Week 45

TUESDAY 4/11:
Produce Pastries + Coffee

No classes today due to the Melbourne Cup!

WEDNESDAY 5/11:
Produce Cakes

I didn't have work this morning like I usually do so I met up with Lily and we went and had lunch at Operator25 (all these posts will be up soon - in this week hopefully!) and then hung out till we both had to leave.

Anyways, today's class was fruit cake and hazelnut cake (which we made as cupcakes) that all went to the decorating class SAD FACE haha BUT not before we each got to eat one each - and its probably one of the best things we've made in class!

So many perfect muffins - we had two trays of them!

Soooo tasty too! The hazelnut really comes out - defs gonna make these at home one day :D

Firstly, who knew there was so much fruit in the fruit cake! We barely had any batter and the fruit I swear made up like 90% of the weight of the cake - and that's probably why it's called fruit cake LOL. Fruit cake has never been my most favourite of things to eat but the one we made today was ok - not too sickeningly sweet like some of the others I've had before. 

A lot of fruit and not too much batter

THURSDAY 6/11:
Theory + Methods of Cookery
So I hadn't been feeling my absolute best yesterday night, TMI but I was actually quite sick and nothing really stayed down last night so I thought it'd be best to just get some extra sleep hoping that it'd be a lot better for the rest of the day. So with that thought I messaged out group at like 5.45am and then went back to sleep. 

Got up a few hours later feeling a bit better, packed my bags and headed off to my favourite class of the week!

Today we made Osso Bucco Gremolata, Ratatouille, Rice Pilaf and Stewed Apples. I was a bit dazed so I wasn't concentrating 100% today.. and kinda just copied Panee most of the day especially with the timing of things - thank you even if you didn't realise I was doing it ;) ! Why I love working with Panee is because we have so much fun haha - I'm always laughing from the start to end of class but also because we work really well together. Everything is always equally shared and done properly. Like today we were pretty much the first to finish even if our meat wasn't too falling off the bone like everyone else (we had crappy ovens SAD FACE). But other than that everything else was fine and the stewed apples were sooo good!! :)

Osso Bucco Gremolata on Rice Pilaf and Ratatouille (excuse the messy chopping board LOL)

Stewed Apples! - we stood there with two spoons on either side of the bench and finished the whole thing haha

FRIDAY 7/11:
Produce Yeast Goods + First Aid
Still wasn't feeling too good today (I'd gotten home last night and just collapsed into a coma of sleep) and didn't realise we had First Aid until I got to my locker so it wasn't going to be an early day anymore. So like usual I did my homework on my way to class on the train and then tried not to fall asleep for the rest of the way. And today's class was actually one of the most successful we've had!

If you remember in last week's post, on Tuesday we had an evacuation and fire trucks came. WELL.. the reason for that was because one yeast class did not laminate their dough properly and had butter seeping out of the layers and onto the trays. Butter in the oven at 220C for a period of time kinda burn and smokes LOL and that's why the smoke alarms went off. ANYWAYS, so our teacher was extra extra careful today not to repeat that situation.

We'd done lamination dough before in our pastries class so we didn't need a long demo and we had to work pretty quickly as well cause the dough had to rest between the turns and then proof as well. The biggest problem Panee and I had with our dough last time was that our butter was seeping through the layers, one because the dough was too warm and also because we didn't flour our bench enough and it stuck - so we were extra careful this time to make sure it didn't happen - and it turned out good as! After doing our layers and rolling it out with the dough break for our last turn we then cut them into isosceles triangles and rolled them into croissant shapes and then put them next to the oven for its final proofing. And because everyone had left over dough we made cronuts as well! Proudest moment though of the class would have been when our teacher said that we were probably the best she'd had in any croissant lesson cause usually they'd have one or two students whose croissants never make it into the oven and last week we'd tried another class' which were really really dense, but our were nice and fluffy. She also took a photo to tell her colleagues that the fire trucks didn't come to class today haha.

Shaped croissants with their final proofing

A few of our trays of cronuts and cronut holes!

After their final proofing! SOOO BIG AND FLUFFY <3

Frying our cronuts

Cinnamon sugared cronuts with jam - so.much.sugar. LOL

Our trays and trays of perfect croissants - they look amazeballs!!

 So after packing away about 8 croissants and a few cronuts each we got changed, quickly got lunch and then went to our First Aid class. We got told it started at 12.30pm because yeast finished at 12pm but the teacher started the class at 12pm and so all of us were late LOL. First Aid, as helpful as it will be, was kinda boring.. especially when it was warm and we were fed and all we wanted to do was sleep - well at least that was me haha.

Anyways we had 4 hours of first aid where we did some theory, prac and a test finishing at 4.30pm. I got everything right first time on the test so I just left early LOL .. actually I waited for Bernice and we took the train home together. Got home and just slept cause I was so tired.