Mebake's blog

Since the day I baked my first San Francisco Baking institute’s Miche (Posted by dmsnyder here) , I wanted to have another go at it soon. Alas, I have been distracted by several other formulas and books and eventually ended up putting it off. Two days ago, I was reminded by the formula when I saw my wheat germ bag sitting in my freezer and decided to give the formula another whirl.

Last week, i was contemplating the idea of creating a bread that is soft, delicious, and healthy for the young ones. Pullman, and toast bread were two favorites of my kids, but those were all white breads. Looking back in Hamlemans book: Bread, I saw a few notes I have scribbled once on how to convert the Pullman recipe into a whole wheat one without losing much of the original flavor and texture. It was time to put my thoughts to the test. I’ve created a preferment , added some wholewheat flour, and increased water to make a soft dough. The recipe is as follows:

I have finally bought a Pullman pan! two, actually. For bread, my first natural choice was a Rye; my first  Borodinsky  from Andrew’s book: (Bread matters).

The practical classes have finally commenced after a 3 week halt due re-location. We have had the cold desserts last weekend, featuring popular desserts such as Pana Cotta, fruit flavored cold soufflés, and Mousses, in addition to crepes, fruit fritters, and rice pudding.  Most desserts featured below contain gelatine to set them. It goes without saying that everything was exceptionally delicious! We have still few classes left for cold desserts then we’ll be off to hot desserts and later chocolate.

Last week, I’ve baked my first recipe from Andrew Whitely’s  “BREAD MATTERS”: seeded rye bread. The bread was wonderfully delicious and truly addictive. However, I failed to notice that the dough weighs 650g, and cannot fill up my large terrine pan. The bread, however, was an immediate success and half of it was literally devoured while being sliced!

I've had bagels on my mind for quite some time now, and since i never tasted one before, i decided to create  some at home. I've searched TFL for other members' posts on the subject, and many were extremely useful and pointed me in the right direction. I've decided to try Hamelman's version, but without the malt extract, which i substituted with a Tbl. of brown sugar and a Tbl of Baking soda.

Two weeks ago, we made some cup cakes and muffins. Techniques like creaming (beating butter and sugar first), and all together were essentially what we used for cupcakes and muffins. Foaming technique was not used here, only for sponge cakes that require no soda or baking powder. This lesson wrapped up the baked goods section, and we were scheduled to start cold and hot desserts next.

Last week end was lesson 5 for me: Yeasted goods. The lesson spanned over 2 exhausting days with so much to bake in so little time. Moreover, we had to mix all doughs by hand; not an easy quest for 90% of the new faces  that have signed up for only those two days. First we had to prepare our laminated dough and refrigerated it for next day. We’ve used high quality margarine for fat, but for sake of comparison, I chose plain butter. During intermittent refrigeration, we had to make foccacia, baguette, grissini (Italian flavored bread sticks), spelt loaf, and a wholemeal seeded loaf.

So, here i am again. I've been too lazy and tired to comment or blog; the weekend class is draining me off and i don't have much energy to bake anything.

First is Pasry. The last two classes (4 sessions) were on cakes which we managed to finish on time. As shown, we've baked using the foaming, creaming, and altogether techniques. A shining example of the altogether was the chocolate cake; the queen of all cakes which brought an end to our cakes lesson.

And my Pastry class continues. Last weekend ,we’ve started the cookies/cakes class with a theory lesson for half the day on cakes, batters, and creaming/foaming techniques and trouble shooting cakes. This particular lesson will be split into 4 classes. Here is a picture of the cookies made by all of the class (Mine and my team mate's are the ones on the cooling rack; they were uneven and somewhat ragged).