are much easier to roll than any other dough I had worked with so far in this class. I look forward to making them on day 8 to see the final product
ReplyDeleteDoing the reading really helps with taking the quizzes. They might be a bit long but definitely worth it on the long run, they are just good. The project is not hard, but it is time consuming. Make sure that you take pictures everyday to insure you have them for the project, sharing them with each other also helps. My baguettes came out really weird, chef said it being the lack of steam but others in the same oven were fine. The only thing that was different was that I was the one who shaped and cut those baguettes. Pay attention to each other during production to see if everything is done correctly.
ReplyDeleteWhat a day it was! Day 8 was as hectic as can be. I did a lot of mise en place for the practical tomorrow. My group is doing ciabatta tomorrow which I am very excited about. During today's portion of the practical I had to make scones and that is something I struggle with. They came out okay. I think I need to make more layers by folding it a few more times in the future. We also made pretzels. They came out really nice and we even made some with cheese. We ran out of silpats so we had to use sprayed parchment which I would not recommend. It made the bottoms extremely greasy and unappealing to me personally.
ReplyDeleteDay 6 was a productive day for the most part. We mise en placed everything for our practical foccocia and we made bagels and scones. Our bagels were overdone and they were to brown on the outside.
ReplyDeleteOn day 4 we made our we made foccocia and baguette poolish because our dough was ruined due to to much water in the mixture. It caused our dough to become very liquidy and soupy.
ReplyDeleteDay 3 was frustrating with my group. At first we had everything mised out and the beginning of the day was going smoothly. My partner and were working on the ciabatta bread while our two other group members working on the pretzels. My partner and I took turns folding and stretching the dough which was fine but, on the last fold is were we messed up. After the last fold you are supposed to let the dough sit for another 30 min then take it out and scale it. We did not do that and went straight in to scaling. After this mistake we had to leave the dough in the proof box longer. This is because we had to let the dough rest because we were agonizing the dough too much. The ciabatta ended up looking okay but, not like chefs so this was a lesson for my group to not repeat the same thing next time.
ReplyDeleteDay 6 went smoothly for my group. We got everything done around 4:00. Most of the things were mising but, we did finish our bagels and making scones. Our scones were okay but, we need larger butter strands to make the folds show in the scones (layers). My team was able to finish well because of good communication. We were able to divide and conquer and really push through. Later when we got everything done, chef called the class over and told us what to do for tomorrow since wednesday is our practical. It will be a long day since we have to double up on everything and were going to be out later than normal. I know my group can do it I just hope it doesn't get too stressful
ReplyDeleteDay 5 for my group felt like a second chance. Whatever we messed up on day 3 we were able to fix on day 5. You don't normally get that in lab. Sometimes the class is structured where you learn something new everyday and then your practical is something you did day 4. Today we were able do the ciabatta bread again which I was grateful for. I felt this way because me and another team member messed it up before and we were able to be prove to ourselves that we can do this. Today was also the day I got to make biscuits. I didn't really know how to do it and got a little frustrated with my group. This is because they told me last minute I had to make the biscuits. If they told me towards the beginning of class and not towards the end when were done with everything I feel like we wouldn't be in such a rush. Anyway we got it done around 5:00 and helped with clean up. We were able to get the biscuits out by 7:15 I think.
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ReplyDeleteToday’s a was day 7 and it was a little nerveracking. My group started the day it with a messed up challah dough so we were only able to practice making the braiding part of the dough. I’ve gotten the hang of the braiding and remembering how to do both the 6 and 2 strand braids. We also did baguettes again today. I’m still struggling on my shaping but my sizing is becoming more even. I also struggle doing the scoring because I dont go deep or long enough. Overrall baguettes aren’t my strong suit. For today we also make whole wheat bread with seeds and the process went pretty well because it was similar to making hte multigrain bread which we did before. In the last hour of class, my group made scones too but when I was doing the rubbing method, I kept the butter at chunks instead of flat shards so it affected the layers after bake.
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ReplyDeleteDay 2: Day 2 of the lab was the most nerve racking because it was the first day of production. A learning experience that came from this day happened to be about making scones. My group and I decided to mix our scones while waiting for our baguettes to rest. after adding the liquid to the mixture our baguettes were ready to shape meaning wed have to stop working on scones. Since we added the liquid and couldn't finish them our final product of scones could be affected due to the chemical leavener being activated. From this we learned that you shouldn't mix something together unless you know you have enough time to finish the product.
