Yeast Breads - Lecture

I'm a little nervous about Wednesday's lab. I love to bake, but yeast breads were never anything I've tried to tackle. I've wanted to, but felt like I didn't have the time or equipment to get it done. Also, I'm all for the sweet stuff, so if I'm gonna make it, it's gonna be sweet! I have to make sure to read the recipes thoroughly and repeatedly to get it in my head. I'm working with my wonderful and beautiful friend Niki tomorrow, so hopefully all will go well. She seems pretty confident that we'll do okay, so I'm just going to have to lean on her for some support!
We shall see how it all turns out!

First Lab......

I was insanely nervous on our first lab for baking and pastries. This is what I love to do, so I feel like I have to really step it up. We were to share workstations, which we had never done before (and I hope we don't do again....did not like). Becky and I shared a workstation and all went well, but it was a bit cramped. I started out making the lemon tea bread and was sooo nervous I ended up not reading the recipe correctly and added more sugar that was needed. I knew my cake would end up a bit flat, but I didn't feel like starting over, so I just popped it in the oven anyway. Next were the blueberry muffins. Those went a little bit better and I really had no issue with those. Then we made the biscuits, which I was confident would turn out well. I make scones regularly, and biscuits are made by the same process. My biscuits actually did turn out well and I got all the points for those! Chef said there was minimal tunneling on the muffins and the tea bread turned out exactly as I thought would. I ended up doing quite well in spite of the tea bread issue.

I have also attached a picture of some mini-tarts that I made for my best friend's wedding rehearsal dinner. They turned out wonderfully and everyone loved them! They were a hit! I made fruit tarts, coconut cream and banana cream. It was the first time I had made pastry cream in my own kitchen and I was very happy that I didn't screw it up! I made everything from scratch...even whipped my own whipped cream.

Hello!

Will be blogging soon!