Friday, December 27, 2013
Let's give this a try: I would like my entire class from this winter term to blog on three events that reflect back on a day in the life of you as a student in BPA 1050. Feel free to discuss anything that will enhance the educational experience as well as what might have improved your experience within the classroom. Please keep this professional and courteous to all current and future users. Thanks in advance and I look forward to all of you sharing your professional opinions. Here is some food for thought!
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Day 3 began a little rocky for my team and I. We arrived at 6:00 am, and thank goodness we did. Although we did not get in the lab until 6:20 due to the door being locked, we still went on as usual. We mixed the brioche and danish dough just like normal, however, the danish dough did not come out the way it should have. We realized that something went wrong when we were scaling, and there was not the correct amount of dry ingredients. It was a careless mistake that set our group back. We pulled together as a team and luckily produced a new batch efficiently. I am proud of my group because we did not let that mistake bring us down for the rest of production. We were able to accomplish several things, including the addition of making hazelnut filling and lemonade for the class. I am proud of the way my team worked through it, however, we cannot make simple mistakes anymore.
ReplyDeleteTwo years later and day 3 is still the worst day. Today was so beyond confusing and now trying to make this production schedule for tomorrow is just not fun at all. There is literally 6 doughs, plus muffins... But don't worry guys, I will bring advil to numb the headaches we are all about to have. On the bright side, everything is delicious and I have a great team that is really on top of all the chaos.
ReplyDelete[Rachael WiseleyApril 29, 2014 at 11:17 AM
Day 3 has been said to be the hardest and most stressful day of all in this class. We had a lot of products to make and we had to be sure that everything was remember ed. Production today was definitely heavier than yesterday which was expected and we had to hustle a lot faster to get things done but overall the day wasnt bad. Having a great group that gets along so well definitely helps in class, our group of 4 has been the best group that ive been in and im so glad i get to work with them even if we did have to vote someone off the island today because her brioche always comes out so perfect!! ( you know who you are ELI.) I am definitely going to be watching her next time to improve my own skills! Our product today came out good, the color was definitely better and our proofing was still really good, the egg wash on the chocolate croissants was a little heavy though. We also had some difficulty and confusion when it came to laminating today but we figured it out with chefs help. Overall i am very proud of my group for what we accomplished today and for surviving the supposedly dreaded day 3. I am excited to see how tomorrow goes!]
Day 3 wasn't as hard as I was expecting it to be. My group works very well together and we were able to stay on top of all the different doughs. We did make a couple of minor mistakes though that we need to be more careful about in the future. I didn't space the danishes out enough, so they did not bake as evenly as they should have. When we laminated our danish dough the butter may have been too warm, but it didn't seem to affect the lamination process. Our swiss rolls were also baked too long so the corners were hard and dry. As a group our Brioche shaping improved although the head sizes were still irregular.
ReplyDeleteDay 3 was not as bad as I thought it would be. After missing day 2, I was pretty sure I would be completely out of the loop and would never return to where we were at. At first, I was definitely a little confused o what we were doing. Following all the different generations of dough was a challenge. Trying to remember what dough needed to be placed where was difficult, but I starting to get the hang of it. For the brioche, they seemed to almost topple over and some seams were obvious. With practice I feel they will come out better. Laminating our dough seemed pretty easy, just remembering the steps can get confusing even though it's repetitive. I think setting some timers will help us with proofing our dough and switching out from the freezer/cooler. Towards the end of the day, baking became a bit hectic since other teams were using the oven when we needed it, so tomorrow I think starting different doughs will help with that.
ReplyDeleteOn day 2, each group had to produce brioche, Danish dough, and pumpkin muffins. We were also learning how to use the sheeter with chef. My group was going to be the last group to learn how to use the sheeter, so we decided to produce the brioche and pumpkin muffins first. However, we did not plan our time out very well because as we started to make the muffins, it was time to egg wash the brioche and then it was almost our turn to use the sheeter for the Danish dough. Fortunately, chef allowed us to finish what we were doing before we started using the sheeter. Next time we will have to make sure we plan out our time better before starting something.
ReplyDeleteOn day 4, we had to produce croissants, brioche, and zucchini muffins. I think I have a pretty clear understanding on how to use the sheeter and laminating doughs. I'm always still nervous of having the dough fly off the sheeter and onto the floor, but hopefully I'll get over that. When we were proofing our croissants chef said that we could turn down the heat in the proof box so the mohawk on the croissant won't fall over next time, so that is something that we can work on. For our brioche chef said they were not too bad, the only thing we should work on though is not leaving them in the proof box as long. For the amount of time we left them in for, when the dough rose, and fell the chocolate batons broke. Throughout the day chef threw some additional tasks our way, and we still finished all of our items and those additional early enough in the day with every one else that we got to leave early.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteThe majority of people from previous classes talked about how day 3 is day from hell, but it wasn't that bad. Our group stayed on top of everything and worked smoothly to finish all of our products, plus a few side projects for chef. We only had a few mishaps, which were letting our butter block get too soft and me trimming way too much off the edges and wasting potential croissants. Our danishes were shaped well, but some were a little off and we also we didn't space them out correctly. And my brioche needed longer necks and more consistent heads. Overall, i'm doing a lot better in this class than I expected and i'm excited to do more.
ReplyDeleteDay 5 was not as hectic as I expected it to be (but there was still a ton to do!) Today my group, group 3, became an example to the rest of the class for how we cut our dough for the danishes. Unfortunately, we trimmed way too much off of our dough and had a lot of scrap left. Scrap= money. For the future, we know now to use the table as our guide. All of our group members forgot that step in the process and know we are going to look back on demo videos and notes to ensure we are not forgetting any important steps. Our danishes were too light. We have to keep in mind that we aren't going for a "supermarket" color, but darker than we are used to. I also feel that having a production guide may help just a bit with when to start what, but we were all on track with what we had to produce.
ReplyDeleteOn Day 4 and 5 I really started to understand the whole process and it was easier to keep track of all the doughs and what times everything needed to get done. On day 4, when we divided our brioche we didn't level it out correctly on the divider so the weight of all the pieces were very uneven. Fortunately, we caught it before we shaped them, so we were able to fix it. I improved on the shaping of the Petit Tete, but the sizes of the heads weren't all the same. On day 5, one pan of our chocolate croissants was taken out of the oven to early and the center collapsed ,so we need to make sure that we are more carful and bake it longer next time.
ReplyDeleteDay 5 was an unorganized day for my group and I. Yesterday, we had a production list to look off of and to keep track of our times. Today, we simply had a to-do list. We knew what we had to do, and we began to complete each task. As the day got a little bit more busy, we started to struggle and we lost track of things that needed to be done by certain times. This caused us to get a bit behind, but in the end we were able to catch up and the products came out well. After today, I learned that a production schedule is something that will be very helpful to our group.
ReplyDeleteDay 2- I was surprised with the success my group had today. In breads, the schedule was very similar to that of viennoissarie so I was pretty terrified. My breads team hit hurdle after hurdle and really had a hard time producing. I think zoe and I have really learned from our mistakes in bread and have focused in extra hard to details. My brioche petit tets were a bit rough to look at but after asking a lot of questions, I know where I need to focus. The necks need to be long enough and the shoulders need to be tucked back around so there is a prominent shoulder. My group needs to work on the 1/3 to 2/3 proportions. We have very inconsistent sizes. For the Danish though, we had butter that was too hard and the consistencies didn’t match. So there may have been some breaks and stretch marks. We need to make sure to take the butter out early enough before laminating. Also when encasing the butter in the dough, we had a mountain of extra dough at the seam so that too may have caused some flaws to our final product. We had to work with that mountain of dough on the seam but we learned that if that happens, to just tuck the rest of the dough back under and it was retain a smaller shape.
ReplyDeleteDay 4- Today's hiccups included a hide drill and some misshapen Danish dough. Firstly, in the midst of production we had to pause our work to practice for a hide drill. Thankfully we had nearly nothing being processed. We did have muffins to be glazed which of course we didn’t know we had to glaze. So there was some rapid scaling and glazing seconds before the drill. Our second hiccup occurred when we began to laminate Danish dough. In preparation for this dough, a team member rounded it instead of flattening it so it was tensed up when we corrected the work. It was impossible for the dough to stretch back out to the size of a sheet pan. This bit us in the butt today when we tried fitting a square butter into a round dough. So to properly laminate, it took a lot of stretching and pulling and shaping that just resulted in the dough shrinking and having missing butter spots. It’s not the prettiest laminated dough and it will probably result in uneven products.
ReplyDeleteDay 5- Today’s big problem was organization. Our team decided the production time log was too complicated to keep up with so instead we made a to do list. We ran into several problems where we stood at the table trying to figure out what was our next priority and what to mix next. After some help from chef, we made am impromptu time log so we could manage the ovens, proofs, folds, and everything else without running into any overlaps. It’s hard to balance the ovens and proofing when you don’t know when the other teams will be suing the ovens. We had a 15 minute buffer period waiting to put our croissants into the oven because another team was using it. But we are definitely going to make some sort of production schedule for the rest of the classes so we no longer waste time planning during class.
ReplyDeleteDay 5, all in all it was a good day. we did have a few missteps, my team worked with team one in making Stollen, plus we also made crescents,banana muffins,and mixed sweet bread dough for tomorrow. while mixing the banana muffin batter, we forgot to have chef check our creamed butter and sugar like he wanted us to do. which resulted in our batter being a little under mixed. This caused the muffins to have small burst (like raised bumps)on the muffin tops. One big thing we realized before it was way too late, was that we neglected to do the final sheeting and tri-fold for our crescent dough. Well actually that is half right. we realized after baking today's crescents.Chef was right when he said this class is like working in a bake shop. But I love everything about this class.
ReplyDeleteThis is an entry I wrote two days ago, and actually posted it to the work site. (don't ask ).
ReplyDeleteDay 3, Okay here goes, today was day three. I was ready to get started on the brioche and danish dough for tomorrows production and then jump right in and get today's danish dough laminated. Normally each team has four students in them. However, mine was three members down. But I wasn't worried. in my mind I actually believed I could do it all and keep pace. But then again in my mind I think I can do a lot of things, like still run ten miles. My production went pretty well, thanks to the help of a few of my classmates, (thanks team 1 and who ever else chipped in). I cannot thank them enough for all the help they gave me. I actually enjoyed today. I got to mix the danish dough, and do all the sheeting for my team. I think one of the best things about this class, is that it is non stop. before you know it, it is time to start cleaning. For me, I wish it was longer. The more on hands I get to do, the more I learn. I can't wait to see what tomorrow brings. :)
After day 6, it is clear that this class requires complete attention and focus. My group, once again, made careless mistakes. We laminated the danish dough to the correct dimensions, however, we did not cut it properly. We cut the dough as if we were going to make croissants. This caused us to ditch the danish plan and we had to make croissants. They did not come out well since the dough was too thick. My group and I need to pay more attention to what we are doing and overall, we need to calm down. It is perfectly okay to have fun and laugh once in a while, but it is now getting in the way of our own success. I am hoping day 7 will be a day of redemption for my group.
ReplyDeleteI thought day 6 was very stressful. We had a lot of things to produce and we still did not have a good sense of when to make things and put them in the oven. One mistake we made was putting the muffins in the oven even though we needed to put croissants in the oven in a few minutes. We held ourselves and everyone else back from putting their things in the oven. We also folded our sweet dough the wrong way, so while we produced a lot, the nut rolls and cinnamon rolls were small. Hopefully when practical day comes we will not make the same mistakes.
ReplyDeleteWednesday's class was definitely a rough one. Our group forgot to laminate our dough a third time the previous day and ended up with funky shaped and colored croissants. We immediately went back to do a third lamination to our dough for the next day for our danish.
ReplyDeleteThen, on Thursday, there was a goof up with whoever scaled out our danish dough for that day (but a few days prior) and someone forgot the salt and sugar; the color was off due to lack of sugar which makes a camarlization-color. We had to scrap our product because they were so off but now we know to pay extra attention to detail.
Day 6 was quite a day. For the most part we were on top of things with times for dough, mis en place, and getting our doughs mixed. However when we were cutting our croissants there was a bit of miscommunication and we had our steps wrong. We accidentally folded the dough and trimmed with it folded which resulted with an excessive amount of dough that could have been saved. We then ended up having three sheet pans of croissants instead of four. After that experience our group realized that we need to communicate with each other more and really understand what is going on and the steps. We realized the mistake and learned from it which is all that really matters.
ReplyDeleteLesson of the day for day 6: do not go into auto pilot
ReplyDeleteMy group was making danishes instead of croissants today. We decided on chocolate croissants. We stretched the dough out to the appropriate danish thickness (2.5 mm, 2x) and took it back to the table. Without thinking we cut the dough in half like you do for regular croissants. If we continues with chocolate after that mistake we would've had too much waste so we had to make thick croissants. That half a millimeter difference was actually a big deal. After they proofed some looked okay and some folded into themselves. I gotta constantly remind myself to slow down and think. We might not be as fast but we wont have to try to fix what we ruined.
Day five: respect the quick breads.
ReplyDeleteUp until today I saw the quick breads as an easy addition to production. Yes they are easier than other products like danish or brioche, but they are not a throw away. We had to scale the banana bread three times because of careless mistakes. The first time I forgot to half the amount of baking powder. Because that put us behind I rushed more the second time and didn't notice that sugar was added into the dry ingredients. By this point I'm just mad that more than 20 minutes has been spent on scaling quick bread. The third time we scaled correctly and got the muffins in the oven. We recovered but that doesn't take away from the frustration from scaling something multiple times. All products matter, scale everything carefully.
DAY-7, What a day. I am not sure if it was because it is Monday, or because most of us had very little sleep, or most likely both. But I know we made quite a few little mistakes that just kept building up . I kept pretty quiet today, well that is quiet for me. Two more days and then it is on to the last segment. I wouldn't mind if this class had a few more days. Tomorrow we are processing our danish dough, shaping and baking our sweet dough and making our quick bread. My team drew Sour Cream Coffee cake muffins. Which normally I would be excited about. However, today a bunch of us had them over flowing as they baked. Chef gave us a few ideas on why this might have happened. So We take his advice and hope for the best. I will sign in my final two days to update my status.