ReplyDeleteDay 4: Day 4 was a learning experience with shaping baguettes. My troubles began with not having a consistent length throughout my baguettes. I feel confident in my pre shaping and the bringing of my shaping but when it comes to the length of the baguette I miss the mark. Another thing that was a learning experience was the scoring of the baguettes. The scores should be deep enough to provide the ear when baking but mine weren't deep enough.
ReplyDeleteDay 7: On day 7 my group couldn't make our challah bread because our dough had not risen at all. When making challah bread you have to use osmotolerant Yeast because the amount of sugar that is in the bread. This is most likely the reason our dough didn't rise because we used the wrong yeast. This worried me because I wasn't very confident with my Challah braiding yet and this was a chance to make myself more confident. Overall the learning experience from day 7 is to carefully read the recipe and its ingredients to make sure you're doing everything correctly.
ReplyDeleteFor the first day of the practical, my group had to do our challah, baguettes and scones. This was probably the smoothest day for us because we managed to stayed on top of everything and get used to the flow of things. We managed to be the first ones done with our baguettes and challah. Unfortunately my challah was a bit over baked and I still couldn’t do my scoring on the baguettes properly. Fortunately we managed to complete day 8 early and make our quick bread and scale for Monday’s class.
ReplyDeleteHere we are on day three and my group and I have forgotten one crucial thing...salt! When pre-scaling the night before we must have forgotten salt for our dry ingredients for our baguette dough and it was not pretty. When looking back at the day's production I can of course now recall that the dough looked more deflated than usual but as a new bread baker I didn't think of anything of it, which I now know is a huge mistake. While working with our dough something seemed off when fermenting the dough being looser with little strength and structure. After baking Chef Hitz, who already knew what went wrong asked us to taste the baguette and the taste was like paper and the shape wonky. We lost our preferment and wasted time for a final product that went to the food waste bucket, but we learned always make sure all the ingredients are right and always ask questions!
ReplyDeleteDay 7 didn't turn out as we had planned. Our Challah mix from the day before was off either from not using osmotolerant yeast which is necessary due to the amount of sugar used in this dough or not allowing it to preferment for the full two hours before going into the fridge. These mistakes cost us our production, but we had the opportunity to practice shaping the dough just not baking and having a final product. I now have a better understanding of the two and the six strands and how to braid I just need to work on the finishing end appearance and making sure the pieces are all tapered at the same length. Also the bagels mixed this day were 800 grams over in flour which resulted in denser, larger bagels that were tough but looked okay. Another day of learning for my group but we pushed through!
ReplyDeleteThe first day of the practical with jam packed with production o accomplish. My team had to make ciabatta, help Chef Hitz finish the pretzels for the Christmas bread tree, and make whole wheat rolls. Starting off with our Ciabatta I new something wasn't right when I pulled the dough off the mixer due to already being able to do a stretch and fold which the dough is usually too wet to do at first. Due to being too high in hydration the dough took longer to proof in the proof box but we were able to make a good final product. We finished the pretzels, and I was able to make my scones for the practical which turned out really good. I'm looking forward to day 9 and making pizza!
ReplyDeleteDay 7 was probably the best class for me and my group the day before was a mess. My group and I were getting very angry and frustrated at each other. But before are day 7 class started, we all got together before class and talked everything out. we all walked into class and left the attitude outside of the door and all the frustration. We all went about are day and finished are baguettes are scones and are challah bread and we finished the day off strong working as as team to get the kitchen nice and clean for the next day
ReplyDeleteDay 6 this day was probably the worst day for me and my partners the reason is because me and my partners were very mad and frustrated with each other. This was only because one of my partners thought that my whole group kept trying to rely on her and because we kept asking her questions about what we were doing so she then snapped at all of us. My and I partner just let it go and continued with are work and making are biscuits. I had a really fun time with my group over all I especially enjoyed teaching are new partner everything their is to know about baking and what to do so that he could become a better student overall and a better baker. My and
ReplyDeleteI group didn't have the best day but we finished are baguettes and are scones. We also made some pretzels which iv never made before which was really cool. First we made the dough and then we shaped it and froze it and then we dipped it into something called lye. After we dipped it we put salt, seeds and cheese on top of some of them and baked them. We also made this bread called challah and I had a lot of trouble making this bread just because it had to be braided a certain way and I was really struggling with the three braid.
