It's nearing the end of semester and honestly, I can't wait.
I haven't posted in a bit because I've been struggling just to get enough sleep - so much school (and so early) and work and homework and other lifework have made it so that I have had little room to breathe.
There was one particular bad day where I was so exhausted I sliced the tip of my left thumb while cutting bread, and then I was helping prepare for a school fundraiser by hand-shredding some cheese and my thumb was hurting and the cheese wasn't shredding at all, and I stood there for half and hour with only about a handful of cheese shredded, and I just started crying at the futility of everything.
It's times like these that I feel very deeply the nonrenewability of energy and the unsustainability of pushing oneself to the brink of exhaustion.
Also I have come to know just how valuable it is to have people around you who are going through the same thing, who you can trust to work with and feel safe in joking with, because however intangible that is, its effects in combatting exhaustion are unparalleled.
And I know because I've lost that.
Really, in culinary school I was seeking what I missed about AmeriCorps - the really intense hands-on work with people who are similarly passionate. And I thought I found it. But I'm doubting that now. And it's hard to come to terms with why then, exactly, I undertook the life-altering move to do this.
I've learned a lot, yes, but I'm not sure if I should continue on.
May 9, 2011
May 2, 2011
all for the cookie
Cookie station has the reputation of being the easiest station. You make cookie dough, portion it into scoops on trays, and then you bake them off. The difficulty lies in having all the doughs on reserve so you don't have to make every single cookie dough from scratch every day.
When I inherited the station there was not much in reserve, so I was low on cookie variations for a few days until I made enough doughs to catch up. Also it's a small station - only two people - and my partner wasn't always there, so it was a lonely station too.
The cookies we made (a dozen jumbo-sized and a dozen mini-sized each):
- chocolate chip
- double chocolate chip
- oatmeal raisin
- peanut butter (had to be kept separate from the others for allergy concerns)
- coconut macaroon (super easy, just coconut shreds in heated egg whites and sugar)
- russian tea (seen below, rolled in powdered sugar)
- and also brownies (not a cookie but also portioned as jumbo and mini)
The jumbo cookies were packaged two to a bag and sold in the cafeteria, while the mini cookies were displayed in the Pierre Coste Room (commonly known as PCR), the on-campus fine dining restaurant staffed by 2nd semester students. For each cookie plated on the display, we held five in reserve to actually serve to people.
For the PCR we also made other fancy cookie-like things, which included madeleines, palmiers (which I've always known as the heart-shaped cookie), shortbread (pictured below in triangle slices) and tuile cookies (pictured below as curvy shapes).
The tuile cookies (which I loved for their cocoa nibs and caramel-y crispness) were made curvy with the help of a curved tuile pan. If you drop the cookies in while they're freshly hot out of the oven, they cool into the shape of the pan. Neat trick, huh?
When I inherited the station there was not much in reserve, so I was low on cookie variations for a few days until I made enough doughs to catch up. Also it's a small station - only two people - and my partner wasn't always there, so it was a lonely station too.
The cookies we made (a dozen jumbo-sized and a dozen mini-sized each):
- chocolate chip
- double chocolate chip
- oatmeal raisin
- peanut butter (had to be kept separate from the others for allergy concerns)
- coconut macaroon (super easy, just coconut shreds in heated egg whites and sugar)
- russian tea (seen below, rolled in powdered sugar)
- and also brownies (not a cookie but also portioned as jumbo and mini)
The jumbo cookies were packaged two to a bag and sold in the cafeteria, while the mini cookies were displayed in the Pierre Coste Room (commonly known as PCR), the on-campus fine dining restaurant staffed by 2nd semester students. For each cookie plated on the display, we held five in reserve to actually serve to people.
For the PCR we also made other fancy cookie-like things, which included madeleines, palmiers (which I've always known as the heart-shaped cookie), shortbread (pictured below in triangle slices) and tuile cookies (pictured below as curvy shapes).
The tuile cookies (which I loved for their cocoa nibs and caramel-y crispness) were made curvy with the help of a curved tuile pan. If you drop the cookies in while they're freshly hot out of the oven, they cool into the shape of the pan. Neat trick, huh?
April 23, 2011
donuts!
Sometime during breakfast station I found it very odd that we didn't make donuts - they're a pretty ubiquitous American pastry and breakfast food, after all. So I decided to make some, deviating from the station task list.