ReplyDeleteDay 7 was not SUPER crazy but mostly like every day in class. Our group was able to process and bake all our products without much of a problem. There was a hiccup (because of me) during the lamination of our whole wheat dough, but our pretzel croissants seemed to come out fine. We also had a timing issue where our sweet dough was ready to become cinnamon rolls and hazelnut snails, but our brioche was fully proofed and ready for the oven! If there's anything that you'll remember from this class, it's to time your production well.
ReplyDeleteDay 6 was a little hectic working with the sweet dough for the first time. We figured out a little too late that we filled the cinnamon buns too much and thats why they exploded when they started baking. We also need to roll them tighter next time so they aren't as open as they were today.
ReplyDeleteDay 7 was not as busy as Chef had described it. Our class always finished on time, which I have no clue how. The main problem that keeps reoccuring, especially today, is groups going in the ovens out of order when its communicated to them that another group is going in, or when one group fills up both ovens with things like muffins when other groups need to put in Danish or Brioche. The whole wheat croissants were so good. Filling them with potatoes and bacon and cheese made the day worth while (somewhat), I would definitely make these at home.
ReplyDeleteDay 7 was very unorganized at the beginning. I made a couple of mistakes, probably because I was unorganized and trying to do to many things at once. It didn't affect the overall production, but it slowed our production down. Trying to make sure we got everything into the proofer on time was stressful, but once we got everything into the proofer it was not too bad. On the practical we need to make sure we bake everything correctly and we need to make sure we don't open the ovens too soon.
ReplyDeleteWell today was a mess! I tried to make a good day out of this monday but, of course, it was just one of those mondays. Several things went wrong, but are easy fixes to figure out for the practical coming. We forgot to egg wash the croissants before proofing, forgot to egg wash the cinnamon snail-products before baking, and we put too much baking powder in our sour cream coffee cake muffins and they spewed over and did not look good. We know to fix them for tomorrow and day 9, but very disappointing day for me on a personal level because those mistakes could have easily been avoided if I/we had paid more attention.
ReplyDeleteDay 7 was definitely one of the most hectic days for my group. One reason was for me I was a little unorganized and tried to get so many things done not realizing when the right things needed to be done. The thing that could definitely improve my confidence for practical would be making a very detailed production sheet. This way I can follow along and make sure I get the right things done at the right time. There is always room for improvement and every day we experience how to make things better.
ReplyDeleteToday was a very stressful day because I was absent the yesterday and had to catch up on all the things I have missed. I found out when I got there in the morning that two of my other team members weren’t there either so only one of my team members were there to learn everything and help us catch up. I do have to say with everything that was going on we got everything done. We did have a couple of mistakes during the day but we realized our mistakes and wrote down the right way to do it so we don’t get it wrong again.
ReplyDeleteToday was a very nice day. We got everything done early and we got to get out early. My group and I worked together very well today we split up some of the thing so that we could get everything done and in the oven on time and when they came out of the over we all looked at them and talked about what was good and what wasn’t good and what we need to do differently for next time. I really like how we worked together and did not mess up on anything today. I hope everyday will be like today because we got a lot done in a short period of time.
ReplyDeleteToday was a very bad day. My group and I messed up on just about everything. We forgot to egg wash stuff. We put the stream on in the oven when it wasn’t supposed to be on. We over filled our muffins. We under and over cooked things. Forgot to take the sweet dough out of the pan so we had to heat the bottom of the pan to get it out. We also got out a little later today because we didn’t get everything in the oven on time so that pushed back our cleaning time. My group and I realized what we forgot and did wrong and wrote what we need to fix and remember so when it comes time to do it for the practical we all get everything right.
ReplyDeleteToday was day 8 and also our practical. Luckily it was not too stressful because we did not have a lot to produce. With our extra time we made donuts. I am disappointed in how my brioche turned out though. I think I made the heads too big, causing them to not fall over completely, but almost. I thought the berry muffins we made turned out great, so I feel good about those at least. I am confident in making Danishes and producing the sweet dough so everything should go well tomorrow.
ReplyDeleteDay 7: in the beginning of the day, my team rushed to get everything done and didn't really think about the bake times or how we could multi-task, so we ended up splitting up to get everything done on time. Even though it seemed we had so much work to do and like I was running around the room rushing to finish things, we actually got everything finished on time and I didn't break down once. I was really happy with how today turned out even though we had a slight panic at the sheeter when part of our sweet dough got ripped in the machine, but we made adjustments and pulled through. Our sweet dough and croissants came out good but my brioche all gave up and died. So that was that. Plus we forgot topping on our hazelnut tarts. other than that, production was smooth.
ReplyDeleteToday was Day 8 and it was amazing how quick the day went by. We had little production, so we were able to finish everything with time to make and experiment with donuts. Everything went well except my brioche, which decided to lay down and go to sleep again, and .... the """"mexican hot chocolate doughnuts""" disaster. everything about those was gross and they are in with the pig food where they belong. Other than that... I'm confident that we'll do well tomorrow with croissants and danishes.
ReplyDeleteToday was actually a good day for me, which is very unlike me. Lol. But anyways, I had a good first day of my practical and I only messed up by not putting the harmony glaze on before the honey glaze on the russian braids. My russian braid could have been a little better loos wise, and could have used a tin foil top the last 10 minutes of baking to avoid too dark of a top, which i may have had. Also my muffins I think looked good but were a little dark. Tomorrow I am very excited for my croissants and danishes!!!!!!
ReplyDeleteApril 21, 2016
ReplyDeleteFirst day into production and there is so much to remember. It’s super nerveracking having to know all of these steps and knowing that if you mess up one step you ruin three days worth of production and theres no way to make that up. Although we have so much we have to remember and the little details are so important, I’m super excited to see all of the stuff we are going to learn to make
May 1, 2016: Practical Prep
ReplyDeleteWe started scaling out for our danish and messed up right away. Instead of dissolving our yeast into the liquids we accidentally added it to our dry. Luckily we figured that out before we started mixing so we tossed our first batch of dry ingredients and started again. Our dough came out really nice, at the perfect temperature, and with a good window. The next hiccup we faced was that our group as a whole was a little off balance with our schedule. I left our butter out for the butter block for too long so when I went to roll it in the parchment it was so soft that it made it really difficult to make it all even. Other than those two slight set backs I think we are going to do really well processing these products for our practical tomorrow.
May 3, 2016: Practical
ReplyDeleteAs far as production goes, today’s was definitely the least stressful. Everything went really smoothly and I think our products turned out really nice. I’m really happy with my petit tete because looking at today’s and then looking back onto my first time shaping them, you can see a huge difference. Our muffins looks great; they did not spill over, they had a nice dome, they were fully cooked but still moist and I think they were great. Laminating was the only tricky part. Our butter was significantly softer than the dough and it made our first fold kind of difficult. At this point, I’m confident with my skills and I know tomorrow will go smoothly with the processing of our croissants, danishes, and sweet dough.
Day 1 was thankfully very lecture based, and right off the bat was much more intense than my last lab, how baking works. It was the first time I had woken up at 5:45am in a while and I was not looking forward to my PM lab after this class. I went in with a mindset to get things done; I'm a do-er and I intended on not letting the double get to me. Even though I had heard insane things about this class, I knew that if I stayed on top of it and made sure to do my studying and research, I could get through just fine. Lecture was very informative and I was grateful that we skimmed over the powerpoint and reviewed as a class rather than painstakingly going through each individual slide. I expect the next few days to be a lot busier and to pass quickly since this lab is very production heavy.
ReplyDeleteThis is mine I don't know why it says unknown
DeleteDay 3 At first, everything was fine and production was stable. No problems with the mixing process of brioche dough and laminating the danish dough in the sheeter was still a little trouble, but easy to understand. the only mistake that happened in lab was the brioche dough was over proofing. That mistake I hold was my negligence for putting the proofing time for 90 minutes than 45 minutes. The brioche dough doubled in size and needed to go into the oven immediately.I should had looked back at the notes I wrote down. Also another problem I didn't realize was time management for this lab, Chef talked about this at the end of class today. Time management is a part of this lab and maybe for future labs. It's use will be keeping track and order of the products. I feel like this time management plan will help on tomorrow's production.
ReplyDeleteDay 4 of Viennoiserie was different from the previous days. For starters we had to make our own schedule instead of chef telling us what order to make our products. For me this was helpful in making me really think about the amount of work that goes into the products we make. Although my schedule was very off, it still was useful to keep me on track and help me make sure I didn't miss any steps in the dough making or baking processes. My group was down one person today so each of us had a little more work to do than normal. We got everything done by helping each other and working efficiently. We made chocolate croissants which were beautiful in appearance and taste. One thing I learned today is that I have to make sure I think about each recipe before jumping into it. When I was scaling the ingredients for the zucchini muffins I wasn't thinking and scaled the sugars with the dry ingredients. Because of this I waisted about 4 minutes of production time and 900g worth of flour plus some sugar, salt and baking powder. From now on I will make sure to focus when I'm in production and think about what I'm doing before I do it.
ReplyDeleteDay 4- Today we realized we made a mistake with our danish dough, we had forgotten the third tri-fold on day 3, and so our dough only had 9 layers instead of 27. This made it so our dough had too large butter pieces and leaked out when we baked our danishes, I guess it could be looked at as a healthier alternative since there was less fat. Chef told us that it is important that we get all three folds in one day otherwise the dough wouldn't be able to handle it. It made me relize that I have to pay close attention to everything I do, because a small and simple mistake like this can change the whole outcome of a product that took 3 days to make. You can't fight the process, because then it's going to be an awful time, so just go along with it, take very detailed notes and everything will be fine.
ReplyDeleteDay 5- This day was a bit of a rocky one for my group, since we are a group of 3 we tend to try and move faster to make up for the lost person, but the issues we ran into helped us realize that sometimes going faster doesn't always help. Our group was supposed to make croissants today, but due to a mishap on the sheeter and the belly of the dough facing the wrong way we were not able to produce the croissants because the would have looked more like cones. It was crazy to me that just a small mistake like that could compromise the whole dough and what could be done with it. So chef suggested we make danishes instead since it is more forgiving. When we were cutting the squares for the danish and chocolate croissants we didn't double check the measurements and our chocolate croissants were wrong. Chef then helped us figure out how much money would have been lost if this was a real bakery, it would have been about $18 since we could have gotten around 6 more croissants if we had cut them right. It just made me realize that when you're learning you need to go a bit slower so you don't make these mistakes that could have been avoided if we looked at our notes or asked chef for help, because there is nothing wrong with double checking if you aren't sure.
ReplyDeleteDay 5- Thursday was the second day of a not so great production for group 5.. We were supposed to make croissants but we made a wrong turn, or just didn't turn with our dough while it was on the sheeter. I can only speak for myself by saying I don't review my notes before class so I wasn't sure what way the dough should have been placed. So after the mishap with the direction of the belly we made another mistake. Chef told us instead of making croissants we should make danishes, so we did but.. We decided to make chocolate croissants but we cut the wrong measurements.. So our croissants were bigger than they were supposed to be. and on top of that some of the croissants were bigger than others. So at the end of the day I learned to 1.Ask chef when you are not sure 2. double check your notes
ReplyDeleteDay 2 was our first day laminating and I approached the day trying to get things done as quickly and efficiently as possible, but in my haste produced mediocre product and skipped steps. We laminated our danish dough, but forgot to soften our butter to the same softness as the danish dough and as a result the butter didn't laminate into the dough as well. Making the petit tetes was very challenging for me, because shaping the heads consistently took far more concentration that anticipated. Being the only member of my group to show up at 6 caused me to work very urgently, which worked very well to make me alert.
ReplyDeleteDay 3 was challenging because one of our group members was sick and we were one man down. I miscaled the danish dough again, for some reason the 1000g of flour instead of the proper 1600g of flour stuck in my head and I scaled for that. Luckily we were able to add the remaining 600 g of flour to save our dough. When scaling out again I made sure to get witnesses to confirm that I had scaled 1600g of flour. I produced better petit tetes today, but they needed to be egg washed better because they were not fully covered.
ReplyDeleteDay four went better and everything was scaled properly. Another of our teammates was sick and we all had to move a lot faster and ask for help to make sure our production was timely. We made danishes, but struggles with the shaping of them after their first hour of proofing. The had a skin which made it difficult for them to fold properly. We need to work on baking our danishes for long enough so that they can be a dark golden brown--some of them were the right color but some were spotty. Next time our group is determined to make sure that we monitor our danishes in the proof box.
ReplyDeleteDay 5 was challenging for the fact that I was exhausted from double labs and lack of proper sleep. I struggled to move with urgency and couldn't quite muster the energy to clean as vigorously as I usually do. Although this was a factor in our production, my 2 other teammates (1 dropped) picked up my slack and covered me because they knew I was struggling. Our production went very well and we really worked as a team for the first time. I was still a bit of a helicopter mom and double checking that they knew what they were doing but we overall were 1 unit today.
ReplyDeleteToday in Viennoiserie was challenging. Production wise it was fine but I think stress and the work load is getting to me. I am begining to feel slightly overwhelmed but it is my own mind doing it to me. I am the type of person who not only stresses about my products but also about everyone elses and this is a positive and negative thing. I need to not be such a perfectionist and understand that this is the time to be making mistakes and owning them and learning from them. I also need to stop stressing about what others are doing because you can only control yourself so why worry aboout something you cant control. Production wise, I am definitely getting the hang of brioche but I keep making the same mistake of not elongating the kneck enough so the head tilts when baking + proofing. My croissants are great and my muffins are too so I am not worried about practical day 2 as long as I stay on schedule!
ReplyDeleteAlso I dont know if this will actually connect to my account so if it doesnt say my name this is Emma Hoyt :)
Day 6 went very well. My group has figured out how to work efficiently and get everything done we need to. I could see real improvement in our products today from the previous days. Especially in the brioche. The first time we made brioche they were all over the place and all different sizes. Today the brioche was balanced, all the ads being 1/3 of the dough and they were evenly egg washed. My group works very well together. We even had extra time to help other groups and make some glaze.
ReplyDeleteDay 6 went by better than I expected so that was good. It wasn't a good day mentally because 1. its Monday and 2. We are so ready to go our heads aren't screwed on straight. I'm just glad my group got it together and felt better about everything once everything was in the proofer. Hopefully tomorrow will be an awesome production day for everyone.