Day 8 was the first day of are particle and it was a pretty easy day for me. I made my challah, scones and I think that was it. First we made are dough for the challah and then let it sit and folded it when needed and then when we finished that the dough was ready to divide, we divided it and rolled it and let it sit again. Once the dough was ready to work with I made a three braid and I was really struggling this time and I just couldn't figure out how to do it but then I looked at the video that I took of chef hitzs doing it and I finally got it. I think I did make some mistakes but it was good enough for me. Once the three stand was done I made my two stand which was pretty easy for me, once all my breads were done I topped them off with some sugar and some sesame seeds and put them in the proof box. When they were done in the proof box I put them into the oven and they looked really good I was proud of my self and just really happy it was done and over with. As for my scones my final product didn't come out so well as I wanted it to just because I wish that they had more layers and that it rose more but they still looked very good and hope fully tasted good.
ReplyDeleteThe third day of labs, I had a "once in a lifetime experience’’ as Chef Hitz would call it. He showed us the steps of dividing our pain de mie and I did some my group of three other people. We marked the mass of dough into five pieces then I cut dough in order to begin the final shaping. After dividing the dough, I ended up with five long rectangles, which I then proceeded to put into the pans for proofing. If you fold the dough to much it will get tougher. Once the dough gets tough, it makes it more difficult to roll out into the desired shapes for the pullman pans. Also, the side that was folded be will be a lot harder to roll out than the side that was not, making it almost impossible to roll out a piece of dough. In addition to never folding pain de mie dough, I also learned that you should try to divide dough into as close to a square shape. Since we cut the dough width-wise. You should always roll the dough back and forth so it will have toughness all around the way. I did good with my group with our first time together making pain de mie. Chef hitz taught us that every time we divide the dough try to divide it into squares also handle the dough less, avoiding making unnecessary folds to avoid making mistakes.
ReplyDeleteOn the first day of lab I saw some familiar faces and a lot of new ones. we started by meeting chef Hitz and getting to know the people at the table I was sitting at. Chef Hitz things off with a part of the lecture and after about an hour or so we broke off into groups and interviewed each other. After that we sat back down and continues to talk and have the lecture until the end of the day.
ReplyDeleteon day 7 my group members and I began to mise en placed most of the ingredients we needed for the practical on day 8 and also made baguettes. at the end of the day we cleaned up lab fairly fast and talked about the practical the we where going to have on day 8 and day 9.
ReplyDeleteon day 8 we had our practical. we made ciabatta, baguettes, challah and I made biscuits. they didn't turn out the way I wanted them to but I think I did good on them.
ReplyDeleteOn day 3, I walked into the class and saw Chef Hitz’s sourdough that he had baked, sitting in a basket. My first thought was “There is no way that’s bread!” It was so beautiful! It got me thinking. I remembered looking up at the ceiling of the restaurant in which I work, beautifully and intricately carved. It had all been done by hand. This bread was no different. They were both done with such care and specificity. It struck me how much of a lost art it is to put so much effort into one single thing at a time. To care so much and use the best ingredients, to cut at just the right depth, in just the right place. To bake it to just the right color. No one does this anymore. We are so caught up in being as efficient as possible. Making as much as we can, as fast as we can. That sourdough was one of the most beautiful things I had seen in a long time, and it reminded me of why I’m here, at this school, at 29 years old. I want to slow down and pay attention. To be just one more person that keeps the art of beautiful and difficult things alive.
ReplyDeleteComing into this school in the winter trimester, everyone else in the class was clearly more comfortable and more acquainted with all of the rules and where everything was and so on. Days one through three were a bit daunting in a way. I did not feel at all like I knew what I was doing. And there was so much information. I was already 1/3 of the way through the merely nine day long course and I wondered how in the world I was going to get it together in time. But! On day four, I walked in and sort of knew what was going on. I realized I was already getting more acquainted with where things were, with how my team was going to work together. It was the first day where I actually felt like I was starting to be a valuable contribution to production. I was also starting to be able to separate my strengths from my weaknesses, rather than just constantly trying to figure out what was going on and what I was supposed to be doing. I realized that my mise en place technique needed work. But also that I wasn’t afraid to dive into something new. I needed to find a good balance between those two things. I needed to allow myself to be excited about starting a new project, but that I needed to take a step back and think about the whole process before I got going. I needed to get everything together, make sure a mixer was going to be available at the right time, think about when the ovens would be available later based off of proofing and resting times for everyone in the class. This is something that is slightly frustrating to me because I like to be in constant action; I don’t really like to slow down once I get going. So it will take me some practice. But I know that once it becomes second nature, I’ll likely see it as just another fun part of the process of making something I’m proud of.
