In the zone

So I got to work and drank an energy drink and then slept for about 30min on top of the freezer before Alexandre woke me up when he got there. Got changed and onto the work...

We were banging out the bread like machines...Alexandre used the divider to do some rustically shaped baguettes while I did all the biological bread and misc. shapes. By the time Benjamin came in at 2 we were almost done with everything. I got onto mixing all the other dough’s like kamut and spelt, viennoise and seigle Auvergne. The seigle Auvergne came out flippen sexy, with beautiful colouration and cracks. And I divided and shaped the viennoise on my own as well, as Benjamin was pretty slow even though he only had the white dough to do.

I honestly was in the zone, not talking much, just kept my head down and got shit done. I love that feeling or over tired second wind energy where you just go with everything. Alexandre mixed a rye recipe with some orange juice and zest in it which is an interesting idea.

After cleaning we were done around 10:30 and I was exhausted as once the work slows down, fatigue starts to creep in, but still pushed on. Oh and Bonnie is pregnant!!! You can see her belly swelling up already. She’s so cute...and I feel very protective of her but she still runs around and chases things like normal.

Ah and the ginger beer I brewed was really good. It could’ve fermented a bit more but it’s so cold at night that it couldn’t be helped.

When I got home I passed out hard, but only after cooking and doing some washing J and I woke up late!!! I had set my alarm but I only woke up after the rugby test match between SA and France had started. Anyway, I rushed to King Arthur where Alex, Pierre, Hugo and a beer were already waiting for me. Was a bit shit because they had some chick singing so they had no volume on the game but then again the French are more into their soccer.

The game wasn’t that great but SA beat France so no worries...  I bought a round of 3 pints of that awesome banana bread beer for Alex, Hugo and myself and when I got my sms for the transaction I was shocked...20 plus euros came to R275 for 3 pints!!!! They must’ve upped the prices a bit as its December but still...for that price I could buy 2 cases of beer back home. Oh well. It was a good night.

Everyone was hungry so we decided to go to McDonalds which was the first time I was going to one in France. They have a really cool system where you put your order through on a touch screen and pay for it, then just wait with your ticket until its ready. It’s so efficient and would really be better for SA I think. They also give you an option of potato wedges which I thought was really cool.

Fond u

Good day of production today...except for the fact that I weighed of the chataigne recipe with just the chestnut flour instead of the T80...so to compensate we changed the recipe and ended up with enough bread for the week so we just precooked most of it and stored it in the freezer.

I was invited to the official house warming of Alex and his housemate Hugo for dinner so I met up at their place around 8pm. I was a little delayed because there was something delaying the metro and once they got it working there was a bottleneck of people so the first 3 trains were too full: p

Finally once I got there I was welcomed by everyone but luckily wasn’t the last to arrive. In the meanwhile we played some COD Blackops multiplayer on Xbox. Alex’s younger brother is really good and kicked my ass, albeit not too much ...but if I was on a pc I would’ve totally owned him.

For snacks we had some dried sausage (not droewors [South African dried sausage], but saucisson sec) and some lovely sardine pate which was almost like a gourmet fish paste on some bread. As well as some Beaujolais wine (wine from the new season) which was really fruity and light in alcohol.

Finally we got down to the main event: RACLETTE! They bought half a wheel of raclette cheese which was cut up into small slabs, plates of charcuterie including ham, Parma ham, salami, coppa, mortadella, “bacon” as they called it, potatoes and more bread. So there was a small machine with and element underneath and everyone had a little pan where you put your cheese into and slid underneath to melt. There is a warm plate in top which kept the taters nice and hot too.

So you cut up your charcuterie into smaller, bite size pieces and pour the melted cheese over your taters and charcuterie and chow like that. It’s a really cool, communal eating experience. Although one guy mixed his charcuterie and potatoes together and made a paste almost...which looked disgusting and is think is kinda disrespectful to the host and the food but anyway, not my house.

I ate so much though and we only finished after 23:00 so I decided to go straight to work as Alexandre and I had decided to start at 00:30....

Cat & ‘mousse’

Today was a standard push...

But after all the bread was done being baked we got stuck onto decorating the gingerbread houses. Mr Pozzoli coated the roofs with chocolate and then sprinkled some hail sugar down the sides, then Alexandre and Alex piped on some royal icing which is 6 parts icing sugar to 1 part egg whites. Looks almost like meringue but it’s more like a grainy paste texture. We made a crap load of the base and then mixed small amounts of green and red icing as well. So Alex and Alexandre did the edge of the roofs, chimneys and ledge, making it looks like the snow was built up.

Afterwards we put little mushrooms and Santa Clauses on which were made of jellies and icing! I piped on vines and leaves and then little red berries. We had a nice production line going and we were literally on our knees sometimes in order to get the icing on.

They also made “longhopf” which is a sort of Austrian brioche with rum-soaked raisins, almonds, walnuts, hazelnuts and specific alsacean spices. It’s baked in a clay mould and afterwards is brushed with melted butter and dusted in cinnamon brown sugar. Looks sick! Mmm I wish is could stay to still see all of the products that get produced but I’m already looking forward to coming home.

I found Bonnie playing with a small mouse in the afternoon. The poor thing’s heart was beating so fast and you could see that it was almost dead. But Bonnie would just chase it then pick it up in her mouth and then play with it again. So is did what is thought was best and killed the mouse. It was pretty gruesome as when I stepped on it, crushed everything and I felt a bit bad but at least it was a quick, albeit brutal death.

It’s still super cold as well...my heater is on permanently J

It’s raining snow!

Standard day today, except for the part where Izam made an 80kg poolish O_o  ha-ha is have no idea what he did with the autolyse but there was a layer of flour on the inside of the mixer that just did not get hydrated. Alexandre eventually had to add an additional 7 kg of flour... my guess is Izam probably added 10 litres too much water. Benjamin was ok in that he wasn’t too slow or didn’t make any mistakes.

I helped Alexandre bake some biscuits in the afternoon. A really practical system where you lightly brush a sheet of silicone paper with water then place an inverted cutter mould sheet on top (so sharp edge is facing up) then sheet your biscuit dough and then place over the sheet mould, covered by a silpat  mat and then use a rolling pin to “cut” out the biscuits by rolling over the dough. As Alexandre likes to say “it’s a factory” J

I was feeling pretty tired after work so went down to the cellar and just lay on the flour for like 10 min and played with the cats. I’m going to miss them when I leave...

It’s snowing!!!! I almost couldn’t believe it this morning when is saw the soft white flakes dancing down into the street. So after a nice hot shower and layering up as best I could I ventured out. Bloody hell it was flippen cold. The ground was also slippery as hell. Had to watch my step. Snow is a lot more mystical and romantic when your face isn’t freezing and you aren’t covered in tiny pieces of slowly melting ice.

The houses and trees looked sick with that fluffy white layer on them though. And is walked past a mom playing with her little kid in the snow, making snowballs and throwing them at each other.

Walked around a bit and took some pics, then popped into L’Atelier des Boulangers and bought a tarte tout chocolate, pain au cacao and a mini sandwich with jambon cru and ricotta. The pain au cacao was really cool...a chocolate bread with chocolate chips.  A slice of that toasted for breakfast with bananas and syrup would be sick. Or even a nice orange and ginger marmalade or something like that.

Gonna be brewing some ginger beer tomorrow...representing baby! Really looking forward to sunny South Africa now though...more baking, dnb [drum ‘n bass ] and krav maga await!!