Culinary School - Week 3

This week in Artisan breads it was all about Sourdough breads and levains. A levain is a type of preferment used in sourdough breads. We shaped all the loaves in boules and batards.



From top to bottom: Sourdough with cheese, dinner rolls made with scraps of leftover dough, sourdough that we let proof inside of a smoker, regular sourdough, whole wheat sourdough, roasted garlic sourdough and potato sourdough.



For homework, we had to take two loaves home and eat bread! (Sounds tough, right?) Then I had to write a paper describing the taste, texture, crumb, etc. of the breads. I chose my favorite two...Sourdough proofed in a smoker and sourdough with Parmesan cheese.

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Yesterday in Show Pieces we continued to work on our pastillage music centerpiece. We are putting this project on hold now and working on a Chocolate show piece. There are several groups in our class that have signed up to be in a Chocolate Competition this February in Lansing, MI so we need lots of time to work on our pieces for that.

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In Specialty Cake Decorating, we had to draw a sketch of a 2-tier buttercream cake for a 5-year old's birthday and then decorate it on two dummy (styrofoam) cakes. I choose to do a Minnie Mouse cake.



Next week we are learning about fondant and I have to decorate a bridal shower cake. It has to be 3 tiers with the colors of pink, gray, and black. I'm looking forward to it!