ReplyDeleteOn day 5, Chef Hitz asked my group to do an extra project. We were to mix Pain de Mie: 7 pans at 100g per inch. This meant we needed to measure the length of each pan and multiply the inches by 100g. After that, we needed to multiply that amount by 7 pans. This gave us our total expected yield of 9450g. (This was my first time using the conversion factor in an actual recipe, so I was slightly nervous about messing it up, and therefor extra careful.) I did the math and found that the expected yield when taking into account the conversion factor was going to be 9479g. We got to work gathering our ingredients, including a very large bowl and over 5000g of flour. In the middle of measuring the flour, the scale gave us an error message. We panicked slightly, but got another bowl, used our memory of the last number read on the scale, and continued to weigh out the rest of the ingredients. Fast forward to the mixing process and the dough just wasn’t coming together. It was taking far too long to get to the desired gluten development, so we called over Chef Hitz. He took out the dough and weighed it…it was 1000g short! I redid the math to see if maybe that’s where the mistake was, but everything was correct. Everyone in our group was certain we had included all ingredients. Then it hit us…that scale error. What if we hadn’t zeroed the scale before adding the flour? We added the remaining weight needed in only flour, started mixing, and waited to see what would happen. It turned out we were correct in the end and everything worked out. But it was an excellent lesson in paying attention to details from the beginning. It made us pay more attention from then on to how we scaled and separated things. None of us will make that same mistake again.
ReplyDeleteYesterday after mixing, shaping and baking our challah dough we tasted it at the end and realized there was no salt in our dough. I learned that Challah without salt is very very sweet. Even though we messed up the product I was actually okay with it because we always get told what salt does to a dough and the importance of it but to see it at first hand was a great learning experience. The color of our dough was a bit off and just how the dough proofed and baked was different. The dough itself didn't taste bad just not correct and too sweet. Ill forever be more careful to add salt.
ReplyDeleteOn day 3 of labs this breads class was different than I expected. It is more difficult than I thought it was going to be. But this is also the first day there was a major mistake with one of the items my group had to produce. my group was making scones and we ended up mixing the batter too much and that causes the layers in a scone to be destroyed. it was a little upsetting because scones, to me, are a easy product compared to the other products we will have to make in this class. Other than that baguettes were more difficult than I had expected. it was really hard just trying to do the pre shaping of the dough, I just couldn't get it. and then when I had to score the dough, that was a nightmare. it was all wrong, but I know that I will just have to keep working hard and as questions when I need too.
ReplyDeleteOn day 5 it was not a good day at all. Everything that could have gone wrong went wrong. First off my group did an extra 45 min proof on our baguettes. that really set everything off because we were the group that had to wait 30 min after another group so we threw off the entire schedule for the ovens. Then I missed braided my challah, I don't even know how because I thought I did everything right with it but it did not look right. And then we used the wrong recipe for the biscuits, even though they turned out pretty good, they were not the right recipe. Then we had these other two doughs, the whole wheat and the multi grain. They looked very similar and my group had a hard time telling the difference and we kept confusing one another. It was just not a good day because my whole group screwed up the timers so we didn't know when things needed to stop proofing or how long we had on certain products. Today was just not our day and I know that we need to work even harder and to stay more organized that we did today. Today was like a giant wake up call and it is true that some days are not your days.
ReplyDeleteOn day 6 it was a better day. I can now visibly see my groups production improving. In the beginning of this class, our products were mediocre but now our braids are really good. And we didn't mess up the biscuits and the scones again. We also learned lots of different ways into making certain products from our Sub Chef. It was a good day and our products reflected well. Even though our ciabatta was a little rough looking we tried a different thing that everyone else. I now know that I'm not suppose to use a whole lot of flour like I originally did and I need to make sure to cut the pieces more evenly.
ReplyDeleteOn day 1 I had sort of an idea of what this course will be about. Since we had viennoiserie first, there was already a few things that I knew. It was a good first day of breads and it was very informational as well. Our chef had a few experiments and explain the whole class in general.