ReplyDeleteDay 6 was quiet a disaster because the process of production was everywhere and the practical starts tomorrow. In my point of view, my group and I felt moody and confused. We were able to complete today's production, but with small problems on the way. The danish dough for the croissants were warm, brioche felt very moist, the ovens were packed, we forgotten to press down the sticky buns down, didn't add enough glaze for the snail rolls, and made the dough (danish, sweet, and biroche for tomorrow) late. I was worried and felt that I should had said something to the group. But at the end everything turned out "okay". The products turned out wonderful, but not perfect. When Chef came to check the products, he brought up the negative vibe we give off. That vibe was from lack of communication and management (this is MY point of view). We had a small talk about the problems and understand the weakness. Also, we decided to have a group meeting after labs to plan out on tomorrow's production. That group meeting was a helped the group to be ready for the practical and communicate.
ReplyDeleteDay 6 was quiet a disaster because the process of production was everywhere and the practical starts tomorrow. In my point of view, my group and I felt moody and confused. We were able to complete today's production, but with small problems on the way. The danish dough for the croissants were warm, brioche felt very moist, the ovens were packed, we forgotten to press down the sticky buns down, didn't add enough glaze for the snail rolls, and made the dough (danish, sweet, and biroche for tomorrow) late. I was worried and felt that I should had said something to the group. But at the end everything turned out "okay". The products turned out wonderful, but not perfect. When Chef came to check the products, he brought up the negative vibe we give off. That vibe was from lack of communication and management (this is MY point of view). We had a small talk about the problems and understand the weakness. Also, we decided to have a group meeting after labs to plan out on tomorrow's production. That group meeting was a helped the group to be ready for the practical and communicate.
ReplyDeleteYesterday, day 6, was a challenge. I had come back after being sick and missing the last class. I felt out of the loop and I needed to catch up. We made sweet dough products that was demoed on the day that I missed, so I watched my group do some of it and then I was able to understand how to do it. Along with sweet dough, we also made brioche. Brioche I find easy to do and I continuously enjoy doing. I feel now that I can fully understand how to produce everything that we have made in class. I continue to learn more from my group and am happy that they help me out as much as they do.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteToday in class, day 7, was not as stressful as it has been. It was day one of practical and we made our muffins and our sweet dough products. Everything came out great, except for the muffins being a little under done. Something adding to the stress though is my group and I had forgot to mix our danish dough yesterday for our practical tomorrow, but we worked hard and caught up making us on time for tomorrow! I am hoping class will be easy and there will be no more mistakes. Along with our practical things, each group had to make a seasonal bread and we had to make panettones.
ReplyDeleteDay 7- Today was a good day, we weren't in a hurry to finish a bunch of things at once, we were able to pace ourselves to get half of our practical done today so that we can have a well paced day again tomorrow. We worked together better today and had better communication, which I think overall showed in our final products. I hope to have another good day tomorrow
ReplyDeleteToday went well for my group but started off with anger and frustration. Yesterday, my groups Danish dough neglected to get mixed and I only realized that it hadn't gotten done at the end of the day when I was searching for it in the freezer. This reflects what I was saying in my blog post yesterday because these kind of mistakes make me want to take control and do everything by myself but I just need to relax and roll with the punches. Other than that hiccup, everything went smoothly and I was happy with the product we produced!
ReplyDeleteToday was a good day for our group as far as production but time management was not good for us. One thing is that we totally forgot how long the danish dough took to proof and instead of doing that first we worked on sweet dough. So towards the end of the day we were inpatient and were ready to put them in the oven, but other than that today was good.
ReplyDeleteYesterday, day 6, was a rough day for my group. We all were frustrated with each other and didn't communicate very well. Our danish dough wasn't laminated correctly and our sweet dough products weren't eye appealing. Because of this we decided to have a group discussion after class to see how we can communicate better and work well as a TEAM.
ReplyDeleteDay 7: Today was such a great day for my group. Since we had the group discussion yesterday, we were able to talk things out. We made a production schedule which made our day much easier. Everyone knew what they were supposed to do and how to do it. Our brioche and seasonal breads came out as desired. I'm glad we were able to get through today without any fuss. Since today worked out so well with the production schedule and time management, we decided to meet again after class.
ReplyDeleteDay 7 was a successful production. We didn't had any problems and we were able to keep our heads in the game. The group knew what to do and we communicated with each other. All of production was finished early and the outcome of the products were great (also had a weak problem like shaping of the brioche). I really want to thank that group meeting we had yesterday, that meeting made us ready and understand what to do.
ReplyDeleteDay 6, being the most notoriously busy production day by far, was intense. I felt like I was rushing around with too many things to do and asking my teammates to help clean up or check doughs or put things in the proofer but they weren't fast enough or just entirely ignored my question so I rushed a lot to compensate. Because of this our products suffered so did our mise en place. I tried to keep our table clean but more and more things kept building up for a reason I cannot identify. I wish I would have organized my mind a little better before class so that I could do my best regardless of the the hurdles during class. We processed our danish dough too far in the wrong direction, so that the belly was on the short side. Small details needed attention that I sped by because I was stressed.
ReplyDeleteDay 7 was by far my favorite day, I was proud of how well we managed our time and were able to get things in and out of the proofer and into the oven when they were supposed to and when there was room in the oven. My petit tetes were not as well shaped as I thought they were going to be, after proofing they developed differently than anticipated. We sheeted our sweet dough a bit long and as a result our sticky buns and hazelnut buns were large and the stick buns as a result were somewhat misformed. Other than that, it was a good day.
ReplyDeleteDay 8 was the most relaxed day we had so far because Day 7 was packed with production. The only thing that suffered today was the shaping of our croissants, which the dough could have stayed in the freezer for longer before we processed it. As a result, we struggled to shape our croissants and have crisp and sharp points. Since shaping struggled, some of our croisstants came out slightly deformed and almost formed cones (which wasn’t a result of overproofing but because one side of the croissant weighed more than the other. Our muffins went very well and were moist.
ReplyDeleteThe last day of Vienoiserie was Great. I felt the whole day went smoothly and I actually enjoyed it. From the beginning of this class I improved a lot and I felt that was well represented in my practical products, except the brioche which fell over and disappointed me so much. I was very excited for making donuts today! I had been looking forward to it all class. I made sure I got to be part of the production. I made the glazes and dipped the donuts. They looked great and tasted even better! I learned a lot from this class. It was a great way to end my freshman year!
ReplyDeleteDay 8: Today was the last day of Vienoiserie and it couldn't have been better. Our production turned out great and we all worked well as a TEAM. We had a production schedule to keep us up to task. I was looking forward to making the doughnuts today. One of my favorite products we made in this class. This was a great way to end my freshman year at JWU!
ReplyDeleteDay 8. Practical day. It wasn't that hard! we had made croissants and chocolate croissants (which we have never made before) and everything came out how we wanted it to. Along with our practical production, we also had to fry and glaze donuts. It took us no time at all to finish everything because we were on top of it and knew what we were doing. I had a great time, learned a lot and I loved everything that we had made.
ReplyDeleteOn Monday, my group and I were able to get all of our production done, but you could definitely tell that we were running a little slower than usual. At the beginning of class, we got a little over-excited about our muffins and stuck them in the convection oven without waiting for other groups to have their batter mixed so that we could all go in the oven together. We were thankfully able to get away with it because of the timing of everyone else's production, but if it weren't for those specific circumstances, we would have tied up the ovens for almost a half hour. Always ask Chef if you can stick something in the oven before assuming that you can!
ReplyDeleteTuesday was a pretty decent day for my group and I. We were able to get all of our production done in a pretty good amount of time and were able to help Chef out with making practical fillings, and setting things aside for the practical. Something that I've constantly had to remind myself is that it's okay to ask Chef questions. Actually, it's best if you ask him, even if you're sure of something. It never hurts to double check to make sure what you're doing is correct.
ReplyDeleteToday we had to make croissants and danish for our practical. Unfortunately, when we sheeted out our laminated dough, we rotated it too soon, therefore it wasn't the width of the belt and the dough was not the right size for croissants and danish. We called Chef over, and thankfully he was able to figure out a way for us to at least get a couple croissants made, but we were only able to get 6 good croissants. 6. That was it. Needless to say, make sure you know how to sheet danish dough for croissants correctly!!!
ReplyDeleteDay 3 was a very difficult day for me and my group. It was out first time making petite tetes and none of them came out even close to decent. all of the heads were either too big or too small and we put way too much cinnamon sugar on them. Every day after that we saw so much improvemnet which made everything seem worth it. They still don't come out perfect but it can only get better from here.
ReplyDeleteThe second to last time me and my group were laminating danish dough we got it all messed up. We sheeted it in the wrong direction. we thought it went in the sheeter belly side first but actually was supposed to be parallel to the edge of the belt so the butter was all broken up at the bottom of the dough. On this same day we over proofed our petite tetes which made them look awful. Monday seemed to be a very stressful day for everyone and i wish we all handled it better and were calm instead of all getting angry at each other they way we did. Everyone was throwing attitude towards one another and it shouldn't have been that way.
ReplyDeleteToday was our last day of practical. This was the last day of labs for my freshmen year and I can easily say this was the most difficult class I've taken the far. I've never made anything like these products before and it all seemed so rushed in the process. We misshaped our croissants today and they came out all lopsided. I wasn't very happy with the outcome but it is what it is. We should've paid more attention to the details and been more careful about everything we were doing instead of being in a rush to finish because we only had to make 2 things today so we didn't even have to rush but for some reason we did, and it didn't get us very far. This class has taught me to very close attention to even the smallest details like being more careful when it comes to egg washing and timing our products in the proof box and everything.
ReplyDeleteDay 6:
ReplyDeleteMy group and I had struggled with communication today, making Day 6 very challenging and tiring. Time management was also a problem we encountered, and the ovens were backed up. This had stressed us out even more, putting blame on our team members, when instead we should have talked things out. We were warned that the workload would be heavy, but it became so overwhelming at some points that I was afraid I would explode (I could only imagine how afraid everyone else was).
When Chef was evaluating our products, he wanted us to talk out the problems we had because although our overall production came out nice, the energy we carried throughout the day was bad, unprofessional, and sometimes rude. Listening to chef’s suggestion to meet after class, we met up at Starbucks to talk about how we can do better the next day.
I was in charge of making a production schedule, and everyone took part in helping me create it. We paid attention to mixing times, proofing times, and baking times when making the schedule. My group and I also discussed questions that we had about any of the products we would be making on Day 7, so that every team member understood each step. I left Starbucks feeling confident that my team members would not let me down, and that I was prepared for my teammates.
I learned that I need to work on not letting my feelings interfere with the tasks I need to accomplish. As long as I’m following my notes and asking questions if I do not understand, if my hardest work receives a B, I will own it with pride rather than kicking myself down. Trying to get an A+ on petit-tetes in less than 9 days is putting extra pressure on me, when what I should be doing is trying my hardest and being better the next time I make them. I also learned today that instead of getting angry at the (sometimes) minor mistakes my team members might make time and time again, I need to keep calm and talk about it. We are all learning, and we learn in different ways. Although I am all about the tiny details, which is good, it is also bad because I get hung up on mistakes that are potentially less important than others.
As far as the practical goes, I am ready to fabricate our brioche, laminate danish dough, and possibly bake muffins. My petit-tetes are really beginning to look consistent, and I am familiar with the proofing times for them and the brioche tarts. I am also familiar with the sheeter, so it should not be a problem tomorrow.
After today, I think I’ll make a production schedule for everyday of my life. I also realized that I should have discussed the other production schedules that I had made for previous days with my group the night before, because if I am the only person with one in my group, it leaves my team members in the dark.
ReplyDeleteYesterday, Chef had called over a “team captain” from every group to discuss what we needed to accomplish on Day 7. He had instructed certain teams to fabricate certain doughs, and explained how important it was for us to discuss everything with our team. I carefully and quickly took notes and understood chef’s instructions, so my group was set for today. Your actions today really can alter what happens tomorrow, and today was a perfect example of that. Other groups had pulled out the wrong dough, so having the right dough ready at the right time gave my group more confidence and trust in me for listening to instructions.
Overall, it was a good day. Everyday before today was full of mistakes, whether it was problems with scaling or over-proofing. I'm going into tomorrow's practical with more confidence from today, but a bit of nerves for fabricating our danish. Usually when we make croissants, the shapes are not uniform with each other. I'm also expecting my group to have some extra time because we are only fabricating danish and sweet dough.
Day 8: Today was the last day of the practical. It went alright, nowhere near as bad as Day 6, but not as smoothly as Day 7. With minor set backs, my team members and I worked together to fix any small issues that came our way.
ReplyDeleteMy group had discussed who would be each product for sweet dough so all products looked consistent. However, some members worked on products they did not excel at, so half of the products would be consistent and the other half would look completely different. Overall, our sweet dough products came out okay, and our danishes and croissants were just okay, too. They did not have unforgivable mistakes or were underbaked, but they weren’t the best we had ever produced. It was a little discouraging for the group, but we did not dwell on it.
Day 2 was a good day. It was a little hectic but I have a good group so we got everything done on time. We made the Swiss rolls and the basic brioche rolls and we laminated out first generation Danish dough. it was kind of cool learning how to use the machine. It was pretty simple. Making the brioche rolls was really difficult, one of the heads on mine fell while it was baking and looked more like a turtle. But the others weren't that bad considering it was my first time. The Swiss rolls were simple but its just a weird arm placement when cutting them. I know tomorrow is going to be a challenge but we did so good today I think my group and I can handle it. We all decided to come in early so wish me luck.
ReplyDeleteDay 4: Today included the groups trying to see if we could figure it all out on our own. For my group I think we timed everything very well. We were done in a good amount of time, not rushed. Our croissants turned out very well, the only thing that could be fixed was the tails. The tails needed to be rolled tighter. For my classic brioche they turned out very well except a few of the heads were too big. The ones with the large heads tipped over just a little. Tomorrow when i make them I will make the heads just a little smaller. Today we also made a pumpkin muffin that turned out well. Tomorrow we have a lot to tackle so for homework we had to make a production schedule. Hopefully the schedule makes the day go smoothly.
