Day 24: Plating and Loving It.

Another busy day. Chef has us working on two breads and plating one desert ~ focaccia bread, pretzels and chocolate mousse. All very yummy indeed!

Earlier this week we made made a french bread, so kneading bread should become second nature. We started off the day by measuring out the ingredients for the two breads and starting the yeast. For a bread to rise, you typically need to use yeast. My first batch of yeast looked pretty good. The second for the pretzels looked a little off, but Chef said it was okay to use.

Focaccia topped with herbed cream cheese,
bacon and caramelized onions.

We started off with the focaccia bread because we were going to add ingredients to the top before baking it. Some of us used the mixer in class to knead the dough for them. There are only four mixer's so, I had to knead my own dough for the focaccia. It actually wasn't so bad. I have made breads by hand before, and it is always good practice to make bread by hand, because you never know when the machine you are using will break down. I added a few spices (rosemary, basil, and chili peppers to my flour before kneading. I let it rest in a warm spot over the stove.

After the dough had risen by double, I stretched the dough out onto a pan lined with parchment paper. I then lightly tapped my fingers all over the dough and started on the toppings. We made caramelized onions and bacon and let them cool off. Before adding the onion and bacon to the focaccia dough, I spread out a layer of cream cheese that had been infused with a few spices. Once cooled, I spread the onion and bacon on to the dough and as a finishing touch, grated some Parmesan cheese for the top. The focaccia was put in the oven bake at 375 F.

Pretzels topped with
coarse salt or sesame seeds.

When making the dough for the pretzels, it seemed that I didn't have the right amount of dry ingredient. We are told by Chef that when making a dough that we should keep a bit of the flour to the side because there are times where the dough may be too dry or too wet. You can always add more flour if a dough is too wet, but if it is too dry it is harder to add liquid. I found that finding the right texture for the pretzels was harder than for the foccaccia bread. The hard part for me in making pretzels is when you shape the dough in to a typical pretzel shape. I did manage to make one pretzel in the traditional shape. The rest are in the shape of a chain. No matter what shape you make your pretzel will still taste great. Especially when they first come out of the oven. We were offered the option by Chef of making a sweet pretzel ~ which I passed on. For a sweet pretzel, you could add ingredients such as nutmeg, cinnamon, or more sugar. Then when baked you could dust it with cinnamon sugar if desired. I wanted a traditional pretzel, one that had coarse salt on it. Before the pretzels were to be baked I washed them with a soda wash. A soda wash is made up of one teaspoon of baking soda, and two teaspoons of malt and warm water. After the pretzels were baked, they were washed with a glaze of honey and butter. I sprinkled coarse salt on half the pretzels and sesame seeds on the remaining half.

Chocolate Mousse.
My first attempt at plating.

Now with all the bread had been made and put away, Chef said that we would next plate our chocolate mousse deserts. Chef did demonstrations of how she would plate the chocolate mousse deserts that she had made yesterday ~ a small round, large round and a tear drop. For plating we had the options of strawberries, raspberries, mint leaves, and the berry coulis we made yesterday too. Chef demonstrated how she likes to fan a strawberry by first taking off the steam end and then slicing in to it from the pointed end. Before plating the strawberry with the desert Chef likes it fanned out. Chef plates looked so nice. I was so excited to try my hand on my own two deserts.

Getting a little more creative on my plating
using small sprigs of mint in the coulis.

I chose to use three raspberries placed on top of my small mousse with a small sprig of a few leaves added to it. I dotted the berry coulis around the chocolate mousse. For the large mousse, I sliced one strawberry and fanned it the way that Chef did and placed it on top of the mouse. I placed a few mint leaves in front of the strawberry. With the coulis I made what could look like a single quote three times around the chocolate mousse and placed very small mint leaves on the larger part of the 'quote'. Great way to end the day.

It's the weekend ~ TGIF. Well at least for me.