the weather outside is frightful...

Austin gets a snowfall every couple of years and today was the day. The local TV weathermen work themselves into a lather in anticipation and it becomes the talk of the city. It wasn't snowing when I went to work but it started coming down around 9:00am. It never amounts to much but it's a nice treat to see a snowfall now and then.

The good news is that my garage isn't cluttered with a snow shovel and snow blower. I like the extra space...

forgive me, for i have sinned.....

In the world of carpentry, the adage is to measure twice and cut once. In the world of baking, there are two types of people.... ones that have mis-measured ingredients and ones that will. Today was my turn.

The cafe uses a ton of buttermilk biscuits so the chore today was to make a double batch. For reasons unknown, I thought that 20 pounds of flour would be more fun than the necessary 10 pounds that the double recipe called for. Once it goes in the mixing bowl, you're kind of committed. Luckily, I noticed the problem immediately and it was fixable.

For efficiency purposes, everything the bakery makes is done on a large scale (let's say 100 items) and then frozen. During the week, smaller batches (15 for example) are thawed, allowed to rise (proof) and then baked. Everything gets used quickly so making a double (in this case quadruple) batch isn't a big deal if it is caught and corrected. For penance, I had to say 10 Hail Mary's and cut 360 biscuits. Urrggghhhh....

practice, practice, practice....

The 12 week externship is half over. The first 6 weeks have flown by. I still have the occasional issue but I no longer feel like a total klutz with the rolling pin.

The overnight baker said something recently that has had me giggling all week long. One morning, I made 35 baguettes. When they came out of the oven, I was berating myself because they all weren't identical. Many were close to perfect but some were fat on the ends while others were wider in the middle. I asked out loud if I would ever get it right. The baker said "Just remember that you are always 2 steps away from perfection but 1 step away from failure."

How true. Giggle

wine.....

Today was a great day. Everything seemed to click. They are starting to make me do some of "heavy lifting" and I'm starting to fly solo. Today I knocked out 125 pizza crusts for one of the restaurants, 200 slider buns, breakfast banquet trays, croissant dough, danish dough (love that cardamom) and I made some tiramisu desserts. I came home, ran 6 miles and now it's time for a class of wine. Cheers

cardamom...

One of the fringe benefits of baking are the smells. It's kind of strange but two of my favorite smells are ingredients rather than the final product. The smell of the "sour" used in sourdough bread is to die for. Most people hate it but I love the smell of fermenting yeast. My new favorite smell is cardamom. It's an expensive spice that is used in danish dough. We mix danish dough every 3 days and I gladly volunteer for dough duty. The cardamon is bought in pod form and it is ground into a powder. I also volunteer for that duty. I probably appear very eager to take on any task but it's all about the smell...

scrape the bowl then scrape your arm...

One task of interest this week has been the baking of a wedding cake. It was a white cake mixed in my favorite mixer - 20 pounds of dry ingredients and gallons of water and vegetable oil. The batter produced round cakes of 14" (x2), 10", 8" and 6" (x4). Scraping the bowl involves rolling up your sleeve, holding a bowl scraper in your hand and diving in. You only go halfway to your elbow but it's kind of fun. The mixing "paddle" is bigger than your face so there isn't any licking of the beater. Nuts

high anxiety....

First of all, I want to credit the photographer of the dessert pictured to the left. It's a quenelle of Arroz Con Leche ice cream (rice pudding ice cream). It came from a nice blog that I've added to my favorite links section.

There are 2 things that I cannot seem to get a handle on in the kitchen - one is writing on a cake and the other is spooning out quenelles. It's a very special scooping method that is typically used for serving frozen desserts. There is no such thing as close enough when it comes to serving a quenelle.

I was helping out yesterday with the set up of a wedding party banquet. It required a whipped cream quenelle on every plate and it was a disaster. I had an anxiety attack last night over my inability to do this. I'll never get a job if I can't do this, etc, etc. It's not an issue in a bakery but any sort of fine dining requires it. I think I'll be buying a couple of quarts of heavy cream, whipping it and practicing this weekend. Then I'm going to make some Arroz Con Leche ice cream. It sounds great.