ReplyDeleteDay 2 Blog:
ReplyDeleteIn today’s lab we had our first go at making brioche. In the demo Chef showed us how to make the brioche step by step making sure that we were clear when having to go back to our own work stations and do it ourselves. Let’s just say in general Chef’s make everything look ten times easier than they actually are but, that comes from experience. Upon returning to our lab bench things did not go as planned, as can be expected for first timers. We started off with the pressing of dough in the Fortuna which was fine until we went to roll the dough into the ball for pre-shaping. Our dough was too cold, so we let it be for an additional 20 mins while we had a small demo. I believe that it was left out a smidgen more than it should had because when we went back to it, it felt super loose and still hard to shape because it didn’t have any “structure” to it. We finally were able to shape the brioche and transfer it to the proof box but, we encountered another problem. Our brioche wasn’t rising a lot nor was it rising as much as others were but, we let it be till it had to be egg washed and baked off. Some of the heads of brioche were sliding around a bit and were slanted to one side but, other than that they came out the correct color and were thoroughly baked. We now know for next time what we could work on in order to create an overall better brioche.
Day 2:
ReplyDeleteToday in class was our first attempt at making Brioche. It's not as easy as chef makes it look. Chef showed us how to make Brioche step by step but my group and I messed it up when it came time to shape it. After the demo when my group and I went back to our table to try it out, it did not go as planned. We started off by rolling out dough to cold, which made it very hard to shape it. Then we let it sit out for a little bit and then it got to warm, which also made it hard to shape. After we had finally shaped the Brioche and put it into the proof box it didn’t seem to rise as much as it should have. When we went to go cook them some of the “heads” were falling off of the bodies. They were fully cooked and browned with is a good thing. Overall my group and I learned what not to do for the practical.
Day 3:
ReplyDeleteToday class went well. We learned how to shape and bake croissant. I learned that if you don't shape your croissants right the first time you can’t go back and unroll it to fix the problem. I also learned that when it is not shaped right it will roll over in the proof box or while baking. If the croissants rollover when they are in the proof box it means they were not placed on the sheet pan the right way and the tails were showing. When they roll over they will come in contact with each other and they won't bake to all be the same color. Overall I learned that the croissants have to be placed on the sheet pan at a 45 degree angle and facing the same way for everything to work/bake right.
Day 5 Blog:
ReplyDeleteIn preparation for today’s class we had to make a production schedule. I don’t usually find these to difficult to make but, for some reason I kept getting things confused. Previous days when I go into class I do what I need to do in a specific order that, is usually the same way, everyday. Which didn’t seem to be the case today. When I tried to make the schedule it was like my entire mind just went blank so I ended putting tasks in places that I normally wouldn’t normally do in that time frame. Upon coming to class today I looked at my schedule and I was very discombobulated. However, I did manage to figure out how to work in favor of what I had typed on the schedule. I did do several corrections in order to make my schedule perfect, meaning I didn’t do everything I said I would at the right time. Time was a huge factor in both production and the schedule and it really messed with me today even, though we got done with everything early. One other issue was that not everyone had the same schedule in the same group. We all had different things at different times and we had to work with each other to meet all the needs of ourselves individually and as a whole. This also led to a whole lot of revising to the schedule. I believe that with the scrambling of the order in which I normally do things caused me to stress and work at an abnormal pace which may have affected the total outcome of today’s products.
Day 5:
ReplyDeleteToday we had to bring a production schedule to class so we could use it to stay on track. Last night when I was making it, I had a hard time. We had to make it in 15 minute intervals, which didn’t didn't seem to hard in the beginning. Once I got to about 8:30 I couldn’t figure out what had to come next or what else needed to be done for the day. I thought I had a huge amount of production that needed to happen, so I tried to cram it all in for the first 2 ½ hours of class. I soon then realized that I had to make a list of everything that needed to happen and how long it would take for them to get done for me to put together a production schedule. I finished it and then brought it to class the next day. I skimmed my schedule at the beginning of class and then started production. During production I was writing down what we were doing and what time we were doing them. At the end of the class I compared my schedules to each other and they were close to one another. I learned that it takes time to make a production schedule, but in the long run the production saved me time because I knew what had to be done.
Day 3: Today we mixed the yeast with the dry ingredients, instead of the wet.This mistake made the dough grainy and bumpy. You could taste the difference We now know that you have to mix the yeast with the liquid to activate it so the it will dissolve in the dough.
ReplyDeleteDay 3 was an okay day. When scaling the Danish ingredients instead of scaling the yeast aside, I ended up scaling it with the dry. So when we went to mix it in the vertical mixer we added the milk first and the dry on top but the yeast was already mixed in with the dry. The dough did not proof the same way and we saw the yeast grains in the dough. It took a much longer time to proof. With mixing the yeast with the dry and not adding it to the milk, the yeast wasn't properly activated.
ReplyDeleteDay 3 Blog:
ReplyDeleteDuring our production today, we forgot to put the yeast in the liquid mixture so therefore it messed up the proofing time. Instead of it being proof in the normal time it took much longer due to the fact that the yeast wasn't activate properly. With that issue it caused the yeast grains to show in the dough. So next time we make danish dough we will make sure to mix the yeast with the liquid mixture.
Day 5 we mixed our Danish dough but when we checked our dough temp it was 74 degrees. It was lower than what it was suppose to be. The temp of the dough is suppose to be at 75-78 degrees. We had to place our dough in the proof box so the temp can rise to the proper temp and also so it can double in size. It took a longer time to double but we made it happen.
ReplyDeleteDay 5 Blog:
ReplyDeleteDuring production today, we mixed our danish dough and our dough temp was under 78 degrees it was at roughly 74 degrees. Therefore, we had to place out dough in the proof box for it to catch up to temp as well double in size. Also, today during out lamination process our butter wasn't the same consistency as the dough which causes the butter to crack. With the cracking of the butter it affects the layers in the product that will be made.
Day 7 Blog:
ReplyDeleteToday production was terrible! It came to a point in the day that I was in tears. It was very stressful to know that we messed up three important practical products, which were the danish dough, sweet dough, as well as the sour cream cinnamon muffins. Therefore, we had to redo both the danish and sweet dough especially since it is a major component to our practical. It step us back a few during our production since the danish dough was to firm and lack liquid which causes our dough not to proof pretty much at all. Also, the sweet dough had to much liquid which cause the dough not to come together properly. The issue that occurred with the sour cream cinnamon muffins was the amount of baking soda, which was caused because it was such a low number and it should of been scaled out on the micro-scale that gives you a much more accurate measurement instead of a regular scale. The major reason for the issues on todays production was the problem of miscalling products. Overall we learned today that we should make sure everything is properly measured at all times since it could cause a lot of damage to our final product.
Day 7 was such a horrible day. I was literally in tears today that's how bad it was. Everything that could of went wrong, went terribly wrong. We had to mix three doughs today which was for our practical and all the doughs came out very wrong. The Danish dough was very firm when it was finished mixing, it being firm we knew that it had to be something with the liquid. I had to scale out and mix the dough all over again. The sweet dough was also wrong, when mixing in the spiral mixer it literally looked like soup. Another thing today was the proof box. We did not pay attention to the temperature so it was proofing our products very rapidly. The temp of the proof box was at 85 degrees which is very high. The desired dough temp is 75-78. We were very over. The last mistake that could of been avoided very easily was when making Sour cream Muffins which we are making for the practical, they over flowed while baking because the baking soda was measured over than what it was suppose to be. Also it was a small amount which means it needs to be scaled on a micro scale for the accuracy. Today was very stressful due to the fact we messed up on big components because the products we messed up on were the products for the practical. We were behind as well today because of all the mistakes.
ReplyDeleteday 5: I thought that today was going to be terrible because it was only Kayla and I. jess dropped today and liz wasn't here. but it turned out to be ok. me and Kayla mixed all our doughs and we laminated everything we needed to. we were a bit behind but thankfully we didn't mess up. when we made brioche I messed up a little because 4 of my 12 looked like turtles but the rest were a b standard as chef says. I'm just glad we got thought it alive.
ReplyDeleteday 7: today was hectic. we mix all our doughs. I made the sweet dough but I messed up and put vanilla bean in it by accident. I like making the sticky bun and the Russian braids. my brioche turned out ok but I still had one that looked like a turtle. we ran out of apples for out Danishes so we did half apple and half blueberry. everyone was a bit behind because we didn't start to clean until 12:30 but we managed to get everything boxed and cleaned. but we still need to make our filling for the practical.
ReplyDeleteDay 7:Today production didn’t go as planned. Our doughs were not mixing, and therefore not proofing. The danish dough was mis-scaled and the brioche dough was to warm. But we were able to regroup, plan, and get our acts together to get our productions done right. We ended the class surprisingly pleased with the outcome of our products.
ReplyDeleteDay 7: Production went very smoothly for my team today. We got everything done on time according to one of my group mates production schedule. However I realized that not everyones day was going as smoothly, mainly because my group members have been here everyday and we have a full group of 4. This makes it easier to divide and conquer. At the end of the day we were very behind on cleaning. I don't think we started cleaning until 12:30. For me personally since my group was working smoothly i could have started cleanup earlier even though everyone else wasn't at that stage yet. Today made me really realize that if you have extra time help out others or start cleaning.
ReplyDeleteDay 6: We learned how to make sweet dough and all the different variations that go with sweet dough. We didn't have a production schedule today so things at the end were a little hairy. We decided to make the apricot danish. They turned out alright but we were very rushed with the finishing touches. This resulted in the harmony glaze not fully heated up so you could see brush streaks on the apricots. We also had uneven and a little too much powdered sugar. We should have planned more carefully with making these danishes.
ReplyDeleteDay5: Day five was by far one of the toughest days yet. It was full of production and no time to take a breath. I have never experienced this type of commotion, it showed that if you don't communicate nothing will get done. The power of communication was by far a lesson learned for all of us. This is a team effort and when you try to go solo then nothing good will happen.
ReplyDeleteWeek 7 was the completely full of non stop moving, we got done after one o'clock. This day we had a problem with our brioche dough it was not the correct texture. The brioche would tear and break easily, there was something wrong with either the yeast or the sugar. It took longer to ferment and it didn't look as nice as our other products. We realized the dough was off when we tried to shape it into dough balls. There really wasn't much we could do about it, just hope for the best. It baked fine and came out with an okay shape, but there was a longer proof time on it. Now we know that there needs to be more attention paid when the dough is being weighed out. Just going a couple grams more could mean the difference between the right or wrong dough.
ReplyDeleteDay 8 Blog:
ReplyDeleteToday was the first day we started doing our practical products. While we only had one thing be actually graded today my group and I freaked/stressed ourselves out like everything was being graded. We didn’t have very good communication when starting the process and this led us to unneeded stress. We were trying to get all of our dough ready and in the proof box, for the most part at the same time. This led to us rushing what we were doing and led to sloppier products. Our croissants on the end where the tail was, were falling over and didn’t look good at all. Our sweet dough products were all over the place size wise. Once we realized we didn’t need to stress over the products that weren’t being graded, we finally started communicating and were able to end the class in a more orderly fashion. We learned today, that we may want to get everything done at once to be the first ones in and out but, our products will come out better if we just relax and focus more.
Day 5: Doughn’t do that Again…
ReplyDeleteToday, my team and I had a lot of products to produce and were moving relatively quickly on things. We needed to sheet our dough to make croissants first thing in the morning so they could proof for three hours. Of course, feeling over confident in our sheeting abilities (laminating our Danish dough rather quickly in previous experiences), we did not refer to our notes on sheeting for croissants. We also did not ask the Chef for help, so when we thought we were finished sheeting, it was already too late to adjust and alleviate the issue. As a result, the belly of our dough was not parallel to the belt of the sheeter, forcing the dough to over extend in the wrong direction. Chef showed us how to help correct the issue (no guarantee that the croissants would come out the same way), but it was still a tremendously embarrassing learning experience.
Day 6: Butter be Quick…
ReplyDeleteToday we made the infamous berry muffins, purely blueberry muffins in this instance. One of my team members and I were measuring out the muffins and placing the crumb topping on them as fast as we could, while the other team members were prepping ingredients for next day’s production. We thought we were being relatively efficient in the division of labor. Never have we been more wrong. The thing with the berry muffins is, they have to be measured out quickly because the berries are frozen. The longer it takes, the more juice melts and the more the muffin turns out blue, and not the color of the batter. The top half of the mixing bowl was weighed out and looked great. No “blue unicorn” pattern. When we reached the bottom… Blue everywhere. In hindsight, more of us should have been scooping and measuring. And on a totally random side note, always make sure the metal dough catcher on the sheeter is pulled out. That’s all I’ll say on that one.
Day 7: Pour some Sugar on Me
ReplyDeleteToday was a typical day in class. I felt like I was running a ten-mile marathon in the space of 30 minutes while carrying two fifty pound bags of flour, but it was going as smoothly as it could. My team and I started processing our brioche, something we’d done seemingly a billion times. After we cut and divided it, we began the laborious task of rounding. This was when Chef pointed out that our dough was essentially dead. It was noticeably less “fluffy” feeling. Probed with a number of options of where we might have gone wrong (too much salt, not enough yeast, no sugar), I tasted the dough. It was salty. I tasted another team’s dough that was mixed correctly and it had a prominent sweet taste but you could taste hints of the salt. Yeast is not an issue, I know that; however, lack of sugar, or too much salt, or a combination of the two appeared to be the issue. Regardless, the brioche took longer to proof than usual and was not as appetizing in flavor. Today’s lesson is to triple check our scaling. Also, a teammate showed me how to shape the body of the brioche in a better way. She pulled the body until it tightened and became rounded and even, similar to tightening the Danish dough when we went to ferment it.
Day 8 was a pretty easy day yet things took a turn during proofing. We had a thermometer in the proof box and everything was good. Within a 10-15 minute period the proof box got extremely cold. We had almost everything done and then we finished last because the proof box just decided it didn't want to be warm anymore. This taught us to keep and even closer eye at the prof box. And to make sure we don't forget any of our product.
ReplyDeleteDay 8: This was a good production day. Our croissants had a perfect taste, our brioche looked the best they ever had, and we got everything early and had time to MEP for day 9. If my group can work this great together tomorrow, we should do very well on our practical.