ReplyDeleteOn day 3 of bread. I was actually surprised of the amount of time it takes just to make a bread. Making baguettes, stretching and fold , then pre shaping , and making cuts. It was a lot. I was all over the place and couldn't focus on what I needed to do. Our group also made sconce and it didn't came out so well due to the fact the we over mixed it. when it baked , there wasn't any layers but it was okay becuase it was a mistake and we can improve on it
ReplyDeleteOn day 6 , our production was very good. When making the scones , the layers were much better . Our braids for our challah improved a lot becuase on our first one, We didn't know what to do and they didn't came out so well. we were able to finish quite early and I felt happy about that. One small thing the we did to early was adding the cheese to the focaccia. Nothing major. Overall our group did well and got everything that we needed to do .
ReplyDeleteOn day 5, there was a large amount of production. i did not realize how much time and proofing it takes just to make bread. the amount of stretch and folds, rolling, shaping and scoring just takes more time and precision than i ever imagined before i started working with breads so much. practicing doing baguettes every other day has been good practice, still need alot of work at it but it is getting better.
ReplyDeleteDay 6, was one of the days that everything that could go wrong went wrong. it was a very busy and crazy day for me and my teammates. it was just a very heavy production day and we were not good at keeping track of times for proofing and baking, which caused a set back for the whole team. but it was a good learning lesson for me on how high pressure it could get in a bread lab and how important it is to be on top of the time managment.
ReplyDeleteDay 8, today was one of the easiest days of prodcution but i think its also that me and my teammates are getting the hang of the movement of mixing, production, proofing and baking and we are getting more efficent in the whole process. unfortunately were starting to get better at this when the class is about to end.but have loved every seconf of this learning experience
ReplyDeleteOn day 2, it was very overwhelming because i had no clue as to what we were doing, but production was good. I made baguettes for the first time and they came out... okay. Definitely need to work on the shaping and cuts, but overall I was proud of myself. Couldn't wait to see what else this class had in store.
ReplyDeleteOn day 6, we talking about practical production, which is going to be quiet the load for my group, since we are making baguettes and focaccia on the same day. I think we can do it though. We also made baguettes again. The cuts were better, but the shaping got worse. We won't talk about that though. We also made challah dough and are shaping it for the first time tomorrow. Looking forward to that.
ReplyDeleteOn day 7, we shaped the challah dough! We did the six braid and a two braid. My group practiced the two braid last week on the pretzels, so we got a little more practice in than others. Overall, they came out pretty good. Not too terrible to the point where they were unrecognizable, but pretty swell if i do say so my self. Super proud of my group's challah, but we're aiming to do better for the practical tomorrow.
ReplyDeleteOn Day 2 of this lab, I learned the wrong way to make a biscuit. The problem began during the mixing process. The biscuit dough was over mixed and then over-folded on the bench. This led to a biscuit that was very tough to cut. I also twisted the biscuit cutter when cutting the biscuits from the dough. This is not a good thing to do because it makes the sides of the biscuits less open.
ReplyDeleteOn Day 4 of this lab, I learned how crucial every lab day is. Day 3 of lab was cancelled due to a snowstorm, so Day 4 turned into a combination of Day 3 and Day 4 which was very stressful for all involved. I had no idea what was going on half of the time and felt like I was running behind the entire class. I never skip days of lab, and this experience maintained my motivation to never miss a day of lab.
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ReplyDeleteOn Day 7 of this lab, I learned how to braid Challah dough with the help of Chef. The way that I remember how to braid the six braid loaf is by memorizing the number sequence. To braid the two braid, I developed a system to ensure my hands are always holding the correct strands. My system starts with making a cross with the two dough strands. Then, I keep my left hand in the top left corner of the cross and my right hand in the bottom right corner of the cross so that I don’t get confused.
ReplyDeleteLoosing a day of labs due to a snow day really seemed to throw us off a little bit. Since day 2 was supposed to be our first day of production, we lost quite a bit. However, I think in the end we pulled through fairly well. We were still able to make all the products we needed for our finals successfully.However it is still unfortunate we lost a day of practice, as practice makes perfect
ReplyDeleteDay 7 was quite a busy day for everybody. We needed to make whole wheat bread with seeds, pain de mie, focaccia, and baguettes, and my group partners needed to make scones and biscuits as they hadn't been able to make both previously. The day felt stressful, and there was definitely some weight on my shoulders in regards to being able to get everything done in a timely manner.Our focaccia turned out good, as well as our whole wheat bread and pain de mie. Baguettes seemed to be where I struggle the most. The calculations I did were a little off, so my group ended up with one baguette quite a bit shorter than the other. I also had, and still have, a bit of trouble with shaping. While my shaping could definitely be improved, and I definitely need more practice, my baguettes for my practical still came out decent and I was happy with them.
