Day 25: Salt for Sugar

We start the week off in the kitchen scaling our ingredients for a milk bread and leaving our yeast to bloom in warm milk. While we are waiting for the yeast to react with the milk we start scaling out the ingredients for the rye bread and also get the yeast started for the rye. 

The milk dough is a two step method ~ wet ingredients are added to the dry ingredients and mixed together. The dough is kneaded to the proper texture and put in an oiled bowl to rise in a warm spot. When the dough has risen, we roll out our dough to about and 1/8 of an inch thick. We are making cinnamon rolls, and a brown sugar and cinnamon mixture is spread on top of the dough then dotted with butter. The dough is rolled and then cut into 1 1/2 rounds. The rounds are now put on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper and brushed with an egg wash and set aside before putting in a 375 F oven to bake.

Something went wrong with my cinnamon rolls ~ they didn't rise during baking. The same has happened to Chef and to a few of the students. Chef noticed when rolling out the dough that the dough just didn't seem right and continued on to show us what our cinnamon rolls would look like if the ingredients weren't exact as per the recipe. In determining what went wrong, Chef found that salt was in the sugar bin ~ and that instead of adding sugar to our recipe we were adding salt. Baking is an exact science ~ you cannot leave out an ingredient, substitute a main ingredient for another or increase or decrease a main ingredient substantiallly.

Our second bread today is a rye bread. I am making a rye bread with chopped walnuts and caraway seeds. This is not a traditional rye bread, but is more a rustic rye bread. Molasses is also added to give the rye bread it's colour and for taste. The kneading for the rye takes about 10 minutes to get it to the right texture and is then shaped in to a ball and put in a greased bowl to rise in a warm spot. After the dough has risen, the dough is pinched to the centre and formed to the shape of a ball. The top is scored with a knife and given an egg wash before leaving it to rise before putting it in to the oven at a temperature of 400 F.

We have worked quickly today, and Chef is having us make some corn bread. The corn bread is made with corn meal, bread flour, salt, sugar, baking soda, egg, and water. We are making a savoury corn bread and have added ingredients such as fire roasted red peppers, lime zest, sun dried tomatoes, chipotle peppers, and cheddar cheese. I like the savoury corn bread, but I think I like the sweet better and will make a corn bread muffin next time.

Chef assigned me as Sous Chef for the week. Sous Chef is responsible for the kitchen when the Chef is not there. I had the role of assigning clean up jobs for my colleagues. I think we did a great job on cleaning the kitchen for the next crew in.

Homework I don't feel like doing tonight. If I get a chance before I leave for school, I'll do a quick read on pies.