Cat & Mouse…

Today I got up at 1 as normal...walked down. It was nice and warm too... there was another guy there today who was doing a trial, I think his name was jean or something like that. So we had 4 guys working on the bread and viennoiserie so we nailed it today.

I worked on the divider first. It cuts the dough that you put into it into 20 pieces so when the dough is put into the containers, it’s weighed off to a specific amount so when you place the dough in, it’s all even after its divided and at your desired weight (approximately). The other guy did the preshaping.

It was quite hot today so the dough was stickier than usual and we had to push a bit. Afterwards I worked with the baguette rolling machine. You set the thickness of the space between the rollers like you would for a dough sheeter and then you just pop the piece of preshaped dough in and it goes through a series of rollers and comes out in about 10-12 seconds. I know when I times myself it took me about 20 secs at my best to shape a baguette so it’s definitely faster if you’re doing a large volume of baguettes. After they come out we just have to light roll it out a bit more before we place it on the couche. All the baguettes have to be the same lengths as when it’s displayed you want regularity, not the odd loaf sticking up here and there.

I then did the pain viennoise, shaping the natures into fiselles ( a long stick) and the chocolate baton ones into navette ( a tapered cigar shape, which is scored in a crisscross pattern called “polka”, and also shaping 10 pieces into little balls and placing them in a long tin for pain de mie.

The guys sometimes forget that I don’t speak French that well and they just talk super-fast and imp like “lentement...encore”. Especially with numbers because I have to translate it first...after 60, they say 70 as 60(+) 10, 80 as 4(x) 20 and 90 as 4(x) 20 10 soixante-diex, quatre vingt, quatre vingt diex respectively...so for example, 95 is said as quatre vingt diex cinq (four twenty ten five).

They prebake a batch of “pain aromatique” small breads once every 7-10 days and then freeze them and finish baking batches for each day as it’s only about 2 small breads of each flavour. Some flavours are fig and honey, chorizo and walnut, Comte and hazelnut, bacon lardons and blue cheese (a generic blue vein), mixed fruits and nuts, olive. I really like the combinations of nuts with meat or cheese...the flavour of comet is really similar to toasted hazelnuts and so complimentary.

All their extra walnuts and hazelnuts (in French, walnuts are “noix” and hazelnuts are “noixette) they keep in the freezer and they can last for a year like that. When I went down to the cellar (cave [kav] in French) the 2 cats were there and after initially running away with the usual cat look of wtf who is this person I called them and they came to me and I petted them a bit and I could see they don’t get a lot of attention so I will try to play with them a little every day...they’re also both very young, but really good at chasing mice. In the morning they’re darting around our legs and behind the flour chasing the tiny mice...it must be a cats dream J

We get to eat any leftover viennoiserie from the previous day so I nailed a pain viennoise with sugar and emmental...weird but it works.

Alexandre was making pannetone in the morning and he told me they mix the dough for 1 hour at a temp of 24-26 degrees (most recipes call for a temp of 24 ideally as this is for the flavour development). Mr Pozzoli adds citrus peel and pralines to his pannetone. In Lyon there are 2 kinds of praline, the praline concasse which is pinker and used in roulades or brioche and then praline rouge which is a deeper red colour and it used for decoration and tarte praline.

Later in the day I was watching Mr Pozzoli line a tart base and he makes it look so easy...I chatted with him a bit, in French, and actually did pretty well. I found out that he had competed in the coupe du monde de boulangerie (world cup of baking) for 8 years and actually came second!(I don’t know when or how many times)... that’s next level shit..

He’s also one of the organisers or members of an organisation that holds an international baking competition. This year it will be in St Etienne and he said I can go with to watch when it happens....I’m so friggen stoked for that!! He also gave me a book compiled by members of the organisation last year with recipes that they selected. SCORE!!!

Today was good...nice pace, I felt productive and learnt a crap load about baking and French. Whenever I have a question about baking, Mr Pozzoli or Alexandre can give me an answer so there’s never a brick wall. I just sometimes throw in a German word when I'm speaking French without even noticing...