Bready for more.

Bonjour!

I'm seriously loving France (and breads, apparently...). It's just so incredible here. I wish you were all here to experience it with me, but sadly you are not.. I'm slightly missing home lately, even though it's like freezing cold, I'd still love to be there and complain with you all guys! Hopefully you're all checking in on my blog and can sort of feel like you're here with me. :)

Also, quick shout out to my mom for sending me an AWESOME care package. I got gold fish, kraft mac and cheese, mandarin oranges, beef jerkey, and wasabi and soy sauce almonds. What 'a lady!

Anyways, back to school things....

This week we had bakery lab. Bakery lab consists of breads and viennoiserie (which is classic French breakfast items, mainly made of puff pastry dough). This was one of the top three favorite classes from JWU so I was really excited. Then, when I noticed my Chefs last name was Baccon I knew it was going to be a good lab. I mean, when has bacon ever steered you in the wrong direction?? Hah The only down side was that our two groups had switched time slots so we had afternoon labs which go from 1pm - 8pm instead of 6 - 1, which I really don't like. But, I had to tough it out.

Monday we made; pate levee feuilletee (puff pastry dough) which ended up making croissants and chocolate filled croissants, pain de tradition sur pate fermentee (baguettes), pain aux figues (fig bread), le tranchoir (sour dough bread), and creme patissiere (pastry cream). The class went by pretty quickly, even though it's slightly hectic because we had so many breads in so many places and you have to do a lot with each bread. Each dough we would mix, rest, scale, preshape, rest, or fold and rest, then do the final shape, proof, score, and bake. (phew!) So as a result, in class we'd have fifty different timers going off and if you didn't have them labeled properly or knew what step you were on it could become a wild goose chase. Luckily, Chef has a sixth sense when it comes to bread and could tell you without even looking at any dough what needed to be done. It's amazing! He would even make a comment about needing to fold or take a dough out and you'd look at your timer and it would have 30 seconds left. Such a talent, and he is TRULY passionate about what he does. It's such a great feeling to be learning something so technical, so easily from someone who is absolutely and completely in love with what they're doing. It makes you love it even more!

Tuesday we baked our tranchoir (sour dough) because it had to proof over night, we made creme patissiere et garniture puor pains aux raisins (rum raisin roll), pain viennois (similar to white bread), pain au lait (milk bread), and pain au graines (seeded baguette). We also mise en placed (prepared ahead of time) ingredients for the other breads we were doing wednesday and thursday). The tranchoir was AMAZING. I love-love-LOVE sourdough breads, so it was one I was really looking forward too and boy - I was not disappointed. The smell alone is just incredible. The seeded baguette was also really delicious. I usually don't like seeded breads because of the texture of the seeds and chewy bread but this was delightful. It had sunflower, toasted sesame, poppy, and quiona seeds.

Wednesday we made brioche (sweet, buttery egg based bread), pains aux ingredients (ingredient bread), pain aux noix-settes (bread with walnuts and hazlenuts), pain de campagne fantaisie (bread with some whole wheat flour, mainly used for learning shaping techniques), and brioche royale (brioche dough mixed with candied fruit peels, nuts, and rum). In class we got to shape the brioche which is always fun, and the ingredient bread was really interesting. Each group had a different bread to make and they were all so delicious. There was comter lardons (cheese and bacon), miel raisins et noisettes (honey, raisin, and hazelnut), chocolat blanc (white chocolate), abricot et noisettes (apricot and hazelnut), pommes camenbert (apple and cheese). Each ingredient bread was shaped differently which helped create a variety for our final product buffet.

Thursday we finished up all our products and deep cleaned the kitchen. Lots of nooks and crannies to get flour out of! (I'm still trying to get it all out of my phone..) We also made brochettes (three different flavors of bread on skewers, cheese, bacon, and olive), focaccia (flavored bread), pain de meteil (whole wheat bread with a unique design), epis bacon (small baguettes filled with mustard and ham, shaped), cheese buns, tomato roll, olive roll, and cheesy volcano bread. The final buffet was spectacular. I've never seen anything so amazing in my whole life. There was such an array of breads. And it was just amazing to see what we had created and accomplished in such a short amount of time. It was all possible because bread is so versatile. You can start with one dough, split it up, and create a bunch of entirely different final products. It's just a delicious blank canvas you can mold into what ever your heart desires.

There was so much bread.

Sadly, I don't think I will ever be able to eat Big Y "french" or "artisan" breads again in my entire life. This class (and just being in France, in general) has really turned me into quite the bread snob. Hah even the "worst" bakeries in Yssingeaux have incredibly fresh and delicious baguettes available daily.

This class was truly amazing though. I really learned a lot about breads and got a lot of practice with shaping the dough. I also got a lot of practice with eating the bread...

Viennoiseries

Array of breads

Chef and some girls from class

Cheese and bacon bread hanging over the buffet

Chef and I

I seriously wish I could appropriately capture just how large this buffet was.

We used five work benches to achieve this, I'm pretty sure it was close to 20 feet long.

Well now that I've overloaded on carbs for the past four days..I'm looking forward to a week long cleanse. Just fruits, veggies, and light proteins for this girl! This class definitely helped me pack on the pounds, so I have some ground to make up. Hah 

Just now realizing it's like 12:30am here... this has been a long blog post. 

Well, thank for making it this far! (IF you even did. hmmmm) 

Au revoir for now. :)