May 16, 2011 - Day 2 of Baking and Pastry I

Today went really well.  We began in the classroom by going over our weekly words and then a short video on different types of breads.  We moved on by discussing the day's menu which consisted of us producing a flat bread  bread sticks, pretzels and pizza dough (frozen for our production with other items next week.

Here's a few pictures that I took of the finished products.

Flat bread:  This bread dough was made with chopped onions inside. The left half has crushed rosemary, finely grated Parmesan and salt and the right side has finely grated Parmesan cheese and salt.

Twisted bread sticks:  This dough was hand kneaded by yours truly :).

Pretzels topped with sesame seeds.

I enjoyed learning the recipes and producing these items.  I've found that making certain to follow recipes, especially when to add what, is the most important thing a person can do.  Also, if you're thinking of adding in something to a recipe, make sure to change other items, i.e. is the item dry or does it have liquid?  Berries and vegetables can add much more liquid to your mix than necessary so don't always add the actual amount of water.  Of course this isn't for everything, you have to know how the dough should look prior to resting and proofing it.