week 7 - pi(e) = 3.1415....

Today, Team France covered pie dough and sweet doughs. Also know in the industry as rolled in-doughs or laminated doughs although these terms are confusing at times because there is no set rules on when and how to use them so I'm still learning this myself. Let's begin with a definition of laminated which means - alterning layers and roll-in doughs which is - "a dough in which a fat is incorporated in many layers by using a rolling and folding procedure; it is used for flaky baked goods such as croissants, puff pastry and danish".

We started our day with our pie dough that we blind baked. No seriously that's what it's called. It how you bake cream pies. You cannot place cream pies in the oven. This is the process to produce all the wonderful pastry cream pie that we all eat on Sunday dinner.


After you mix you pie dough:

1 lbs 4 oz cake flour
12 oz ap shortening
1/4 oz salt
1/2 pt ice water (egg shade)

Do not over mix - pebble size consistency. Cool in refrigerator before use.

Next, you place your pie crust into the pie pan, shape it by placing in the pan with it hanging over the edges. Then drop the pan on the counter top three times and it falls into place. Pinch of off the edges and reserve dough - do not scrunch it into a ball you will ruin the layers.

Now the pie crust is fitted perfectly into the pan. However, if you bake it in the pan alone the sides will slide down. So this is where the blind baking process comes into play. Since we don't put the pastry creme into the oven, you place baking stone or beans to fill the empty space and distributed the heat evenly until the crust is baked.

The beans are wrapped in commercial grade wrap that allow it to hold up against heat. Just ensure that is does not touch the sides of the baking pan. Also label the beans for baking only you can use them for one year. You don't want any one to use them after you have baked them.

Upon cooling down the pie shell it’s time for the pastry cream and whipped cream topping.

Pastry cream ( Creme Patisserie) formula:

1 pt. Milk
2 oz sugar stage 1 - dissolve almost to boil
2 eggs
1 ¼ oz corn starch
2 oz sugar stage 2 - whisk together until smooth paste then temper with some hot milk. Then bring the rest of the milk to boil, add the remaining egg mixture until mixture thickens remove from heat add butter and vanilla.
1 oz butter
1 tsp. vanilla

Refrigerate until needed. This pastry cream can be used as is or changed by adding chocolate Ganache to desired flavor.

Ganache:
10 oz semi sweet chocolate chips
2 oz unsalted butter
8 oz whipping cream
basis for all chocolate mousse

It's was a turning point for myself and my team today in the bake shop. Our skills are really starting to take form as professional bakers. Keep up the good work everyone. We have much more to learn from Chef Colley.

Next week on the menu: Croissants and Danishes - ummm good. Oh that reminds me in class we prepped our croissant dough. Then put it the freezer until next class.

Week six - Salt of the Earth

French country bread


Chocolate Bread



Today, Team France covered the beautiful world of artisan breads. We baked a Hungarian potato bread, a chocolate bread, a beautiful French country bread and Chef demo'd a ciabatta bread for the class.




Let's first focus on the ingredient salt in all the formulas covered today.




The foundation of civilization was salt's ability to preserve food. Salt eliminated man's dependence on having to eat seasonal and allowed food to travel over long distances. However, to0 much of this seasoning will cause you to say yuck, your mouth to pucker, and you will instantly remove the bread from your mouth. Quick tip: adding too much salt in a formula will kill yeast. We had a problem with salt in our formula for our Hungarian potato bread this week. After careful review I came up with the possible culprits to the salt problem we had.




Student error in scaling - I scaled the wrong amount of salt called for in this formula - 1 1/2 oz.





The formula called for potatoes that we mixed in this formula. However, we didn't taste them prior to putting them in the recipe. They could have been loaded with sodium and so we would have had to adjust the formula.



Chef has used these formulas before so they have been tested and are all kosher with the amounts called for in the formula.

Hungarian Potato Bread:

2 lbs bread flour
11 oz mashed potatoes
1 pt 2 oz water
1 1/2 oz yeast
1/2 oz paprika
1 1/2 oz salt

Next we covered the chocolate bread.

Chocolate Bread:

Pre- ferment

4 oz bread flour
1/2 oz yeast
13 oz water
1/2 oz salt
1# bread flour
4 oz cocoa powder
1/2 oz yeast
12 oz yeast
1/2 oz salt
5 oz chocolate chips
2 oz walnuts
1/2 oz vanilla

Straight mix method

Then we covered a country French bread called Pain de Champage:

Pre- ferment

bread flour 1 lb 4 oz
instant yeast 0.5 oz
water 13 oz
salt 0.5 oz

Dough:

preferment 2 lb 2 oz
bread flour 1 lb 2 oz
dark rye 2 oz
instant yeast 0.5 oz
water 13 oz
salt 0.5 oz
soaked flax seed 3 oz optional
walnuts 8 oz

Ciabatta

30% Pre-fermented flour

Pollish 0.025 oz compressed freash yeast

27 oz bread flour

27 oz water

Mix well and cover ferment at 70 degress for 12 - 16 hours.

Dough:

54.025 oz sponge

0.5 fresh yeast

4 lbs bread flour

2 oz salt

2 oz wheat grem optional

47 oz water

This was the best of the batch in my opinion. Artisan bread is a labor of love very individual to a particular region or baker. I enjoyed making artisan breads because it felt like a reflect of me. It's an art and a science...wow dude so deep.

As a part of my cooking skills development, I volunteer for various non-profits across the country to cook lunches or dinners for them. I can accommodate up to 15 - 20 people and use this as a learning tool to hone my skills as I grow as a cook. I featured the above breads that I baked in class and served it with a simple all vegetarian minestrone soup and fresh salad greens from the Phoenix Farmer's Market for the Recording for the Blind and Dyslexic ( RFB&D). It was a real pleasure to cook for these fine people that give countless hours back to the community.

Next week on the menu: pie dough and sweet dough.