Wild Yeast

By my count, I’ve made around 100 baguettes in class over the past two weeks. Tomorrow I have practical exam in which I have to mix two doughs and make roughly 15 baguettes from each one. The next day is more practical exam, and that means more baguettes. I am tired at the end of each day, and if I’m being honest, I’m a little tired of baguettes too.

So what did this tired on tired translate into last night? When I got home, did I take a hot bath? Watch a little TV? Catch up on my reading? How about on my sleep? Well, no. I made a few more baguettes. I can’t explain this entirely. It had something to do with wanting to know if I could make a baguette in my own kitchen that looks as good as the ones we’ve been turning out in class.

The answer is no, I couldn’t. Or at least I didn’t (see below photo). However, because I am presumptuous by nature, I will presume to tell you what I know, or I think I know, about scoring the damn things.

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Yes, it’s still all about baguettes, through this week anyway.

Here’s a very quick tip: if your tips lift up, making your baguettes look like canoes, your oven might be too hot.

See this week’s yeast spottings…

In class last Friday, we mixed three doughs. These gave us plenty of opportunity for the all-important hands-on baguette practice, of course. They also illustrated the relationship between mixing time (and corresponding level of gluten development) and fermentation time, and the effects that these parameters have on the bread.

(These are my very own baguettes. You can see that my shaping and scoring needs work. And as the middle one clearly indicates, I cannot count to six.)

Let’s compare these babies, shall we? (Read more…)

I knew I could count on you for a few laughs. Thanks to everyone who sent jokes and good wishes in hopes of winning Advanced Bread and Pastry. I wish I had 107 copies of the book to give away.

Congratulations to Adam Holte of Stevens Point, Wisconsin, winner of the random drawing. Adam, when the book reaches you, I’m afraid you’re going to have to buckle down to catch up on your reading. The assignment for the first two weeks of class is Chapters 1–5. Have fun!

One week down, 23 to go. During my first five days at SFBI, my routine went something like this:

• 5:00 am: Out of bed.
• 5:10 am: Coffee. This step must not be omitted.
• 6:00 am: Hit the road. Unfortunately, my route to SFBI coincides with that to the airport. I have learned that every man, woman, and child in the Bay Area catches an early-morning flight each and every day.
• 6:45 am: Arrive at SFBI. Try to resist breakfast pastries. Fail miserably.
• 7:00 am – 1:30 pm: Get patient instruction and constructive feedback from Frank, our  talented and knowledgeable bread instructor. In the classroom and in the bakery-lab, learn about flour, water, yeast, salt, scaling, mixing, fermentation, proofing, scoring, baking, cooling, staling. Learn shaping of boules and batards (which I thought I knew, but didn’t). And practice baguettes, baguettes, dozens of baguettes! These babies are, hands-down, the hardest bread there is to shape and score properly. Say “uh-oh” (in reference to my own clumsy but thankfully improving efforts) several times an hour. “Oops” can be used interchangeably with “uh-oh.” And then, every once in a while, sometimes when I least expect it, there’s a “well, that didn’t turn out too badly after all, now, did it?”
• 1:30 pm: Lunch, prepared by SFBI staff. Always includes fresh bread and more irresistible pastries.

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