Today was my second day at Maisson Pozzoli and I started at
2am, along with Alex and Alexandre. I got to work 30min early so I just sat
outside and waited in front of the door. The city is really peaceful but even
in the middle of the night it’s not as dark as it is in SA, that’s not
including the street lights, the sky itself is really light.
Alex arrived first and we went in, he switched on the oven
and the lights and we were greeted by the 2 cats that always seem to be in a
playful mood. After we got changed, Alex and I had some leftover viennoise from
the previous day for breakys. I just had a roulade with crème pat and pralines
and Alex had a pain viennoise au chocolat and a bowl of milk that was almost 1 litre
worth...when I asked him about that he said his father is a farmer,
specifically cows so that’s what he has for breakfast. I love milk but that’s
overkill J
We started by taking out all the dough out the chambre de
fermentation and I started dividing that and preshaping it (mise en forme) to
be rolled into baguettes. They don’t preshape it into balls because it ends up
manipulating the gluten more so it’s more difficult to shape afterwards.
Alexandre had come in by this time and was preshaping with me while Alex
continued with shaping the brioche into the tresse, boules and navettes.
Alex showed me how to preshape using 2 hands which is not as
easy as it sounds. I’m used to doing preshaping of small balls with my hands,
but with a piece of dough around 300g it’s not as easy since I have to
concentrate more on applying equal force in my left hand and also I have small
hands so it’s difficult to keep it all in my hand (I guess it’s true when they
say that anything more than a handful is a waste ha-ha). I kinda have it now
but I can’t do it as fast as Alex and Alexandre... it’s difficult working with
a wetter, softer dough as I seem to need more flour than the others but I guess
it’s just practise as I know that with some doughs I have no problem using
minimal flour, it just depends if you’re used to the dough or not.
Once the pieces of dough are preshaped they get put into a
machine which has these sleeves which are on a sort of conveyor belt so as you
fill up a sleeve you rotate them like a rotisserie almost and put the next set
in the following sleeve. My back also started to get sore as I’m not used to the
height of tables. Anyone who’s worked in a kitchen will know what I’m talking
about. You get used to a height on a section and if you move to another where it’s
not the same height you feel it. Will probably take a week to get used to it.
I shaped the kamut and epautre (spelt) and also did the
ciabatta... the ciabatta they make here has oil in it but like almost all of the
doughs here, they mix for longer, about 10-15min.
After we were done with the bread we helped making the
“cochon” which are little pigs made out of a Swiss meringue (a normal meringue
is just egg whites and sugar, a Swiss meringue is when the mix is whipped over
a flame so that its between 60-80 degrees and an Italian is when a sugar syrup
at 117 degrees is added in while the whites are being whipped. It has a texture
like a liquid marshmallow at this point. Some red food colouring powder is
added as a liquid would make the mix sink down. It’s then piped and the ears
are added with a flat tip and some white meringue is used for the eyes and a
mix of egg whites and cacao powder is used for the nose and pupils. Its then
cooked at 100 degrees and left overnight in the oven.
After work I walked home and then chatted with Marie for a
while. She stayed last night and tonight at Fatihas place. She’s a business
student from Sweden and we chatted for quite a while about differences in
Europe and SA and funnily enough about gender equality, racism and tolerance...
Working the strange hours at the bakery means when I go home
it’s at the height of the day but I’m so knackered I just eat and then pass the
f*** out.
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