ReplyDeleteSometimes something that looks easy can be the hardest. on the first day we made brioche and Danish dough and a butter block. most people would think I am about to say that making one of the doughs was the hardest of the three, but no. I found the butter block to be the worst. softening the butter was easy, but once it came time to rolling the butter in the parchment paper, everything went down hill. word of advice, even if something looks easy, don't get discouraged if its not.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteDay 1 Blog:
ReplyDeleteToday in class it was a quite slow day. It was mainly a day to get used to the class and to start understanding the basic concepts of the class. So in the beginning Chef demoed how to start making the Brioche and the Danish doughs. It was a clear demo, seemed pretty straight forward. I took a lot of notes to make sure I was fully certain what I was doing. So we started to make the danish while the other two groups started to make the Brioche. So I got the ingredients together and went to warm up the liquids then added them. Unaware the yeast had been taken out of the bowl of dry I added the dry because I thought someone just added the yeast in the dry. I was wrong so I added as quickly as I could. Turned out horribly, I tried to let it rise and it was not going anywhere so I had to have Chef help and luckily we could save it by proofing but just would have to suffer until we got to that step. Lets just say not a great first impression. But at least I was smart enough to ask before it got worse.
throughout this class production can become overwhelming and hard, but that will all depend on if you have an understanding of the concepts. I found so far up until today that the class was stressful, many because I did not understand the laminating process, mainly I had a hard time working with the sheeter. chef compares it to working a car, which means you cant look at notes while doing it, you have to just do it. normally people don't look at the owners manual of a car while driving it. after 5 days, I have finally started doing it somewhat confidently, which was a relief. I think I was over think the sheeted, when it really is easy. in this class you have to either own what your doing, ask chef for help and study extra hard if your not understand or fake it till you make it! I don't recommend faking it till you make though.
ReplyDeleteWell today was quite a mess! Day 4 I ran the dough off the sheeter on two separate occasions...there was a coffee for chef. My team and I also messed up on scaling out our muffin cups. Devin began to add oats before I got all of the cups to the proper weight so about 10 of our muffins were very under-filled resulting in an overall inconsistent look. Our muffins were also slightly over mixed. We also messed up and baked our hazelnut danishes about 3 minutes too long. They began to get very dark on top. My team realized the mistake we made and are going to work to correct them for practical day.
ReplyDeleteToday was a crazy day. Day 5: One of our team members was sick so our 3-person team dwindled down to a 2-person team. My partner Devin and I tried to stay on track and be efficient in getting all of our products done right and overall i think we did a pretty good job. Despite being one person short we manage to complete all of our tasks as well as help Chef clean out some unwanted products from the fridge. Today we did get a less than stellar evaluation on our pin-wheel apricot danishes. We are still seeming to have issues positioning the products on the tray so that they get even coloring and do not grow into each other. Many of our danishes had uneven coloring because they were being blocked by others. I was also inconsistent with how I dusted them with powdered sugar; some spots has an overwhelming amount whereas the other spot were lacking. My team and I will learn from today to better our future production.
ReplyDeleteOn day 3 it was not as bad at I thought it was going to be. But while making brioche I did not ask for help and they came out horrible. The heads were too big and they were lopsided. Next time I know to ask for help even if I think I can do it myself. Our Swiss brioche were a little out of control, like someone people were just cutting to cut and they did not care what they looked like, i feel if we had taken our time and actual watched what we were doing the cuts would have come out the right way. We also made chocolate croissants which came out really well even though he said they were a little on the darker side. Our timing was really good we got everything in and out in a timely manner. Coming in early really helps with getting the product moving.
ReplyDeleteWell where do I start with day 4...I got there early to be sure that we were ahead of the game and got our products in and out of the proof box and into the ovens. But when you think you are having a good timing something tends to go wrong. Welp what do you know we had some goods and some bad's but who dosnt. So our brioche actually came out really well we had a couple with giant heads and the rest seems to be consistent.Our hazelnut danishes were baked well but..yup there is always a but, we did not egg wash well it was done with a careless effort and we missed the bottom of the danishes. Better luck next time right? We also made Zucchini miffins, I do not think they came out horrible i think they were actually well done other then we started putting the oats on before they were completely scaled into the cups whoops! Mistakes happen right? They were starting to become over mixed but they were not quite there. They looked good.
ReplyDeleteDay 6
ReplyDeleteToday our team of 3 was a team of 2 because our other teammate was sick. Production was not as bad as I thought,especially with the help of other classmates that when it was needed. We made Cinnamon rolls, Hazelnut buns, Pecan Rolls, Russian Braid, Brioche, and Swiss rolls, Croissants. We also made another batch of sweet dough and laminated our Danish dough. Monday we start prep for the practical, hopefully it goes similar like today.
Today was day 6..It was a crazy day for me,well I guess for my group too, they had to deal with me asking questions about the sweet dough. But we got it done and they were struggling with production as well. We got through it even though our croissants came out looking like top hats, that was not what we were looking for, as we were told if they had all looked like that and that's what we were going for then we did a good job. For the record they did not all come out like that about half of them came out the way they were supposed to. We also made another set of brioche petite tete's they are starting to get better but they are not quite there yet, i had one just fall over and not want to be with it today! GREAT! But then there were a few that were decent. But we were kinda all over the place with getting things done we got them done we just were not keeping our table to clean. But then we also have a problem with people coming to the back of the room and not making it to the fridge or freezer and just leaving it on our table, same with them going to the mixer! They go to the mixer and do not come back for there items!
ReplyDeleteDay 5
ReplyDeleteToday was by far the best day my group and I have had in this class. We all were able to work smoothly to get everything done on time without worrying too much. We had much better time management and were able to juggle multiple tasks at once by doing the longer production first and doing smaller ones while the other ones were finishing the parts that took time, like proofing. It also was very nice to be the team that did things correctly and not have to be the team that shows what not to do. The one thing my group and I need to work on is just making sure we shape correctly a little better because it is showing a lot of improvement but it is not yet up to Chef's standards. But if we just keep attention to detail and follow his demos we should be fine.
Day 6:
ReplyDeleteToday was probably the scariest day of this class if not the scariest day of college for me. Chef told us this would be the hardest day of the class and he was not kidding. We had about 5 or so things to complete and a lot of them took up a lot of time and effort so it was going be a long day. Also to top it off we were down a partner so this would have been hard for 3 let alone 2 people. But in reality it was probably our best day. My partner and I worked incredibly hard and were able to get all of it done on time and done well. We had a lot of pride so we tried to not ask for help but there were parts where we needed to have help but only a few times. It was very humbling knowing that we could do well on a very hard day and make it almost seem like a regular day. We had incredible time management and always made sure to get the more important tasks done first and then sneaking in the smaller tasks. It was by far our best day of the class, and it was a lot of fun.
Today went very smoothly, it was day 2 of our practical and I feel that myself as well as my group has gotten laminating and processing our doughs down pat. also looking a pictures from the first time doing classic brioche to the last time all I see in my group and class is improvement. if there is anything I wish I had more time dealing or had the time to ask more questions about is with the proof box and where dough is suppose to be in the fridge/freezer. the proof box is confusing because you cant go by the numbers on top and then when you have to adjust it, it is difficult because it is off so what do you adjust it to? then after mixing the dough it always goes in the freezer till the next day then it gets pulled. but what can get confusing is when to put the dough in the freezer and fridge. I think that it makes it difficult to have it exactly timed out because timing on the sheeter of when it is your turn doesn't have a time, and if groups don't communicate with one another then it is very confusing. I think if I had taken the time to ask the right questions and understand why things were in the fridge/freezer It would have been easier. or if I had the bake shop to my self then I could just time it but that would be to easy.
ReplyDeleteToday was Day 7, we started mixing doughs for our practical. On top of scaling and mixing yeasted doughs for the practical we also had to process our croissants, brioche, and sweet dough. That turned into a mess very quickly. We began getting caught up doing one thing while another thing was ready to be done and that started a spiral affect causing us to be behind and being cleaning later than perffered. However I think that we did well mixing our doughs and ensure that they were all in the proper spot for the following day. The heads on my Petit Tetes have gotten much more consistent since the first day of processing brioche, they may still be consistently off but they are consistent. I need to work on having them stand up straight on the day of the practical.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteDay 3: Today we had struggled with our production. When it was time to start out Swiss Brioche and fruit tarts we did not realize we only needed 6 Swiss Brioche made per group member and we kept rolling out Brioche rolls and didn't leave any unshaped dough on the side to make some fruit tarts. We also were a little behind on our production due to us being the last group to laminate but we kept up with the class.
ReplyDeleteDay 6: Today was a mediocre day. My group had some difficulties today with production. When we were laminating our generation 4 dough we messed up on our measurements and went a lot past 13’’ so we had to put it on a full sheet pan and let it do the 45 minute rest and then reshaped it to it’s normal size with a trifold then flattened it to the size of a half sheet pan. With our Swiss Brioche I felt good today that I improved myself a lot I started making my heads smaller and finally they did not fall over while baking.
ReplyDeleteDay 4- 2/15
ReplyDeleteToday was definitely a good day for my group. We mixed Danish and brioche dough, laminated dough, sheeted the Danish dough for croissants, shaped our brioche dough, made zucchini muffins, and made sweet dough. Although we struggled with time management with the first few days, I found that after a few days of getting used to the process we got in the rhythm and had a smoother lab. We were able to scale the ingredients for the doughs the night before so when we all got to class early the next day we were able to mix the doughs in a short amount of time. This really put us ahead of the game and allowed us to start the lamination process earlier. As we laminated our dough's, we thought about and communicated about when we needed to shape brioche, when we needed to pull dough's out of the freezer and so on. The communication and time management significantly helped to make for a smoother day with a good outcome.
Day 5- 2/20
ReplyDeleteToday was one of the most stressful days for our group. We were down a member and had a lot of work to do. While cutting the Danish dough we trimmed when we weren’t supposed to, we glazed our Danish’s at the wrong time, we forgot to steam our Danish’s, and we measured out our preferment wrong. Although we messed up a lot, all our problems were easily able to be fixed- all we had to do was ask a question. We all learned from our mistakes and hopefully will not repeat them on the practical.
Day 4
ReplyDeleteSomething I really learned today is how important harmony glaze is. I had used it in previous classes, but was definitely not using it correctly, as I did not heat it up enough the first few times I used it in this class. Today, my group made the pinwheel danishes, which really need the harmony glaze to be the proper consistency in order to make the apricot half look super shiny. Though two coats were still needed, the danishes turned out really nice, aside from some uneven powdered sugar and a slight underbaking of the product.
Day 6:
ReplyDeleteI was absent on day 5 for the sweet dough demo, so I was significantly behind when it came time to mise en place for the sweet dough fabrication. As a result, my Russian braid was unevenly filled, causing the heavily filled sections to open up too much during proofing and baking. However, today was overall a good day, though it took a lot of focus and note taking to learn all of the material covered while I was absent. Our group as a whole works very well together, and our production schedules were right on target for the majority of the day. But, some things were thrown off due to a last minute change in plans, such as the decision to make pretzel croissants. All in all, our group was able to adapt to the changes, causing for an overwhelming and exciting day 6.
Day 6- 2/21-
ReplyDeleteToday was one of the most production filled days. We had to mix 4 doughs, process and bake off Danish dough, process and bake off sweet dough, make donut dough bake off enriched doughs and MEP for muffins for the next day. While we ended up messing a few things up I thought the day ended going relatively smoothly. The production schedule that we mad helped to figure out which dough had first priority and what to do when we had free time. We were able to ask final questions about the products we are making for the practical which helps us to feel confident going into the last two days of the practical.
On Day 4, February 15, we made multiple small but careless mistakes. We overfilled fruit tarts, forgot to egg wash some petite tetes, shaped said petit tees inconsistently and were slopping with the finishing of some products due to the chaos that the room is in for the last hour, between tables moving and floors washing but things still coming out of the oven it can get crazy. The communication on my team is okay but some feel faster is better and jump to do things before consulting and making sure they're the right things to do. This leads to frustration and constant disappointment when we spent 3 days now on a dough and the final product is half-assed. But, we made plenty of good examples of what not to do and thus, tomorrow will be a better day
ReplyDeleteOn Day 7, February 21, we had a better day. It started off shaky as I had missed class yesterday, where chef processed the sweet dough for the first time, and two of my three group mates were not feeling well. I had made cinnamon rolls a few times before on my own so the process was not tough, it was just a little hard to get my group mates to properly explain to me how to finish the other sweet dough products such as sticky buns and the Russian braid. The morning was overwhelming as each member showed up at different times, with different ideas of what to do first, completely unorganized and confused themselves, while I had to count on them since I was not present yesterday. All in all our final products looked pretty good. Again people tend to rush to get things done and we end up with half-ass products that stemmed from perfect doughs and perfect proofing and perfect baking but not so perfect finishing or sometimes even shaping. But I cant make people want to want to do something so we can just separate who's is what so everyone is properly held accountable. I really stress quality over quantity so its frustrating when I pull something with the potential to be so incredible out of the oven and its just kind of "meh." But it's practical now and then tension is rising, between groups specifically, so we'll see how tomorrow goes.
ReplyDeleteDay 7: Today was a busy day. We had to put together all of our doughs for practical as well as work with seasonal doughs. My group had a mishap the day before and we never laminated our whole wheat dough therefore chef did it for us today to help us out and we ended up making whole wheat pretzel croissants. These pretzel croissants came out amazing they tasted really good with the food we had delivered from a culinary class also. The seasonal doughs that we made were very interesting the stolen and the kuggleholf were very similar in production but in the final shaping was different. I personally loved the way that the kuggleholf was very pretty especially with the way the blanched nuts came out on top.
ReplyDeleteDay 7:
ReplyDeleteAlthough the practical technically started yesterday, today was the first day where our product was graded. And, personally, I believed that it went pretty well. The area where I saw the most improvement in our group was in the brioche tarts. On day 4, chef noticed that many groups were having trouble with the shape of the cavities for the tarts, as some groups had the filling spill out over the top of the cavity. However, our group had the opposite issue, with out filling sinking into the tart and looking underfilled. With that in mind, we stretched the cavity out further while still keeping the sides tall, resulting in proper looking brioche tarts. In terms of other parts of the day, we kept to a pretty solid schedule with minimal overlaps and conflicts. However, we did make one mistake in putting our brioche tarts in one proof box and our petite tetes in another due to a space conflict, causing us to have to put the petite tetes in the refrigerator in an effort to prevent overfermentation. But, all in all, it was a very successful practical day with minimal hiccups.
Day 1:
ReplyDeleteThis was the first day of this class and honestly...i thought it would be worse but it wasn't that bad, definitely intimidating though considering everything i heard about this class coming in. all the rumors i heard about this class whether it be that the chefs are mean or that the days are so long you won't get to leave on time, heck yeah i was nervous. Other then that the production today was really light because we couldn't really do much since we didn't have any actual dough to work with so it was most lecture.
