Bakin' with Bacon

HI!
It has been a very long time since my last post- I’m sorry about that. A lot has happened culinary-ily wise, and I’ll do my best to fill you all in now.
First of all, I made the best looking focaccia I’ve ever seen. It wasn’t too greasy, it wasn’t too hard or crunchy. It was fluffy and soft, with just the right amount of good olive oil pooling in its nooks and crannies, rosemary baked right in and caramelized tomatoes and onion on top. Hungry yet? Just wait.
Sunday night we made home-made pizza. It was the most cooking we’ve one in class- and the most we’ll ever do to be sure. That class started with more knife skill drills (and onion chopping). Chef was worried that I wouldn’t be able to use my school knifes at home to practice, due to my kosher-ness. You can guess what this said about my performance in class. Alarmed at her deep concern and how close I got to chopping off my thumb, I promised to practice in class to make up for it. We made all sorts of pizzas and calzones in class, with a dozen or more topping to choose from. These toppings included (though weren’t limited to) three different variety of meats. Pepperoni, sausage and…you guess it, BACON. I was surprised at how weird I felt with all the meats- I just wasn’t comfortable or used to cooking with them. I think I literally stared at the bacon for three minutes straight. The sausage wasn’t nearly as fascinating, and pepperoni just looks like little slices of salami, or really more akin to the play-dough ones I used to make when I was younger. That bacon, though, was mesmerizing. And watching people put real meat on a cheese pizza? Fascinating. The most exciting moment of that class was when I discovered that the goat cheese was kosher. Suffice it to say that I have had enough goat cheese to satisfy any craving I might have ever had for it (which is to say no craving at all).
Monday night was bagel/bialy/soft pretzel night. It was also the night of the Sour Dough.
Let me tell you the sad sad saga of the sour dough. You are all probably sick of reading about this pre-ferment by now, and believe me so were my classmates and I. No one wanted to look at the stuff anymore (or more accurately, smell it anymore). We had the option to make either white, whole wheat or rye based sour dough. Feeling adventurous, I went for the Rye. That was my first mistake. As we were all kneading our dough, I noticed that mine wasn’t getting as bouncy and firm as everyone else’s- my gluten wasn’t developing. And so I added more flour. The dough was still sticky. More flour. The dough still wasn’t elastic. More flour. Mistake number two. After twenty five minutes straight of kneading and nearly double the amount of flour, I gave up and put my dough in the proof box along with everyone else’s, and moved onto bagel making (cinnamon raisin!).
After two stretch and folds and proofing sessions, it was time to form our loaves. Due to the nature of the rye (it just doesn’t get as firm as regular flour- it doesn’t have as much gluten), I couldn’t make a free-form loaf and instead put in a cast iron pan. Mistake number three. You see, things baked in cast iron will bake at a different rate as the loaves put directly in the oven. This is obvious to anyone, and should have been obvious to me, to chef, and to any of my classmates. But there were bagels to be boiled and pretzels to be consumed. When we took out bread out of the oven, mine looked great, and so I didn’t check for done-ness. Mistake number Four. I should have used a thermometer to read the internal temperature (bread is done at around 180 degrees). Can you guess the mournful result of all of these mistakes? I could have made some play dough pepperoni with the inside of my loaf. At least my bagels were good. But it was last night, doughnut night, that I shone.
First I had a written exam, which went about as smoothly as my sour dough. Kidding! It was fine. And then we made dough for brioche (both regular and chocolate)- to be baked on Sunday night. Then we moved on to the doughnuts, or in my partner and my case, zeppole (Zeh-Po-Lee).
Zeppole are Italian style doughnuts. They are made using a batter, as opposed to a dough like a doughnut, making for a very fluffy end result. They aren’t shaped like American donuts, but are free-form dropped in oil and end up looking more like fritters. They are very similar to funnel cakes, just roundish. I was told that they were the best things made that night. Who doesn’t like deep fried dough covered in sugar?
We are all sick and tired of yeast based dough and are excited to move onto a new topic- one that required less fermentation.

-Soured by Sourdough Sarah