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!!

Teamwork

Teamwork !

Nice day today...sick push in the morning with everyone hands on, Benjamin and I doing the pate blanche, Yann doing bio, Alex doing the viennoiserie, seigle Auvergne, ciabatta, Sarasin, autolyse etc...And Alexandre on the oven. I ended up spending the morning with Alexandre, taking notes about small details when scoring different ways. He told me he knows 30 different ways to score a boule, different shapes just by changing small details, even if it’s still the same amount of scores. And the difference between a baker and someone just chucking some dough in the oven is the finesse and the attention to visual detail. Making sure your scores are all parallel, corners all in line etc...It’s all noticed on a subconscious level.

It made me kind of sad to think about coming home...I don’t want to stop learning. But I’ll have to put more effort into upping my game and trying things out myself. I definitely want to visit Maison Pozzoli again in a few years... or maybe even have chef and Alexandre come visit Cape Town for a bit...I already want to try to organise to get a case of wine to them...

I ended up loading most of the bread today...it went ok, except for a few very borderline bakes...and I let the Sarasin over prove which sucks. It’s a really dense bread and not really responsive...one minute I check it and it feels dense and under proved, 5 min later and I see the surface starting to separate like when dough is over proving and I knew it was a mess. And it bakes pretty long as well...

We had some baking students come in and visit today... like I mentioned before most areas have a baking school but these kids looked young. When I asked chef about it he said most were 15/16 and already studying to enter the service/kitchen/baking area. That’s hectic!! They all looked very smart in formal suits though.

After baking was done I helped the others line crap loads of tins with pate feulletage for the quiches...everyone was involved, even chef and Jean-Luc (the guy who calls me compote) after that we prepped a huge batch of monsieur. Here they put the cheese on top and gratinate it.

Came home and chilled. Yesterday the curtain fell down when I tried to open it (the walls are very old and powdery and the curtain was too heavy. So now I just put them around my bed so I have a curtain to keep light out and heat in since I sleep on the couch anyway. Fatiha and I were joking that it’s like those bed forts you make when you’re a kid J

Working Out

Today was weird. Benjamin was pretty slow and I had to load the bread because Alexandre was doing the pastry and other Alexandre left before 10 for school, and in between I was trying to do autolyse so it was a bit chaotic, but good. Without someone telling me what to do all the time, and knowing I needed to pull my finger out my ass, I did...running around but in a good way. I was the same when I started my stage so I’m not judging...I’m just glad I’ve progressed a bit.

My body also isn’t as tired and I think it’s just because I was so lazy before my stage started. Now, every day before I shower, I do either some push ups, dips, squats or sit ups (unfortunately, nowhere I can do pull ups) and so my body is always a bit sore, which actually makes me feel more awake and like I have more energy. I can easily carry 2 bags of flour (50kg) at a time, so I do...I just treat it like exercise anyway.

I helped make mini burgers for an order...mini beef with cheddar, gherkin and ketchup
chicken crusted in crumbs and seeds, wholegrain mayo, cheddar and thin slices of red onion
salmon and mozzarella with dill,rocket, sesame seed coated chevre, jambon cru and Turkish apricots.

When I got home I was so knackered I wanted to sleep but just ended up procrastinating most of the day, not getting around to writing anything even though I have loads I can do.

Looking forward to Friday though, I have a house warming in the evening and afterwards there’s a bass music party in the 7e arrondismont (district) and I’m not working Saturday so I don’t have to stress...maybe I can walk past there on my way home to pick up a croissant? J

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.