Day 4
ReplyDeleteToday was a pretty calm day, working with the brioche this time around was becoming less and less of a challenge because i feel like i'm getting more used to the shaping of the petitettes. I found out that yesterday since i rolled the laminated dough a little bit longer then the sheet pan it ended up screwing us up for the rest of the laminated products so we just had to adjust the way we went about rolling the dough with the sheeter. I think that the time went by pretty fast and we ended pretty well and fast, the communication within our group is pretty solid so i feel like there was no problem there.
Day 6
ReplyDeleteToday was definitely one of the more stressful days of this class trying to balance the whole daily production with the rest of our practical elements was definitely a challenge. I think that the production schedules were actually quite helpful and made our management and communication even better. Today we mixed all our practical doughs and i feel confident that the doughs are ready for tomorrow's production. On top of all that i'm getting a little nervous about the practical but it should be easy considering we have done everything multiply times. We also made stollen which was the weirdest shape of bread i have ever seen in my life. The day goes by really fast out of nowhere so it felt like a breeze today.
On day two, team one was supposed laminate their dough first, but by the time we were ready to laminate we weren’t sure which dough belonged to us. All of us kept searching and looking for this dough. We looked in the fridge and the freezer multiple times. Eventually we found a dough that wasn’t claimed by team two or three, so we assumed it was ours. However, the whole team kept fighting about which one of us were at fault for the poor labeling job. Nobody wanted to take the blame so we just let it go. You should never assume that one of your team’s members has done something correctly I suppose. Even if it’s not your job, double check everything.
ReplyDeleteOn day four, the class was assigned to make sweet dough after we had worked on our croissants. Chef mixed his dough and warned us that even though his liquid was on the colder side, his dough came out to be 79 degrees. In effort to make sure that our teams dough didn’t get too warm, I deliberately left our liquids fifty-five degrees. So, Lilly and I carefully mixed the dough. We added the butter, then we let it fully incorporate. Once the dough was done mixing, I reached in to get it out of the machine. However, as soon as I grabbed it I knew something was wrong. The dough was far too hot, so I stuck my thermometer in to see just how hot it was. The dough was 88 degrees. I immediately started panicking saying the we needed to get the dough into the fridge at once. Lilly asked Chef what we should do. He told us to just put it on a metal countertop and knead it a couple of times. We learned that contact of the dough on a cold metal surface would quickly lower the temperature of the dough a few degrees. Once we lowered the temp of the dough we carried on and finished making the sweet dough. That day, I learned that it’s best to stay calm and think of different ways to solve my problems in order to get things done efficiently.
ReplyDeleteOn another occasion that my team had to laminate dough, we sort of messed up, again. We were all prepared to get started. One of us went to the walk-in to retrieve the dough and came back with a worried look on their face. Our dough wasn’t hard enough because nobody had put it back into the freezer to harden up. Everyone thought the task was taken care of by somebody else within the group. So of course all of us were pointing fingers again. All of us, including Chef, were fed up. Finally, all of us just shut up and put the dough in the freezer and waited until it was hard enough to laminate. As a team, we learned that we needed to step up and communicate better.
ReplyDeleteOn Day 8, February 22nd, class went surprisingly smooth. Somehow practical day was the most relaxed day of the entire class. I prepared a pretty detailed production schedule that made it easy for us to navigate throughout the day, everyone communicated well in terms of laminating and mixing, and when it came to cleaning most of the class focused on their individual task and the dishes were constantly done throughout the day. Within my team there were some communication errors, mainly just by not communicating at all and again, rushing/ half assing steps. At one point I tried to go over the process of filling the tarts with a group mate, since they would count as a grade for each of us, when they insisted they knew how to do it properly, and then continued on to using the wrong filling, adding the filling before sprinkling the sugar, and poorly egg washing the tarts. Luckily, once they're covered in powdered sugar, you weren't able to tell any of the flaws unless you bit into one. I hope tomorrow goes swiftly and successfully, before everyone really snaps on each other. I think the stress of having to be thinking about so many different doughs and times and temperatures all day really drains people and they end up so exhausted and careless they start forgetting how to act professional and treat people with respect, but if you look passed all of the drama, I feel we did really well in this class.
ReplyDeleteDAY 1: Today I learned how to use the sheeter. I had seen other classes use the sheeter, but had never used it myself. I thought that this would be very hard and stressful because of what I had heard from other classes, but from today it seems like it is going to be fine. Because it was the first day, production was a little light and we had a long lecture at the end of class.
ReplyDeleteDAY 4: Today we were down a member of our team, so it ended up being a little stressful trying to remember how to do everything for the sweet dough. It was hard for us to keep track of all the things that we had to do. Our homework for today was to make a production schedule for tomorrow and I feel that this will help a lot. Having a plan ahead of time will help you organize everything that you will need to do in a timely manner and make sure that you don’t forget anything.
ReplyDeleteDAY 5: Today we worked with the sweet dough and made russian braids, cinnamon rolls, hazelnut snails, and sticky buns. When we were sheeting the dough, we accidentally sheeted it down to a #2 thickness instead of #4. We ended up folding the dough in half and putting it back through the sheeter at #4. Luckily, the products still seemed to turn out how they were supposed to. We learned from this that you have to pay attention during every aspect of making products and only some mistakes can be fixed.
ReplyDeleteToday was Day 2 of class. It went smoothly and we are just learning the just of things. Today while Chef was doing Demo with his danish dough I learned many things. Something that I couldn't believe is that each batch of dough will make about 55 croissants. I would have guessed it made about 20 maximum. That was crazy to me. The once batch of dough only would cost about $10 to make and if you make 55 at about $4 each you can make $220 per batch. That is a good amount of money you can get just from one batch.
ReplyDeleteDay 2: Today we made brioche, Danish dough, and pumpkin muffins. We also continued the processes of generation 1 doughs. While most of production went well, one point that could use some improving, is when shaping our brioche into petite tetes. The main area of error was when we moved immediately into shaping the dough after rounding the pieces. They were supposed to rest for 15-20 minutes first. This was definitely a contributing factor to the necks not staying rolled out. It hurt the overall products as there was no distinct head vs shoulder from the neck pulling back to be shorter, and as described to us, it was "abusing the dough". So, for tomorrow, we know to let the dough rest for that 15-20 minute time period. This way, the dough is not being overworked all at once, as well as so the shaping will work better, giving us a better end product.
ReplyDeleteOne thing to know about this class is that YOU HAVE TO MOVE FAST or you will be left behind. Especially when laminating or even just simply filling your brioche. You have to move fast so that the fats don't melt, the dough doesn't over proof, and so you will be able to keep up with chef and the rest of the class. If possible, do things in advance if you know you have time to do it like scaling your dry ingredients. Every little thing you do helps better the future.
ReplyDeleteToday on day 2 of class we did our first trial of the brioche shaping. We made a mistake in not proofing the dough for 15 minutes after rounding. The gluten didn’t rest long enough so it kept stretching back. This caused the shape to be all messed up. The neck wasn’t long enough and it wasn’t relaxed enough so it was “tight” when we did the final shape. It looked like scrunched up shoulders instead of laid back shoulders. Now we learned exactly the steps we need to make and will never forget to let the dough rest again.
ReplyDelete
ReplyDeleteOne thing I've learned, and very quickly at that, is that if you do not have partners you can rely on, you will not have a fun time. It's nerve wracking to feel like you have to watch over your someone's shoulders often to end up with the desired product like chef instructed, especially since any small mistake could mess up the end result of your individual product in the long run. So my advice to anyone taking this class in the future, pick people that you know will have your back in all situations and will be on top of things. The class moves too fast for things to go wrong and I feel as if it would be more enjoyable with those whom you are close to or decently close to.
Make sure to take very neat, detailed notes. Mine are pretty messy since I write faster to catch all of the information given to me, and sometimes its hard to locate what I need in it. So yeah, the neater the better or as long as you can find everything, you should be good.
ReplyDeleteToday was day four and we processed the danish dough. However, my group forgot to scale out the salt when we mise en placed which threw our whole recipe off. The dough originally over fermented during the primary fermentation stage, then the bake did not get as dark, and it had more of a bland taste, clearly noticing that something was missing. Thankfully Chef was understanding about our mess up and stressed the importance of measuring out ingredients so they can all be seen. From this, we learned how salt is a key ingredient and what can go wrong if it is left out. We also learned to scale out the ingredients so that they can all be seen in order to not let the same mistake happen again.
ReplyDeleteToday in class my group made Swiss Brioche again. After taking the shaped dough out of the proof box I had Chef give me feedback. Chef told me that my pulling of the dough was off and to make it more even. If I was looking at the Swiss Brioche in its mold, the two sides were going up while the other sides of it were not. Overall, he said the ball shape and size was good and the neck size was good. After taking notes on what Chef had expressed to me I feel that there is always room for improvement and will try to focus more on how to proper handle the dough correctly.
ReplyDeleteToday my group had to make zucchini muffins with a lemon glaze. Our group scaled out the two sugars the recipe called for which was brown and granulated sugar. Once we scaled it out we placed it on the side to focus on the other doughs that had to be complete. Coming back to start the muffins the brown sugar had harden and clumped together. Chef Hitz told us too add the wet ingredients into it which was vanilla extract, eggs, and oil to see if it helps dissolve the lump of brown sugar. Since they did not dissolve we had to get a cambro and strainer to get out the lump.
ReplyDeleteIn class today we had to process a danish dough. While we laminated this dough the other day chef caught that we were missing salt. We all should've caught early on that there was something wrong with this dough because it fermented so much that it popped the lid off the cambro (That has never happened before) and while we were stretching it out during lamination it ripped easily. When chef caught our mistake I was honestly nervous that he would get mad at us for forgetting something but he just turned it into a learning experience for us and the whole class. Because we forgot the salt, the danishes didn't come out as dark as they should of and they had a very bland flavor. Now we have a better understanding of of important salt is and now my group will pay closer attention while scaling out ingredients.
ReplyDeleteMy group didn't have a good day with the croissants today. We messed up while using the sheeter and also when we were triming and cutting them. When I was triming the edge I cut in a diagnol line so there was more excessive that could have been used for criossants. After cutting, some pieces were a lot smaller then they should have been. Also during grading chef told us to pay attention to egg washing when making the petit tets because it wasn't the same color throug out. There were little spots where ou could tell that there was no eggwash on it. Triming, cutting, and eggwashing seem like very minor steps during production but today my group learned to pay attention to every little thing during production because the end product could turn out wrong if you don't.
ReplyDeleteToday was day five and my group struggled with the croissants. First, we messed up when using the sheeter, we rolled the dough out too long. Chef was able to help us fix that mess up but we then trimmed too much off of the dough for scraps making the pieces uneven. This caused some of the pieces to be shorter than others making them different sizes when shaped. When shaping them, the dough was sort of warm so our hands melted the corners more. From this we learned to be extra careful when cutting the dough. After talking with Chef, we came up with the idea to trim the edges off of each piece when it is folded over allowing the pieces to remain even.
ReplyDeleteToday was day five and it was a struggle. Things were not going to great from the beginning of the day when we started off processing the dough for the Croissants. We stretched the dough a bit to far when using the sheeter and trimming and cutting did not go so well either. We ended up with uneven croissants in the end. Another part of the day that did not go as well was making the Petit Tetes. They were looking like turtles and did not have an even egg wash so it did not have an even coloring around it. Today I had also noticed how important it is to have a production schedule. Even though when I created it I was not fully sure of how long everything would take or what order i would be able do it in I found it very helpful.
ReplyDeleteToday was day six and we learned that when processing the sweet dough the dough has to be rotated even if it is the width of the sheeter because it will shrink when being processed. Since we did not do this rotation, our dough was shorter causing the snails and cinnamon buns to be smaller then they were supposed to be. I also learned that when making the Russian braids, the dough has to be a perfect square for the shape to come out correctly. When making the muffins, ours slightly sunk which meant we could have mixed them a tad longer. Thankfully, Chef gives us adequate feedback on all of our products which helps us improve where its necessary.
ReplyDeleteToday was day six and it was a better day than day five. We produced cinnamon buns, hazelnut snails, sticky buns, and Russian braids. I had a little bit difficulty with the filling and spreading on the Russian braids. I added too much of the filling and the braid ended up turning wonky. I also could have done a little bit better with putting it in the pan. I had slight difficulty picking it up and placing it in. When my group used the sheeter today we did not make as many mistakes as the day before. If anything using the sheeter and laminating the doughs when much smoother. It was almost like we flew through it and were super focused on getting it done. I felt that today's production went better than all the rest of the days.
ReplyDeleteDay 2: Today was the first day of production and it went pretty smoothly. It was also the first day we had to be there by 6 A.M. Since there is no lecture from here on out, I was not tired at all since I was not sitting. The constant production keeps you awake. My group is starting to get to know each other. We work very well as a group. Day one we divided and conquered very nicely. We had one problem mixing out brioche. It ended up being because we miss scaled our flour. Before we added the butter to the dough was extremely soft. We weighted the dough and it was a few hundred grams off, because the butter was not added yet. Before adding the butter to see if that would work, we added 300 grams of flour, and that made the dough come back to life. After that we added the butter like we usually would, we wrapped, labeled and placed it in the freezer hoping for the best for when we shape the brioche on day 3. From this I learned if you make a mistake its okay, but if you fix it, it will only be a larger learned experience.
ReplyDeleteDay 3: Today went much much much more smoother then what I've heard. Not only did we apply what we learned yesterday, but we also learned new stuff today and applied it all pretty much at the same time. The worst part about today was my brioche, the Pete tete. I can never get them to be just right, hopefully it happens before the practical. I am making the ball on top too big and my whole I am tearing too much in one direction. I need to make that whole more even, as well as making the ball on top smaller. From chefs feedback, it seems like I need to make this happen starting of the 45 degrees angle, and making the neck longer. The longer neck would give it less “tight shoulders”. On a positive note, the brioche tarts came out very well, as well as our croissants. My group and I can work on shaping them a little bit better. Putting everything together today made all the methods click in my head. I learned a lot today.