ReplyDeleteDay 3 and 4 we did baguettes, biscuits, and scones, switching who did biscuits, scones, or helper each day. Making biscuits didn't seem too intimidating to me as I had made them quite a few times in the past. While they came out mostly good, I did have an issue with a few going sideways. I discovered this was due to how I rolled them, that being too much in one direction and not enough in the other. One of my pans of scones came out good, however the other pan one was still a bit under-cooked. So from now on I need to watch how much I'm rolling my dough in one direction, and make sure I keep an eye on when my scones should be coming out, especially if one pan needs more time than another
ReplyDeleteOn day 3 when my group and I were making poolish to make baguettes on day 4 we mixed the flour water and yeast directly in the plastic container. Which was not ideal for getting everything incorporated because of the sharp corners of the bin. When we opened up the poolish on day 4 I learned how obviously important it is to mix it in a bowl before transferring it to the plastic container because the poolish didn't increase in volume at all. After observing it and seeing pockets of yeast we came to the conclusion that we got bad results due to the fact that the poolish wasn't well incorporated. Because of this mishap we had to adjust the amount of yeast in the actual dough and adjust the proofing times. I learned that when there are so many different steps to a product it's important to get each one right because when you mess something up it affects the rest of the process.
ReplyDeleteOn day 4 when my group and I were baking our baguettes the steam setting on the oven wasn't set up. Which prior to this lab I didn't know there were even ovens that existed that gave you the ability to control the steam on it. But, after seeing the baguettes when they came out of the oven they were dull and almost ashy looking. We realized these results were due to the lack of steam in the oven. It was interesting to me that something I didn't even know was a part of baking bread could visually effect the final product so drastically.
ReplyDeleteOn multiple days my group and I were diving and pre-shaping our baguettes and we had forgot to set the tables up like Chef Hitz suggested. The way we had out tables set up just made things harder for ourselves. After Chef Hitz made an example of us on what not to do, everyday after that we had remembered to set up the tables as Chef Hitz suggested, which made our lives a lot easier. The way Chef Hitz suggested to set up the tables made it so that everything flows in one direction making everything move smoothly, while we had the tables set up so that we were working in more of circle.
ReplyDeleteOn day 8 when we had our baguette practical, Chef Hitz got us together and talked about how we would be putting our baguettes in the oven so that they would all go in, in a timely manor. I made a mistake and put my baguettes in before another person in my group had their baguettes ready. I went over to Chef to ask him to make sure the oven was set up properly and he quickly told me that I should have waited to put my baguettes in the oven till another person in my group was ready, because now no one else could put their baguettes in the oven. In other words, don't be like me and always make sure that if someone else needs to put their baguettes in the oven that their ready before you put yours in.
ReplyDeleteOn day 6 or 7 my group and I mixed our baguettes and the dough was roughly at 77-78 degrees F and we thought it would be best to leave in the proof box. When it came time to final shape our baguettes Chef Hitz brought to our attention that we probably should not have left them the dough in the proof box for the full hour and a half. He said our dough seemed very gassy and that the dough had probably over fermented. The over fermentation made it harder for us to final shape our dough because of all the gas bubbles in it.
ReplyDeleteon day 8 we had our practical and we made baguettes, challah and I made biscuits. i thought i did ok on them.
ReplyDeleteOn day one we did a test with yeast. First bottle had basic ingredients of bread; flour, yeast, and water. Second bottle had yeast and flour. The third bottle had just water and yeast. All of the bottle was covered with balloon. This test was to see what happens if there is no salt in the bread.a few minutes later, bottle that contains water,yeast,flour,salt and water,flour,yeast's balloon blew up. The bottle with no salt or flour did not even inflate. This tells us that salt and flour are both needed in bread to rise.
ReplyDeleteOn thursday, we made baguettes again and I really think I've got the scoring down, because they had really nice ears. I think the only thing I need to work on is shaping.
ReplyDeleteAfter I made biscuits on day 2 using the rolling pin rubbing method I made the scones on day 4 using hand rubbing method. When the scones came out of the oven the edges had some pockets where the layers split open too much. After they were critiqued I found out that this happened because there were pieces of butter that were too big. So the next time I made scones the used the rolling pin rubbing method and they turned out much better.
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