This was the first thing I made involving yeast - which meant that it had to proof (be in a warmer and moister situation than room temperature) so the yeast could grow and dough expand. So the dough was put into a oiled container and covered to rise overnight, and the next day I cut them using a donut cutter, and Sydney helped me fry them.
Then we glazed them (milk and powdered sugar again), both plain and chocolate.
Some we added crushed almonds or chocolate sprinkles. And some unglazed ones we rolled in powdered sugar.
Unfortunately we made them too late for them to be sold in the cafeteria, so everybody in the class got a chance to eat one. Apparently the last class had a "Bagel Friday" tradition going on. Maybe ours could be donuts? Heart Attack Fridays here we come!
This was the first thing I made involving yeast - which meant that it had to proof (be in a warmer and moister situation than room temperature) so the yeast could grow and dough expand. So the dough was put into a oiled container and covered to rise overnight, and the next day I cut them using a donut cutter, and Sydney helped me fry them.
Then we glazed them (milk and powdered sugar again), both plain and chocolate.
Some we added crushed almonds or chocolate sprinkles. And some unglazed ones we rolled in powdered sugar.
Unfortunately we made them too late for them to be sold in the cafeteria, so everybody in the class got a chance to eat one. Apparently the last class had a "Bagel Friday" tradition going on. Maybe ours could be donuts? Heart Attack Fridays here we come!
dough and cinnamon rolls (breakfast station part 3)
Ever wonder how things like croissants and puff pastry got so puffy? I certainly did. With puff pastry especially, since the grocery store version comes as a flat sheet of dough and yet, when you throw it in the oven, it just expands and fills with air and layers of soft crispness that manifest themselves seemingly out of nowhere.
In breakfast station, I learned just how this phenomenon is brought about - through lamination of the dough. So after dough is made, it is run through the dough sheeter (which rolls out dough to a certain consistent thickness) and folded in half with butter sandwiched in between. Then it's run through again, folded in fours, left to sit for half an hour, run through and folded in threes, then left to sit again for half an hour, and run through and folded in threes. So now, even though the slab of dough has only three apparent folds, it secretly harbors 36 folds (4x3x3), butter between each, and the butter is what creates the layer. Butter, along with any other type of fat used in pastry, is a shortening - that is, it shortens gluten strands and prevents them from uniting the entire pastry into a chewy whole (which is desirable in things like bread, but not so much in things like croissants).
Using the dough sheeter is fun. (And a good thing I learned how to use it too, since we had a practical exam on it.) Unfortunately I don't have a picture of the sheeter, but I do have a picture of Sydney and I with our "dough babies", croissant and danish doughs we finished laminating one day.
Aside from muffins, quick-breads, croissants and danishes, the last thing we make in breakfast station are cinnamon buns. They're made using the scrap dough left over from cutting croissants and danishes. It's funny they're made from scraps, because I like them best out of all the sweet pastries. (And it seems like many good things are created of scraps and leftovers, french toast and paella being two examples that come to mind.)
So first the scrap dough pieces are kneaded together, then run through the sheeter to 2.5mm thick. The dough is laid out on our floured marble table (the marble is so the dough can stay as cool as possible) and topped with copious amounts of brown sugar and cinnamon. Roughly an inch at the top is left untopped.
Starting from the bottom we roll up the dough so it becomes a long dough snake. We cut it into pieces about the width of four fingers (or a hand, if you have small hands like me). Each piece gets the un-sugared segment of the dough folded underneath (to form the bottom of the bun), then is smashed into a spot on an oiled muffin pan.
After they puff up and brown in the oven, they're taken out and rolled around in cinnamon sugar.
And there you have it, a delicious treat that's crisp on the outside, soft on the inside, with layers of sugary cinnamon goodness.
In breakfast station, I learned just how this phenomenon is brought about - through lamination of the dough. So after dough is made, it is run through the dough sheeter (which rolls out dough to a certain consistent thickness) and folded in half with butter sandwiched in between. Then it's run through again, folded in fours, left to sit for half an hour, run through and folded in threes, then left to sit again for half an hour, and run through and folded in threes. So now, even though the slab of dough has only three apparent folds, it secretly harbors 36 folds (4x3x3), butter between each, and the butter is what creates the layer. Butter, along with any other type of fat used in pastry, is a shortening - that is, it shortens gluten strands and prevents them from uniting the entire pastry into a chewy whole (which is desirable in things like bread, but not so much in things like croissants).