ReplyDeleteDay 4: Surprisingly, day three went a lot smoother then today. From rumors, I heard that day three is the worst but I thought today was. Some things went wrong but it was mostly extremely stressful. The different generations of all the doughs got very confusing of when to laminate and when to process each dough. Sometimes we would leave the dough in the freezer for too long so we would have to wait a few minutes before running it through the sheeter, delaying my group and I. My group and I also had an issue with brown sugar from the zucchini muffins. We scaled the ingredients about an hour before we mixed it so the brown sugar was very clumpy since it was left out. When we added the oil and eggs it helped smooth it out a little bit but we still had to strain it through the strainer. It was a little difficult to put through it the strainer because it was so thick, however, we made it work. Also when laminating the dough we need to me more mindful of how much we are trimming off before the second tri fold. Today we lost about twenty dollars worth of croissants. Overall, it was a good day because we learned from our mistakes for next time.
ReplyDeleteToday was a much better day for my group. We are really getting better at our time management skills and planning our day better. We got all our production done in a timely manner and the only issue we had was with the size of our sweet dough rolls because of the way we sheeted our dough. but they were still baked and finished well. The whole class also learned how to clean fast and efficient because chef said if we finish by a certain time we can get a 100 as a quiz grade. Today really showed me how to be quick and efficient in the kitchen and that a production schedule is very helpful so you aren’t just running around the kitchen wondering what to do next.
ReplyDeleteDay 2 Blog
ReplyDeleteToday we made a brioche and Danish. The Danish dough came off the stand mixer and looked great. Then we begin to mix the brioche dough. After about three minutes of mixing the dough and very wet and not even resembling a brioche dough. So we stopped the mixer and we measures the dough that we had and found that we miss scaled the flour by about 300 grams. So after we added the additional flour the dough stiffened up and looked correct.
Day 7 Blog
ReplyDeleteToday we were making Danish and sweet dough at about the same time. So, we were at the mixer and the sweet dry and liquid goes into the mixer. Or so we thought after about 2 minutes a team mate told me to come look at the sweet dough she was mixing. So, I came over and know right away the she had put the Danish dry ingredients into the mixer because the Danish had a lot dry ingredients than the sweet and the mixture was way to dry. So, after we found the sweet dough dry ingredients had been moved we rescaled and corrected our problem.
Day 5 Blog
ReplyDeleteToday we processed our brioche doughs. While we were shaping our brioche, the heads were already on the larger side. Some of them had not been properly stretched and had turned into turtles. This was also due to the fact that we had over proofed the brioche causing them to get to large. This results in a sloppy end product. The way chef told us to correct this was to make the heads just a smidge smaller, don’t proof so long and make sure the brioche goes in straight up and down in the brioche pans.
Day 4- Today my group realized that we forgot the salt in our danish dough while we were laminating it. There was a distinct difference in the taste of the dough with the salt and the taste of it without the salt. Originally we thought we let the dough ferment too long and thats why the lid of the bin popped off, however we now realize it was because there was no salt. Our group learned from this mistake and now we know we will always double check our scaled ingredients
ReplyDeleteDay 5- My group really struggled with croissants today, or as chef would say "screwed up". We sheeted them too long and then trimmed the sides unevenly. This caused our croissants to be short and stubby. However, it was a learning experience and we asked chef to help us sheet them next time. Even though the size of them was completely off, I am confident in rolling them now.
ReplyDeleteDay 6- My group and I messed up on processing the sweet dough. We did not rotate it while rolling it, causing the middle of the dough to become thinner. When we rolled it they were small and made a lot more than the other groups. Although the size was off, we baked and filled them properly. I am confident that the next time we process sweet dough we will get it right.
ReplyDeleteToday on day 4 we messed up a major process of the zucchini bread. We were going to add the zucchini after all the flour was already incorporated. We were supposed to add all oil, vanilla, eggs and then add your zucchini and then add half the flour. Then add the last half of the flour with the raisins and walnuts. If Chef didn’t catch us it would have made the batter tough and will cause tunneling. We learned now the right was to make the zucchini and we won’t forget this method again.
ReplyDeleteOn Thursday it was day 7. Day 7 went pretty smooth. I kept telling myself that it was going to be a good day because of the fact that all the other days I felt were just awful. On day 7 my group produced the apricot danishes. A few of us forgot certain portions on how to create this one because the demo was done with all of the other danishes on day 1 or 2. When chef was grading the danishes he reminded us that we needed to put two layers of harmony glaze over the top of the apricot so it did not look like it had been sitting in the display case for weeks. Having two coats on it made it look fresher than having just one coat on. I also learned how to properly add the right amount of filling into to Russian Braid. The first time it was made there was too much filling and I put just the right amount. What i learned about the Russian Braid on day 7 was that i was putting it in the pan the wrong way. I was rolling it to long so it was a bit too long for the pan and had to squish it inside.
ReplyDeleteDay 2:
ReplyDeleteToday was the day where we actually started production. Day 1 was a lot of demos and lecture followed by mixing danish and brioche dough to be processed and laminated the next day. After already making a mistake on the first day by not bring the danish liquids up to the correct temperature, I was a little nervous for what day 2 was to bring.
Laminating dough was not something new to us. We gained our previous experience through classic pastry when laminating by hand. However, by hand would not exactly work efficiently for croissant making so today we learned how to use the sheeter. Using a sheeter is way less labor intensive than by hand and way faster, but definitely confusing. Chef kept spitting out all of these numbers and measurements and rotations, and by time he finished the whole process I was still trying to remember step 1. My head was spinning and was getting pretty stressed just thinking about getting on that machine. Fortunately, chef was there to guide us all through the process and made it much easier for us to handle.
I struggled the most with the brioche petit tetes. I could not get the shaping right, or the rolling or which way to turn the dough so the head was facing the right way. I was looking at my notes from the demo and was trying my best to remember everything he said but there was definitely still something wrong with my brioche. After having chef come over and check everything out, he told me the I was turning the dough the wrong way before shaping the head. That’s why my heads were all ugly and deformed. To fix this issue, he used one of our extra balls to demonstrate how to rotate again and then I understood what to do next time. The brioche still proofed and baked correctly, they just did not look as nice as they should have.
Day 3:
ReplyDeleteToday was a busy day in the lab. It has been a struggle getting used to waking up at 5 and being in class by 6 instead of 7 am. As difficult as it was to get up, it was definitely worth it because we needed that extra hour in order to complete everything. Today we processed danish dough to make croissants, laminate danish, processed brioche, mix danish and brioche, and made pumpkin muffins. Production was getting heavier each day with a lot of different variations of products and my was spinning more and more.
Chef was there to help us process our danish dough and figure out how to cut it. With his help using the sheeter again today wasn’t too difficult. It was a bit of a challenge to time everything with the freezer, proof time, baking, fermenting and processing. I am super thankful to have my teammates there to remind me of things that might have been forgotten. I found the shaping of croissants to be fun and fairly simple, I enjoyed the rolling and felt pretty good about what I was able to produce. Pumpkin muffins was also simple to make, my group and I formed an assembly line and were able to get all of the muffins scooped, measured and topped fairly quickly.
Brioche on the other hand, was still a struggle for all of us today. We were able to rotate and roll the dough much better but now my group and I struggled on making the holes in the dough to pull the head through. We understood how to execute it, but some of the ugly dough on the bottom would show through in the tins and especially after we baked them. We could not figure out how to hide that so we asked chef for some assistance again. He told us that when we were flattening it out and making a hole we were pulling some of the underside through which was causing the body of the brioche to look not as smooth. He showed us again what to do on one of the extra dough balls we had and it was much easier to identify and correct the mistake we made.
Day 5:
ReplyDeleteWaking up earlier was getting easier and easier. I found it enjoyable to be up early enough to actually get starbucks without waiting in a line and sit down to eat breakfast. I also find it pretty satisfying that we complete so much between 6-7am and there are students who haven’t even gotten to class yet. Today was we were adding in new items to our production. We were mixing a sweet dough in addition to our everyday production. Watching chef’s demos on all of the products were would be making with the sweet dough was exciting and I could not wait to create them all the next day.
The brioche shaping was coming along much better in terms of head size, neatness, and placement in the tins. They still needed improvement of course, but they were definitely better than what they used to be. Today was also our best day for one of the brioche variations. We made the apple filling version. Chef said they were all shaped evenly and consistently, baked and filled well and finished just fine. He gave us an A for a mock grade on those. Our group was pleased with the critiques and are happy we are making a lot of progress.
The croissants however, were a struggle today. The whole process was a challenge. First we forgot that the dough needs to be the width of the belt before rotating and I think we got confused with all the measurements and rotations. Then when we were cutting them at the table, it was not in half and we trimmed too much so it was really uneven. After that when trying to cut triangles, that became uneven and the dough at that point was pretty warm and was starting to get sticky. It just kept on spiralling. The rolling of the croissants were so uneven and misshapen, and after proofing the tails were popping out and at that point could not be fixed. The only thing we did decently was bake them for the right amount of time. We new right off the bat all of our mistakes and recognized them. We discussed it as a group what needed to be fixed for tomorrow and that it's okay to mess up because we are here to learn. Messing up so many times was definitely a confidence destroyer, but we knew that we wouldn’t make those mistakes again.
Day 5: Today was our second day to process croissants. Yet it was the first time that we started to do some of it by ourselves. This was our first error. Although we should have been getting the hang of it, we definitely should have called chef over for more help than we did. This lead to multiple steps that went minorly wrong, affecting the final product. The first was when sheeting the dough. We did not make it the width of the belt, and we should have called chef over, but instead went to our table. Then, we had to trim, which we ended up trimming too much off of one side. This left one half much larger than the other. This was clear to us, and if we had called chef over, maybe we could have fixed it a little more. This lead to our triangles being all different sizes which made the end products all different sizes as well. It was not a desirable outcome. Altogether, today we learned that the little details such as belt width matter a lot, especially when it comes time to trim. We also learned that when given the opportunity, as in not on a practical, it would be wise to ask for more instruction rather than go for it, and get a less desirable product.
ReplyDeleteDay 7: Today was the first day of making practical doughs. It was definitely the most hectic. While the practical parts went well, there was still a lot of production that took place. One such being the Russian braids. Although the product still looked nice, mine was not ideal. This was due to too much filling in one area of the braid. This means I had uneven spreading of the filling as well. The first time I made this braid, I had too little filling. This time, I was worried I would have this problem yet again, and tried to balance it out. Yet I went a little heavy handed, and in an uneven manner. This was a learning opportunity to see how much I should have, as I have made the scenarios of too much and too little. I believe I will remember what each looks like, and will spend a little bit more time trying to get the right amount of filling.
ReplyDeleteApril 5, 2017: Today we began a more serious and busy production schedule. This day was filled with quite a few demos and a lot of instruction. There was a lot of new techniques to learn that we hadn’t experienced before like laminating dough on the sheeter. We also learned how to fold the dough and cut it properly. It was a very overwhelming day overall but it was also gave us a good idea about how the rest of the nine days would be like. After the class was over I felt like as a whole the class understood what needed to be done and how the class was going to run in addition to all the information that was given out.
ReplyDeleteApril 10, 2016: Today was a hectic day for myself because I had missed the day before. I needed to learn all the material from day three and keep up with the new information given out today. After meeting with my partner, I felt as though I was pretty much caught up until we got into production. After seeing how much I had missed, I was worried about catching up with the rest of the class but throughout the day I was able to ask more questions and figure out all the measurements and information about the croissants and Danish that I needed to know. Overall the day went smoothly and we could finish what needed to be done.
ReplyDeleteApril 11, 2017: Today in class we learned how to shape all the sweet dough products. We weren’t able to shape them ourselves yet but we watched to see how Chef wanted each product to be shaped and filled and finished. It was nice to be able to go over the videos after the demo to see exactly how he was rolling and filling the dough. It was helpful for me to be able to watch the demo a second time to make sure I had all the measurements planned out. Today Chef also helped us get better at shaping the petit tetes. Having him go over that again was very helpful with the practical coming up.
ReplyDeleteBlog 1: Day 2
ReplyDeleteToday my group in into a big of trouble while trying to make the brioche dough. We realized the issue as we started to mix all the ingredients with the spiral. The dough appeared far stickier and softer than it had the previous day. This meant we were either short on the dry or too high on the wet. To figure out where we had gone awry we added up all the recipes ingredients to see how much it should have weighed and compared it to the actual weight of the dough. The dough was 300 grams lighter than it should have been, telling us we under-scaled something. Our best guess was that we were short on flour, and that we must have forgotten to tare something during mis en place. We added the missing flour to the dough and mixed it till incorporated. In the end it appeared to be of okay consistency, so we wrapped it and put it in the fridge. We will have to wait until tomorrow when we bake the dough to know if it truly turned out okay.
Blog 2: Day 3
Right from day 1 we were told this would be a very busy class and the production workload could very easily become overwhelming. Today was supposed to be the busiest of all the days and thus the most stressful. However, I was very impressed with how well it all went today. I won’t deny that it was a very hectic day, and there were a lot of issues with finding time for everyone to use the equipment. But I actually really liked this day because it brought out the comradery. As a class we did a phenomenal job of watching out for each other and lending a hand when needed, which is so important to have in a kitchen. The oven in particular was a bit tricky because we had to find a way to bake everyones’ product. However, each team did a great job of communicating and working together to get everything into the oven. We helped each other finish products on time and get them in, we washed others dishes, we kept an eye on their products. Overall it just went really smoothly and I was quite impressed with it. So yes, while we did have a very busy day with a lot to cover, it all went much better than expected due to us all working as a team.
Blog 3: Day 4
For today’s blog posting I wanted to talk about my group's production of the zucchini muffins. In an attempt to stay on top of things and keep moving, we had scaled the ingredients for the muffin fairly early on. We made a lot of other products and watched some demos before ever getting around to making them. When we did go to mix it all, the brown sugar had turned crusty and hard, making it impossible to mix together without having a lumpy product. Our solution was to use a strainer to get out the chunks, thus giving us a smooth product. The reason I chose to blog about this was because while we were trying to save time and be ahead of things by prescaling, we ultimately lost time and product. So, for future days in the kitchen, I know I need to think not just one but two steps ahead to make sure I avoid wasting time and product.
Blog 1: Day 2
ReplyDeleteToday my group in into a big of trouble while trying to make the brioche dough. We realized the issue as we started to mix all the ingredients with the spiral. The dough appeared far stickier and softer than it had the previous day. This meant we were either short on the dry or too high on the wet. To figure out where we had gone awry we added up all the recipes ingredients to see how much it should have weighed and compared it to the actual weight of the dough. The dough was 300 grams lighter than it should have been, telling us we under-scaled something. Our best guess was that we were short on flour, and that we must have forgotten to tare something during mis en place. We added the missing flour to the dough and mixed it till incorporated. In the end it appeared to be of okay consistency, so we wrapped it and put it in the fridge. We will have to wait until tomorrow when we bake the dough to know if it truly turned out okay.
