Viennoiserie

Viennoiserie was a particularly hard unit. Our class coasted through puff pastry with relative ease and then we were hit with Viennoiserie. Bread is all about timing and caring. You wait for the bread, the bread does not wait for you. It is an impatient, living organism. And it demands respect.

Our class used a proofing cabinet , the refrigerator and the freezer to regulate the growth of yeast. We learned a lot about it's temperament, and we used this information to best regulate the timing of each of our steps. But we fit a lot into each class, and keeping an eye on a bunch of babies at one time lead to some difficulties. Overall though, I think we achieved a lot, and I learned a lot. There are a few missing pictures from the unit, when my camera died.

Note: my partner in this unit totally sucked. She was probably the worst partner I could have had. She rolled in at 5:30 (when class starts, but everyone is always there early to mise and set up), didn't know what we were doing, stoned (literally), and then proceeded to rely on me the entire time to do everything. She never cleaned, and never seemed to care. I really disliked her, and resented her for most of the unit. The first couple of classes I really tried to be fair and patient, but when it was obvious that she just didn't give a fuck and had no respect for our partnership, I proceeded to take the lead (I was already doing everything anyway) and boss her around with menial tasks. She didn't like me for this, but my attitude was fuck you, I'm paying for this shit and I am going to learn so suck it up. And she did. I survived.

Challah. Not the best challah I've had or made. My attempt at doing a six-strand braid was pretty unsucsessful (despite my practice making friendship bracelets at summer camp) and it was pretty lopsided due to my mishandling. In addition, I think the 2nd proofing went too long and it lacked physical definition. Challah I've made before has been vuluptuous, like a nice jewish lady. This was kind of boring. And I wish it had raisins in it. I talked to my chef about my problems, she sympathized. At least I know I can make it well.

Orange cinnamon swirl bread. Sorry for the shitty picture. This was super tasty. Very basic dough, then sprinkled with cinnamon sugar and rolled up and baked. I wish it had more cinnamon sugar in it though. Our chef advised against it because it melts and creates holes. I would rather have holes though than too little cinnamon sugar! Please note in the picture below the french toast I made from it in the background - totally killer!

Blueberry muffins. Very basic recipe - mix wet ingredients, mix dry ingredients, combine, add blueberries, don't overmix. And success. Didn't need to go to pastry school for that.

Kugelopf (Austrain Bowl Cake). Not a fan. Sounding like a German army command works against it too. It was a yeasted bread using the sponge method with lemon zest, and raisins in it and almonds on top. To me this bread was kind of whatever - a cross between a regular white bread and a robust fruit cake, but not really cutting it in either direction. Give me more enriched breads, or give me none at all, don't half ass it.

Brioche Nanterre (Brioche loaf). I love brioche. A lot. Its like white bread only with the butter conveniently added in (along with eggs). This brioche was really good too. Nice and golden, ready to be pulled apart and spread with jam and maybe even more butter. We also made a smaller cuter version, Brioche a Tete Parisennes.

Savoy Scones. Pretty classic scone here, using the cut-in butter method, and bringing it all together. I only eat scones directly out of the oven (they get stale way too quickly), and never buy them, so I rarely get the opportunity to eat them. Always a treat.

Stollen. I loved it! Pretty much the same flavors at the Kugelopf, but more along the lines of what I wanted it to be. It had lemon and orange zest, candied orange peel, raisins, almonds, pecans, and walnuts in it, occupying I would say almost 2/3 of the volume of the thing itself. The bread was pretty dense, and then after baked, it was brushed with melted butter and coated in a combination of vanilla sugar and powdered sugar. It was really flavorful, not that fussy, and lasted on my counter for a long time, allowing me ample nibbling opportunities.

Pains au Chocolat, Croissants. Croissants combine bread baking with puff pastry. Make a simple bread dough, roll it, and then layer butter into it, folding, rolling, and repeating to create a layered dough that can then be cut and shaped. During baking, the dough bakes as if a thin layer of bread, and the butter melts to create steam and pushes the layers apart to create leaves, resulting in a yeasty, tender, flaky croissant.

Suffice it to say, they're a pain in the ass. You have to worry about managing a bread dough that's elastic, wants to rise, and does whatever it wants to, and then layering it with a beurrage (butter) layer that wants to melt, squish, break into the dough, and chunk up. Everything must be the right temperature, thickness, and consistency to work with, and then you have to have the know-how on top of that.

I had some difficulty with my dough (everyone did) because it was 100 degrees in the classroom and the butter layer was melting into the dough before we had time to roll it out, resulting in a less flaky end product. Still tasty, but not perfection. We will have another opportunity in Pastry 2 to try again.

Note: this did not stop Adam from eating I think 12 Pain au Chocolats in a 24 hour period. They still tasted good.

Ruche (bee hive). Now we got to experiment with some sweet applications for brioche! And I loved making the beehive! It consisted of layers of brioche dough soaked with lavender honey syrup, and pastry cream. We decorated it with a piped and toasted swiss meringue, little bumble bees made out of marzipan and toasted almond, and then honey drizzled over! Not gonna lie, I fucking loved this. It tasted good, and I love bees and honey. Go bees, you are so necessary to human's survival!

Brioche tart. I really liked this too. Every unit we do some kind of fruit tart, and this was one of my favorites. Brioche dough we spread out like a pizza dough, pastry cream, bread crumbs, and then apricots. MMMMMM!!

Pannetone. This was like a cross between the Kugelhopf and the Stollen. Decent, not mind-blowing.

Pain de Mie (Pullman's loaf). This was our version of wonderbread. Making it, it looked like porcelain - a beautiful soft, smooth, white dough. Super easy to make, and then baked in a rectangular mold. Unfortunately, those in charge of the proofing cabinets weren't paying close attention, and our dough overproofed, overflowing from the loaf pans and resulting in less dough in the mold. Therefore, everyone's loaf ended up looking a bit concave (they're supposed to be perfectly square). Regardless, it tasted like good-for-you whitebread.

Not pictured (unfortunately): Spiked Pecan Sticky Buns (made with the cinnamon orange swirl dough), Sally Lunn Rolls (a sweet soft roll), Danish (there were BOMB!), and Fruitcake (pretty similar to the Stollen dough).