Bread Workshop

This is one lesson that I have really been looking forward to. I've wanted to make my own bread for so long. I've dabbled in it a bit on my own, but too often had my bread rise too much or made silly mistakes. My biggest obstacle is a Kitchen-Aid that simply doesn't have the strength to work bread. I almost killed the motor on the last batch I tried. I've been longing for some real formal lessons on bread-making. And finally they arrived. The workshop was very similar to our plated desserts one. We arrived in the kitchen (no demo) and the chef did a run-through on how to prepare the various stages of the bread, then we got to work.

The first recipe was a simple white bread, which we turned into 4 different types of loaves:

Traditional Baguette

Fougasse sprinkled with herbs de provence

Fantaisie Baguette

Epi Baguette (shaped like a wheat stalk)

 The next batch of bread is Viennese bread, which is a white bread with milk powder and butter in it to make the bread a bit richer.

Grape-shaped Viennese bread

Daisy-shaped Viennese bread

Turtle bread

 The last batch of bread for the day was rye bread. I added pistachios to mine and soaked them in red wine first, then used all red wine as the liquid in the recipe. The decorations on top were made using "dead dough", called that because there is no yeast in it.

Loaf shaped with a bread tray and croissants decor

Round loaf with wheat-shaped decor

Crown-shaped