Blog 2: Day 3
Right from day 1 we were told this would be a very busy class and the production workload could very easily become overwhelming. Today was supposed to be the busiest of all the days and thus the most stressful. However, I was very impressed with how well it all went today. I won’t deny that it was a very hectic day, and there were a lot of issues with finding time for everyone to use the equipment. But I actually really liked this day because it brought out the comradery. As a class we did a phenomenal job of watching out for each other and lending a hand when needed, which is so important to have in a kitchen. The oven in particular was a bit tricky because we had to find a way to bake everyones’ product. However, each team did a great job of communicating and working together to get everything into the oven. We helped each other finish products on time and get them in, we washed others dishes, we kept an eye on their products. Overall it just went really smoothly and I was quite impressed with it. So yes, while we did have a very busy day with a lot to cover, it all went much better than expected due to us all working as a team.
Blog 3: Day 4
For today’s blog posting I wanted to talk about my group's production of the zucchini muffins. In an attempt to stay on top of things and keep moving, we had scaled the ingredients for the muffin fairly early on. We made a lot of other products and watched some demos before ever getting around to making them. When we did go to mix it all, the brown sugar had turned crusty and hard, making it impossible to mix together without having a lumpy product. Our solution was to use a strainer to get out the chunks, thus giving us a smooth product. The reason I chose to blog about this was because while we were trying to save time and be ahead of things by prescaling, we ultimately lost time and product. So, for future days in the kitchen, I know I need to think not just one but two steps ahead to make sure I avoid wasting time and product.
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ReplyDelete1. Today was day 2 of class. Today my team and I laminated our Danish dough and fabricated our petite tetes and swiss rolls. We, however, made a pretty big mistake. For our brioche dough for the rolls, we grabbed our generation 2 dough, instead of generation 1, which had been sitting in the freezer, and was very difficult to work with considering it was hard as a rock. Generation 1 was sitting peacefully in the fridge, ready to be fabricated because it had the time to rest and relax for the proper duration. This taught us all a lesson to look very carefully at the labels of what we are making that day, and I am sure we will not make this mistake again.
ReplyDeleteOn Friday me and my group made the mistake of using our generation 2 brioche dough instead of the generation 1. we were all confused on how hard the dough was after being left out for 45 mins and none of us even thought to check the label. To avoid doing this in the future we need to make sure we read the label and make the writing on the table really big so it stands out to us.
ReplyDeleteDAY 3: Today was less than ideal, we knew from DAY 1 that DAY 3 would be a mess, but I definitely could have prepared myself better for today. To start, the danish dough that I mixed had been scaled improperly with it missing about 200 g of flour. This led to a sticky mess in the mixer and to an uneven texture in the dough. To remedy this in the future, I can double check my scaled dry ingredients, especially if it has been left over the weekend as this one had been. The other biggest issue that occurred today had to do with the speed that my group worked. Lack of communication led to us placing our danishes in the oven at 12:15 and led to the whole class getting out 20 minutes late as we had to finish glazing and boxing them up. Especially as a group of 3 we really need to diminish down time, by being more clear headed, focused, and communicating better to each other as a group. As for what went well today, my petit tetes are beginning to have a good definition between the top head and bottom 2/3 rds. They have definitely improved from the first batch.
ReplyDeleteDAY 4: Today went a little more smoothly then yesterday, but not without a few bumps in the road. The biggest mistake I made today was combining the Swiss Brioche liquid ingredients with the dry ingredients for the Danish dough. Since the Swiss Brioche is mixed in the spiral mixer, the only way to remedy this problem was to mix the dough until the bowl is clean, remove it and start all over with the right ingredients. This could have been disastrous but thanks to the help from my group mates and group 4, we were able to stay on track. The second biggest mistake that I made today was in the shaping of my petit tetes. I did not rotate the dough the right way which led to a lot of lumps on the heads and even a few "turtles" they honestly looked worse than my first set of petit tetes. To remedy these problems, it would be best to review my notes the night before class and double check my mise en place before pouring things into the mixer. As for what went well today, I believe our timing as a group is getting better and we were in the oven much earlier than previous days.
ReplyDeleteDay 4: on day 4 my group did no properly cream the butter and sugar for the banana muffins. by not creaming the butter right the eggs did not emulsify properly which then led us to over mixing the dough when we added the flour which then developed to much gluten. this led to the muffins to not properly rise in the oven. When you went over the muffin recipe with us you told us to call you over each step so you can check to see If we were doing it right but we did not do that so are muffins were not completely correct. we had the right flavor just not the right structure.
ReplyDeleteDAY 6: Today we set up a production schedule for a quiz grade to see how well we could plan our day. I think mine was organized very well except I made one big mistake. In my production sheet I only put down one of the sweet dough, the generation that we had to mix and didn't write about the one we had to process into sticky buns, cinnamon rolls, and hazelnut snails. This made it difficult to stick to my schedule because I had to squeeze in that production item between all the other ones I needed to make. This led to our mistake of slightly over proofing our sweet dough items. This compromises the final product and in some situations, even makes the item unusable. To remedy this situation in the future, I could ask clarifying questions the previous day and check the fridge/freezer to jog my memory of what needs to be produced the next day.
ReplyDelete2. One day 4 our team did pretty well. We were ahead of the class and managed our time very well. We kept all of our doughs organized and were very efficient with lamination and productions. We delegated our tasks to be most efficient. I still think that we have to pay more attention to detail and slow down instead of race to the finish. Our brioche was feeling warm and I suggested that we place it in the fridge for a little bit to cool to down so our brioche men would form better but my team ignored me and it ended up biting us on the butt a little bit. Some of their heads were very poorly formed so it was frustrating to see a final product of less than satisfactory when it could’ve been better if we just slowed down. We have the potential to be a really great team and we have a lot of good things going on in the group, but I wish they paid more attention to the small details
ReplyDelete3. Today on day 6 our team had a big blunder first off. For our sweet dough we forgot to cut the pieces off for the braid before we laminated. I got confused on my diagram and thought it was after lamination, but no one on my team even had their paper out to check with me so it was an across the board blame. It was very frustrating because obviously mistakes happen, but I was annoyed that our team couldn’t just pull together and get it fixed. When I offered solutions, I got curt answers for no reason and that only made things worse. My team is very competent so it is ridiculous that when we make one mistake, the team shuts down and gives attitude for a while after. We need to learn to just get over mistakes, find solutions and carry on with our day.
Day 2 04/20/17: Today as part of a group I learned time management and communication because failure to discuss things with your partner's lead to things going the wrong way because of someone being unsure. Overall today was not as bad as I expected to be there a couple fixable factors such as the shaping of shaping the swiss brioche for the swiss rolls and not applying enough egg wash to ready to bake products. Another important piece of information that was learned today is to be sure you are pulling the right generation of dough out of the freezer/refrigeration be sure to label clear and start with the lowest number generation.
ReplyDeleteDay 3 04/24/17: Today was a hard day to manage, this is because we took on so much product we were pushed back with time. But somehow we manage to complete the day as well as learn a couple important pieces information one being that if you are finish with your product or have the slightest amount of down time help other groups. Helping groups out will not only allow you to get more experience but it helps them complete the task that needs to be done. Another thing that chef pointed out is that when presenting your final product you should always have everything organized by what the product is and what's in it, what you shouldn't do is crowd everything onto one sheet tray because it looks like the ”inside of a garbage can.”
ReplyDeleteDay 6 04/27/17: Today just like day 3 was a hard day to handle, i feel this way because of the amount of production that was created from each group there was a shortage of sheet trays. But with every day there is a lesson, today had many, to begin with make sure you communicate with the drive of the lamination machine when laminating dough or you will get dough that is over stretched. Another lesson is be sure not to over proof your product, if you aren't sure to the touch test or even ask chef. But the most important lesson that i picked up on for the day is be sure to dough check everything that is being done to be sure it is being done the right way as well as on time.
ReplyDeleteBlog 1: Day 2- Today my team and I made the decision to begin working on our pumpkin muffins while we had a little bit of free time but we had a small hiccup because we had to do Swiss rolls almost right after we started the blending process of the muffins. However, we were able to get both done in time and they came out pretty well.
ReplyDeleteBlog 2: Day 2- Once my group and I mixed the Danish dough, we had to make a butter block for the lamination process to occur the following day. However I let the butter sit for a little too long and began getting too soft and I have pretty hot hands so the butter was melting even more every time i touched it. I would have to let it sit and let my hands get somewhat cooler before handling it and being able to get it in the parchment but luckily it did not get too soft so that it would come out of the parchment envelope.
Blog 3: Day 7- Today was a pretty solid day for my team, but however we had a small mishap with our croissants. The steam wasn't turned off in the oven and when we pushed start to start a new timer the steam was going off in the oven and we had to open the door to the oven in order to release the steam but it made our croissants have a large hole in the inside crumb and they started to deflate instead of being puffy. But we did stay on top of our other products and had very tasty sweet dough products.
Day 2 - As we begin to get into the swing of things and figure out how the class works my team and I encountered a pretty large mix up. The brioche that had been pulled for today’s production was Generation 2 that had been in the freezer rather than Generation 1 that had been in the fridge. We wondered why it had taken so long to get to room temperature to make it easier to work with, but none of us thought to check the label. This lead to a harder time dividing and forming our petit tetes but we worked through it as a team. All in all, we learned from this speed bump to always double and triple check everything.
ReplyDeleteDay 4 - Collectively as a group we are fast paced and always eager to finish everything. Although we have been told multiple times that a fast pace can sometimes alternate the quality of our finished products. For example, for our banana muffins we were told to check with chef after every step of the creaming process but we failed to do so. Due to this our muffins did not dome over most likely due to the mixing process. Once again this was a groups mistake as a whole that can easily be worked through, but yet we continue to beat each other up with attitude once something goes wrong.
Day 7 - Today while laminating our Danish dough to produce Danishes, my partner and I proceeded to the sheeter with our notes in hand to follow the step by step illustrations. We somehow managed to confuse our notes on the rotations of the dough leading to a very long dough with a very short width. Thank god that this was not our practical dough and that we got the chance to review steps again with chef. For our practical we will make sure not to make the same mistake.
Blog 1: On day 3, team 3 messed up the measurements on the folding of the parchment when making the butter block. You needed to fold it about an inch to an inch and a half on each side and they did much more which made the butter block shorter and thicker which would be alot harder to laminate.
ReplyDeleteBlog 2: On day 7, in the extra down time we had i was making the hazelnut filling and scaled the sugar that was supposed to be creamed by itself with the butter with all the dry ingredients. To try and fix this i tried to seperate the sugar the best i could and in the end when i was adding the eggs to the creaming mixture it was very watery.it should be much stiffer, but in the end there were no lumps in the end product and turned out really well.
Blog 3: On day 7, our croissants did not keep its nice layers do to the steam not being turned off in our oven and we had to open the door to the oven to let the steam out quickly, this caused our croissants to look kind of like a spider web in the center.
ashleigh spagnuolo ^^^ not sure why it says unknown
DeleteDay 2 4/20/17 Blog: We learned about time management and planning out your production logically. Because group four wanted to get things done faster, they decided to mix the muffin batter while the brioche was resting after being pre-shaped. The problem was, the chemical leavener mixed with the liquid in the muffin batter causes it to activate right away. If half of the group needed to get the muffins in the oven, they would miss out on practicing shaping of brioche, which is a practical item. Chef compared this to jumping out of a plane without a parachute because you're overly excited to get things done early. This taught me that even if you want to be efficient, you have to make sure you prioritize the right items, and manage your production to get the less important things done when you have extra time.
ReplyDeleteDay 3 4/24/17 Blog: Today we had a discussion about how to properly load the convection ovens. Group three had put three sheet pans close to the top, and none towards the bottom. This is an issue because the ovens do not have any programable settings for where to distribute heat, so if everything is very close together, some will burn and some will still be raw on the same pan. It is important to load the ovens so that there is at least one rack in between each sheet pan, no sheet pans in the middle racks, and an even number of pans at the top and bottom. This taught me to always keep this information in the back of my mind, especially during the practical when there is so much going on and everyone is rushing to use the ovens.
Day 6 4/27/17 Blog: Today, my group and group one both decided to do both fruit fillings for our brioche tarts. Since group one was ahead of us, they accidentally put pearl sugar on both the blueberry and apple tarts, even though the apple tarts were supposed to have cinnamon sugar on them. Luckily for my group, we knew this before our tarts were ready to be filled, but it was still an important lesson for us to learn. It made me remember to always check back in my notes if I am unsure about a filling or topping, or anything else, even if I think I'm right, just to double check myself before I make a mistake.
Day 6: today my team did not properly read their notes for processing sweet dough which lead to us not cutting off 4 pieces of dough for are Russian braids. we ended up just cutting the off the amount we needed for the braid and used the rest for the rest of the sweet dough products. it was very frustrating at first but we pulled it together and finish what we needed to do for that day.
ReplyDeleteJustine Ithier
ReplyDeleteBlog 1 : Day 2: Today, being the first day of production definitely wasn't easy. My group fell behind and because of this our production went into cleaning time. We got trapped in front of the fridge while we were making the cuts on our swiss rolls and egg washing all the petit tetes. There was no way for Chef to get to us, which made it difficult to receive the help we needed and it showed in the finished product.
Blog 2: Day 3 : Today there was a lot of production to be done and my group became overwhelmed. We had to call over Chef quite a few times because we kept getting confused between all the products that needed to be produced. In the end, thankfully we completed everything and were able to catch up with the rest of the groups that way we weren't as behind anymore.
Blog 3: Day 5 : Today my group was missing a member so it was a team of three. We split up some of the work that way everything would get done and made the mistake of laminating the wrong dough and while laminating instead of a trifold, we did a book fold. Chef wasn't to happy about it when he found out but luckily we were able to correct our mistake on Day 6.
Day 2- My team and I had a scaling miscommunication. My side of the team scaled the Danish dough and we thought that our partners were scaling for the brioche dough, but they were in the process of scaling the Danish dough. Thank goodness they didn’t get far enough so we were able to adjust the amount for the Brioche dough.
ReplyDeleteDay 3- We laminated our dough taller than the butter, so chef came and squished our dough so that it would be equal to the butter.
ReplyDelete