Squeaky Clean

Today Benjamin was off so Alexandre wanted to do the shaping so he could take note of how long it takes him to shape and divide things. But he’s a demon.

Since he was shaping and dividing and Alex and William were doing the mixing of doughs and shaping, I was at the oven.

So all morning I was baking the bread and did ok except for making a few mistakes like scoring the T80 like the Epeautre which isn’t too bad as you can see the T80 is lighter after baking anyway...but still... and I was so focused on the baking and drying of the pain au lin I only remembered as I was taking them out the oven that half was meant to be pre-cooked...that was pretty frustrating.

But all in all I think I did a pretty good job. After all the baking was done, William helped me clean the glass doors for the oven after I removed them...sweating like a pedo in a Barney suit after that...and picked up a nice burn for my efforts. But afterwards...damn that oven looked sexy with it`s clean windows...how can you not want to bake in that?? I love it when equipment is all clean and sexy looking. Such a pleasure to work in a clean environment.

You only appreciate it when you’ve worked in a shithole before.

Alexandre said when it gets colder we can start burning some of the wooden crates in the wood oven to get rid of them as they don’t get recycled...weird since cardboard and plastic does. Stoked to see that (see what I did there?: p)

Alma Mater

Owned today!! Pushed out production like machines...ok, it was Alex, Alexandre, myself and Benjamin the new guy (in French its pronounced “bahn-jah-mahn” had no idea at first then I was like oh its BenjaminJ) we were done before 11am. Alex left around 10 as he had to go to school as well.

This month, the special bread that we’re making is with the Sarasin (buckwheat), I still prefer the pain au lin though as the seeds give so much flavour to the bread...

After work I missioned home, had a nice shower and then passed out until about 5pm...Woke up can started continuing on the product list of all the items I’ve made/tried/come across while here in France. I want to combine it with a list of what I’ve done before and have a data base of ideas and recipes.

Really excited about going back to SA and starting the next chapter in my life and career in Stellenbosch, South Africa and with the Hurst Campus. I’ve already started looking for a place to stay and thinking about what sort of stuff I want to make at the school and what I want to teach...

I think the biggest thing for me is if I can help nurture a generation of bakers...which is sorely needed in South Africa and really start growing the industry there.

Possibly help start baking competitions or compete in some if there are, which I haven’t heard of.

Shit’s getting real.

Working Out...

Starting today, this week I no longer divide the baguette dough in the morning, but divide and shape the biological bread which includes the pain aux 6 cereales, L’Authentic, T80, Epeautre, Campagne, pain complet, seigle Auvergne and pain au lin.

We do various shapes and sizes with the different doughs, ranging from “boules” or round loaves, to “miches” which are a longer, tapered oval shape, shorter than a baguette but much thicker. “Batards” or small ovals, and the large “flutes” as well. Some of the doughs are coated in either seeds or maybe oats or dried maize after shaping. For instance, the pain aux 6 cereales is coated in rolled oats which gives it a really nice almost peanut butter flavour when cooked.

Alexandre showed me some techniques to shape things really quickly and it really is insanely fast at a slight loss of regularity but that’s just because I’m not used to the method and the wetter dough as well. I think within the week I’ll have it down. When you see the movement of the shaping it makes sense in terms of flow and tightness/strength of the shape.

After shaping was done, I did the autolyse for the pate blanche (the base dough for all the baguettes we make)...200kg of dough is no laughing matter...

i lug 4x25kg bags of flour up from the cellar each morning and then have to take all the dough out of the mixer for the autolyse and put back for the final mixing.

Otherwise a pretty normal day. Finished really early so left work at like 10:30...did my weekly grocery shopping and then just chilled.