Rolling in dough

Well, it's the Easter weekend and we have just finished up with our first trip through the Bake Shop with Chef Chad.  From our humble buttermilk biscuits in week one to the full loaves of wheat and white in week two to the labor-intensive rolling and folding of this week's puff pastry and danish, it has been an interesting and tasty three weeks.  Chef Chad is a terrific baker, and he really loves to impart his knowledge to his students, though I will admit he wore me out on occasion with his almost obsessive cleaning and routines, but in the end it's part of what will make us better at our kitchen duties and that's what counts most.  He works harder and stays at it longer than anyone, and then has an evening class of advanced students to do it all again every day.  Chef Chad just keeps going and going like the Energizer Bunny covered in flour.

Not much to report in the way of drama in the classroom.  I did miss my first minute (actually most of a day) of class time since the course began to attend a Family Day at Wendy's work site and I'm glad I did, it was VERY cool.  I also missed a question on a test because I forgot about the one thing that dough does...rise.  Once I got over that (which took about 5 days), things went very smoothly for everyone.  One fellow student who shall as usual remain nameless (hope you're feeling better, S.) picked up a bacterial infection swimming in a local stream, some form of what we in Alaska call "Beaver Fever" and was terribly sick.  Forced to miss a week of class, she managed to come back strong this week as my table partner and we managed to roll the hell out of our puff pastry.  I'm thankful she was there in our hour of knead.

A sizable portion of our grade in the Bake Shop comes from building and maintaining a notebook of our formulas, notes, guidance sheets and references.  Anyone that has had the misfortune to see my horrible handwriting knows that I would never be able to get a good grade if my formulas looked like they did when I wrote them down in class.  So with the help of my resident technical advisor Wendy (who showed the patience of Job while I muddled through the lines and columns of Excel) I managed to make a few formula templates and get my notes and formulas not only neat and orderly, but accompanied by pictures of our finished products.  You know I never brag, but the grade I got was A PLUSh one to say the least. 

I'll be contributing to Sunday's big Easter Dinner at our good friends' home tomorrow by attempting some crusted rolls, baguettes, and a turkey, so I hope some of the book-learnin' has stuck with me.  From here we move next week into the Hot Kitchen II, where we are finally going to be face to face with Chef Ziggy.  We have heard from many of the other students that this is a make-or-break three weeks, as Chef Ziggy is infamous for his short temper and high expectations for his students.  Bring it on.

Things we ate in class this week:

Of course, all the items we produced -  Cheese, Almond, and Apple Danish, Apple- and Hazelnut-filled puff pastry, and big, crusty baguettes.

Lots of raisins and craisins.

Classmate Enju brought in Korean seaweed and rice soup for the class which I passed on, having just finished some craisins.

Some nice little shortbread cookies that Sandy provided.

Chef Klaus delivered some very sweet lemon chiffon one afternoon.  I venture a guess that you will not see the words Chef Klaus and very sweet together in a sentence again anytime soon.

Coffee...LOTS of coffee.

Carpe diem, quam minimum credula postero! - Horace