Pumpkin Oat n' Fruit Bread

I almost forgot! Here are the pictures of the creative baking project I did: Pumkin Oat n' Fruit Bread:

Exam Week

Today was my Bakery Skills practical final exam. I've never taken a practical final... so it was a bit awkward for an essay test-taker pro like myself. But, it wasn't too horrible. We had to draw a random sheet of paper and make whatever was on it. I ended up with Whole Wheat Soft Rolls and Standard Pie Crust. Luckily, I had made both before (except for the whole wheat... which was the tricky part). So, first, we had to convert each formula into the yield amount that Chef gave us. This would have been easy except my roll formula did not have any percentages. So, I had to convert the original weights into percentages, and then do the baker's percentage formula. Not the easiest feat. Especially, since we had never done that before. But, luckily, I studied quite a bit and knew how to do it. If you haven't ever done this before, this part of the post probably makes no sense, but just think of it as weird science/algebra - baking style.

The pie crusts came out great. I was excited about that. I got darn good at making the things the other day when Chef had Megan and I make 20 lbs. of dough... and all the pie crusts that come with it. But, we learned it, dangit! The directions were to blind bake one pie crust and not bake the other at all. And that was exactly what I did.

My rolls, however, were another story. They were just beautiful to behold (as you can see in the above picture), but weighed as much as a darn baseball. When I handed it to Chef Hallman her arm dropped. It was hilarious... at my expense, of course. Hah. I didn't let them proof enough before I baked them, sadly. With whole wheat flour, it takes longer for the dough to rise & proof because the whole grains react with the glutenin and gliadin... causing it not to rise as well. But, you live and you learn. And now I know: whole wheat flour = longer proofing time. Simple, really.

Tomorrow I have two written exams, so I won't be taking pictures (for obvious boring reasons). Wednesday I have my Culinary I written & practical exam. I shan't be taking any pictures, though, since I have to focus all of my energy on my knife cuts, veloute sauce, bechamel sauce, chicken fabrication, and chicken cooking. Sigh... lots to do in only 2 hours!

I'll blog about that later. Right now, I need to try my very hardes to motivate myself into studying. Yeah. We'll see how that goes...