New Toque.

As promised, here is a picture of some bread we made today. These are knot rolls (not not rolls), and there are three different ways to knot them. Both of these rolls above are figure eight knots, but the other two ways are single knot and double knot. This bread is made from hamburger roll dough, which is an intensely mixed, enriched dough.
These are the same two rolls, but I think this picture is more aesthetically pleasing. The only thing with this picture though is you cannot really see the knots or the bread. Behind these knots is my retired toque. I know, I know, look at me, right? Do you like how I brought the title into my picture?

Today was a big day. I had to retire my first toque (which is that tall chef's hat for all you non-food vocabulary people out there), upon my chef's request. I admit that I am a little overly sentimental in that I felt the need to keep the darn thing. I am sure when I move out of Angell Hall for extern that I will see no use in packing the toque and driving it 1000 miles back to Georgia.

Not only was today a big day, it was a tough day. Though flour in your hair and on your face must be a sign of a productive day in Breads class, the thought of doing it all again tomorrow makes me almost want to cry. I love it, but rolling dough and baking bread is no walk in the park, contrary to what people think when I tell them I go to culinary school. To top it all off, I was on the lean dough team today, and with yesterday being an alternate learning day, only one person on my team had actually made/rolled/baked lean dough in class and worked the hearth. It made for an interesting day to start.

Lean dough is tiring. You have to make the dough for baguettes and cut rolls. (Today, even, we actually did not do the cut rolls, as two of the restaurants on campus were closed.) You have to fold the dough. You have to divide and pre-shape the dough, while involves using the divider to make even rolls and making baguettes by hand. From here, the rolls and baguettes are placed on a couche to rise. They then must be loaded (in a VERY specific way) onto the loader, which is the piece of equipment that drops them directly onto the deck of the hearth oven to bake. After doing this, for our specific dough, as a team we are responsible for loading all the other breads into the oven, basically all the doughs everyone else in the class has been working on all day: whole wheat, wheat walnut, multigrain, ciabatta, etc. Each bread is put on the loader in a different way. Some breads are scored. All breads are misted. Each time we load a bread into the oven, the two people on the loader must yell "loader in motion," to which the whole class responds, "heard." If just me talking about it does not make your head spin, then you should definitely come visit ASAP.

I have determined that I am not the best at scoring, or cutting the bread to allow the dough to expand in the oven. But, I am awesome at throwing flour. There is a special way you have to throw flour on the board (table) or on the dough: flour in hand, palm up, throw flour straight across like dice. We are not supposed to talk much in class, unless we are responding to the chef with "yes, chef," "no, chef," or "no excuses, chef." Laura (NY), however, was so impressed with my skills that she told me, from across the room.

Three people in my class missed class today for some reason, which is extremely odd because most people never miss a class the entire time they are at the CIA. As a class, we still added more dough to the schedule today, but we were down six hands. Therefore, the clock was not as nice to us today. We were dismissed for dinner around 6; by the time we walked to the kitchens, everything was either crowded, closed, or out of food. Emily and I went downstairs to the Meds kitchen for tapas from Spain. I have no clue what I ate at all, except for paella and gazpacho. I enjoy my food more when I actually know what I am eating instead of trying to guess, which I find to not be that exciting of a game.

This weekend. Georgia. Let the countdown begin, but until then, bread...

FLOUR CHILD

Hay Reh