Does anything ever taste bad? I think NOT!

I wish I could dislike one thing, just one. It all tastes so amazing and authentic.

Today especially, with our flaky pain au chocolat!  I am sure my family will be very excited when I visit back home next weekend because they are in for some tasty treats.
The Pain au Chocolat especially!...hmm hmmm Alessan. lol

       Like we could sell this stuff in the streets...total overload!

We also made 2 different baguettes, same style only learning two different methods.
One with a traditional poolish (a starter) for the bread which we prepped yesterday and allowed to sit over night at room temperature, much more liquid-y and essentially breaks down the sugars more, allowing for a nutty, more caramelized note on the palette. The other starter was a prefermented dough which is much more spongy in texture and lighter. Both delicious, but my preference being the poolish method...go figure the more time consuming method lol- it needs 12 hrs minimum before the dough can be mixed!
All worth it in the end...I am sure my cousins are enjoying those beauties:)

                                          Scoring the baguettes

                                           Watching them bake!

                                          Comparing the crumbs!


We have also started to prep more dough for more croissants..(i know how many can one soul possibly eat...apparently alot! But we did make an almond orange blossom simple syrup to use for them)....and more danishes (I think a different flavor this time, possibly with a pastry cream versus the almond cream)

The more we learn, the better!

Au Revoir!

Week 2 of Breads!

Happy Monday..
A little more quiet today,
we made kugelhopf and farmers bread and we started our poolish for baguettes tomorrow.

Lets start with the kugelhopf,
a southern German, Austrian and Alsatian term for a bundt style cake/brioche.
Kugel- meaning ball or globe
and
Hupf- meaning jump or rise 

It consists of a soft yeast dough which is topped with almonds, and has raisins soaked in Kirsch.
It is baked in a special circular pan which is made only in Alsace, France. It has a central tube, and originally made of enameled pottery. Basically a brioche, but because it is baked in this specific pan it is called a kugelhopf.

Here are some photos:

We also made farmers bread aka. Bread with rye flour and chopped walnuts.
The process was very similar to French bread and equally delicious.

Tomorrow, stay tuned for traditional baguettes and pain au chocolat!

-N

Au Bon Pain!

It has been a couple of crazy days, and finally just got to blog about what we baked on Thursday and Friday. And you guessed it right...bread! More of it....

So what did I make again?..hmm...

Oh how could I forget,
croissants
beignets
danishes
waffles
french bread (yup! more of it)
beer bread

I am on ovvverloadd!

Lets start with the beignets, because they were probably my favorite!
So pillow-y and soft, coated in the best -cinnamon and sugar
Reminded me of the traditional fried dough or bombe style donut, but so different- more layers when you bite into it, and just so good, especially hot!

 The beignets before being fried

 Frying the beignets in oil

 Audrey frying and eating- we are all pretty happy!

 Yummy beignets!

On to croissants, so I told you we had to start them the day before and did the first few turns on the dough. Now we did the final turn, fold and roll out and we were ready to cut and roll up our croissants.
Here they are:

 Rolling the cut triangles for out croissants

 Egg washing before the final proof

C'est Fini!


Now, danishes are a similar dough as the croissant, but slightly different. We made almond pear danishes. Here are some photos of us rolling and folding our dough like with the croissant and then cutting and shaping the base for our almond pear filling.

 Cutting our squares before the final shape

 The shape of our danish without filling

 Filled raw danishes

Done:)

Now, how many of you love waffles?

I can honestly say I have never been a waffle fan, I would always take pancakes or crepes over a waffle any day!
Hahaha..let me tell you, these waffles we made, have changed my life!
I have never tasted anything so light, airy and crispy all at the same time. And all we did was dust them with confectionery sugar after, I can only imagine what they would be like sandwiched with vanilla ice cream. A Belgium classic, these waffles will all make you run for seconds!...maybe even thirds.

And the crispy bits, are the best little snack!...we would know...trust me lol

We also made a beer bread-
A white bread with rye flour and a beer topping.

And more French bread, only this time, we made the couronne (crown shaped), fougasse (the ladder) and epi (resembling the ear of wheat)...so light and only 4 ingredients in bread people!
Throw out your store bought bread and hit an artisan bakery.

Photo courtesy of Cristina!

More to come...one more week of bread and breakfast pastries. A few things to look forward to,
chocolate and almond croissants, kugelhopf and more french bread!

Nighty Night!
-N

Our lives are so tough...can you tell?

SO today was an eventful day.

Loaves of bread, lemon pound cake, the start of crossiants and prep for beignets!
Could life get any better? well maybe a little fatter! haha

So here we have our lemon pound cake- meaning 25% of each, butter, flour, sugar and eggs=deliciosa!
This one is for you mamma....too bad you cannot indulge with a nice cafe.

After we made our lemon pound cakes we went on to making our poolish for our beignets- which we will be finishing tomorrow, and from what I hear, they are supposed to be amazing! But lets get real here...nothing is bad! It is all good...which is a big problem:o lol

Here we have Rosalina, my partner for the next two weeks scaling some dough for our French bread.
We made our French bread into the shape of batards- do you know why its called a batard?
We are not too sure, but it definitely means "bastard" when translated! haha, maybe it was the neglected one because its not a baguette and not a boule (round)....its a batard!
I dont really care what it is called, because nonetheless, it was good.



Here is the process from rolling the dough, to proofing, to the baked product!

Now onto the croissants.
Hold your breathe! That is about how much butter goes into the making of 20 croissants!
All worth it though! :p

 See its all gone now, Chef Jonathon hid it, know one will ever know! Bon Appetit!

We were not able to complete the crossiants today, we started rolling and folding them, twice precisely, but tomorrow we complete the folding and rolling and shaping and BAKING and EATING! lol
We have started with plain croissants and will be making almond next week along with pain au chocolat.

Tomorrow! Beignets, the start of danishes and beer bread...im sure it will be a good one!
Keep on coming back...:)

-N

Holy Butter!

My lips are smacking from the oh so delicately, beautiful creations of butter and sugar from today!

Brioche is the word!
So amazing, and made into three variations as if wasn't already good on its own!


1. Brioche loaf- almost resembling a challah style bread
2. Brioche with Streusel- so amazingly soft, sweet and crunchy- ALL AT THE SAME TIME :O
3. Brioche with beesting- an amazing coating of sugar, honey, butter and almonds at the bottom of the brioche that creates a crunchy surface because it has been caramelized.

Here are some photos of them before and after proofing and baking:
1.

2.

3.

We also made blueberry struesel muffins (woa we love streusel!) which we piped into a mini bundt pan and topped with streusel so when popped out the streusel creates a crunchy muffin top like surface.
Here are some photos:

And...if you havent had enough yet....we also made whote wheat bread.
Probably not my favorite bread in the world, but I will take it, the more skills the better!
Each recipe yielded 6 loaves and below I have provided a photo of the before (already proofed) and after. Very nice!

Now that I feel like I am on overload...I have to get a workout in and get prepared for lemon poundcake tomorrow and the start of beignets and croissants!

Too-da-loo!