Using the dough sheeter is fun. (And a good thing I learned how to use it too, since we had a practical exam on it.) Unfortunately I don't have a picture of the sheeter, but I do have a picture of Sydney and I with our "dough babies", croissant and danish doughs we finished laminating one day.
Aside from muffins, quick-breads, croissants and danishes, the last thing we make in breakfast station are cinnamon buns. They're made using the scrap dough left over from cutting croissants and danishes. It's funny they're made from scraps, because I like them best out of all the sweet pastries. (And it seems like many good things are created of scraps and leftovers, french toast and paella being two examples that come to mind.)
So first the scrap dough pieces are kneaded together, then run through the sheeter to 2.5mm thick. The dough is laid out on our floured marble table (the marble is so the dough can stay as cool as possible) and topped with copious amounts of brown sugar and cinnamon. Roughly an inch at the top is left untopped.
Starting from the bottom we roll up the dough so it becomes a long dough snake. We cut it into pieces about the width of four fingers (or a hand, if you have small hands like me). Each piece gets the un-sugared segment of the dough folded underneath (to form the bottom of the bun), then is smashed into a spot on an oiled muffin pan.
After they puff up and brown in the oven, they're taken out and rolled around in cinnamon sugar.
And there you have it, a delicious treat that's crisp on the outside, soft on the inside, with layers of sugary cinnamon goodness.
croissants and danishes (breakfast station part 2)
Everyday we also baked off 3-4 dozen croissants and 4 dozen danishes. We were able to do this right at the beginning of the morning because the croissants/danishes were shaped and egg-washed the day before, so all we had to do was stick them in the oven.
This of course meant that after we baked everything off, we would get busy dough-rolling and croissant/danish-prepping for the next day. I'll talk about the dough process a little more in the next post, but basically the dough would be rolled out to be 4mm thick, then cut into triangles (croissant) or squares (danish). Besides the shapes, croissant and danish also differ in that croissant dough has less sugar and butter.
Also, croissant dough had to sit and relax for 5-10 minutes after it was cut - this was because we would stretch the triangle shape before rolling it into a croissant. Without letting it relax the dough would simply split when stretched, and that's because the two proteins in gluten result in dough being alternately extensible (stretchy) and elastic (bouncing back). (As a side note: learning things like this make me really excited to be in culinary school.)
So then croissants would be rolled.
And egg-washed (seals the pastry and gives it a sheen when baked).
Meanwhile, danish dough would be cut and/or folded into different shapes. And egg-washed too.
The next day we would add different fillings (raspberry jam, apricot jam, cheese and cinnamon apple) before baking them off.
After baking we would glaze the danishes with simple syrup (but not the croissants).
Occasionally we would do something special. Like frost the danishes. Frosting was surprisingly easy to make, just milk and powdered sugar.
And one day we made chocolate croissants - rectangle instead of triangle shapes, with the addition of a bar of chocolate inside.
Oh and chocolate-glazed them of course.
This of course meant that after we baked everything off, we would get busy dough-rolling and croissant/danish-prepping for the next day. I'll talk about the dough process a little more in the next post, but basically the dough would be rolled out to be 4mm thick, then cut into triangles (croissant) or squares (danish). Besides the shapes, croissant and danish also differ in that croissant dough has less sugar and butter.
Also, croissant dough had to sit and relax for 5-10 minutes after it was cut - this was because we would stretch the triangle shape before rolling it into a croissant. Without letting it relax the dough would simply split when stretched, and that's because the two proteins in gluten result in dough being alternately extensible (stretchy) and elastic (bouncing back). (As a side note: learning things like this make me really excited to be in culinary school.)
So then croissants would be rolled.
And egg-washed (seals the pastry and gives it a sheen when baked).
Meanwhile, danish dough would be cut and/or folded into different shapes. And egg-washed too.
The next day we would add different fillings (raspberry jam, apricot jam, cheese and cinnamon apple) before baking them off.
After baking we would glaze the danishes with simple syrup (but not the croissants).
Occasionally we would do something special. Like frost the danishes. Frosting was surprisingly easy to make, just milk and powdered sugar.
And one day we made chocolate croissants - rectangle instead of triangle shapes, with the addition of a bar of chocolate inside.
Oh and chocolate-glazed them of course.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)