Happy Trails to You!

Last week we had a final exam and completed module 3. The practical portion was to bake, fill, frost and decorate a three layer cake. Simple, really. I mainly got points deducted because of my chocolate cornet handwriting. The "H" of my "Happy" (we each had to write "Happy Birthday + our name") was too different than the one in "Sarah". It was as if one was in Times New Roman 12, and the other looked more like Arial 14. Seriously.
At this point in my coursework, we are simply given a list of ingredients and measurements, then a baking “method” at the bottom. For example, 3oz. X, 2Tbs Y, 5 eggs. High ratio method. We are expected to know in what order and in what way to mix the ingredients so that they result in an edible concoction, one that is a close replication of what Chef had demoed at some point during the module. I wont bore you with more exam details, as you have heard about them in older posts. Let me tell you about Trailing.
A trail is the culinary world’s equivalent of an interview. Though I cannot tell you how trails work across the board, I cant tell you about one of my experiences and let you assume that this is standard practice.
I arrived at my first trail at a predetermined time. To the trail one wears interview clothing, which is quickly changed for a chef’s jacket, silly checkered pants, an apron, comis hat, side towels and orthopedic shoes. In addition to a change of clothes, basic equipment is brought to a trail. I chose two knifes, a peeler, spatulas, measuring spoons, zesters and other small implements and toted them in my knife roll. I witnessed another girl on her trail who brought her entire pastry kit in a large duffel- unnecessary and unwanted in a small kitchen with very limited space (she made me look great, though!). Upon arrival, I was introduced to the Chef, shown around the kitchen and given five minutes to change (I think that my coat was in this entire time, making my “nice interview clothes” completely irrelevant). Then the fun began.
I walked up to the chef and asked her where to start. You see, at a trail you must perform whatever task the chef tells you to do. Over the course of my trails, I peeled, chopped, mixed, baked, rolled and sliced. Any simple task that I couldn’t mess up too badly was asked of me. While nothing was too daunting, I still managed to screw up rather splendidly. After peeling a dozen pears, making cheesecake and rolling out rum balls, Chef asked me to make graham crackers that are crumbled up and used in one of their plated desserts (why not use Nabisco? Because these graham crackers are just plain BETTER. More of a mix between a gingerbread cookie and a packaged graham cracker). I jumped at this opportunity to bake something instead of just prepare the ingredients for Chef. I was using the recipe, measuring everything out and dumping it into the Hobart. A Hobart is like a massive stand mixer, about five times the size of your run of the mill kitchen aid. I was making a lot of graham cracker. After measuring everything and mixing all of the dry ingredients together (simple one step mixing method) I glanced back at the recipe. The recipe was given in grams. I looked at the scale. The scale was set to ounces. My heart sank. (To clarify why this was so horrifying- in professional kitchen we don’t usually use measuring cups to measure ingredients- they aren’t accurate enough, especially on a large scale. Instead we use kitchen scales to measure everything, and they have different settings- ounces, liters, pounds, grams….) Now do you understand why this was such a problem?
I admit, for a moment I wasn’t going to say anything, just play it cool. The dough would bake, and maybe even look right! After all, they weren’t gong to use my graham crackers until after I was out of the kitchen- maybe they would never find out it was me! This may be an obviously bad move to most of you, but really, would you want to fess up to something SO dumb on a job interview, when you could likely be spared the embarrassment, judgment and annoyance of Chef? Don’t worry, I admitted my mistake, sparing dozens of diners a terrible dessert experience...but I was close to just walking away.
I tapped Chef on the shoulder and got it over with (I replaced the look of feigned confidence I was sporting for an apologetic and defeated one and said something a long the lines of "Chef? *grimace* I made a big mistake..."). I think we had to throw out a couple pounds of flour and various other ingredients in the end. But I started over and mercifully got it right the second time.
Trailing is difficult for many reasons, but that particular trail was hard because I had n idea when I could leave. Chef kept asking me to do more things. Five hours passed. Six. Seven. Finally, eight hours after I arrived at the restaurant I was told that I could leave. I changed back into my “fancy interview clothes” and spoke to the Chef- for about five seconds. “We’ll be in touch” she said.
Needless to say, that while I have been in touch, she hasn’t responded to my emails.

-Sarah (Palatino Linotype 12)

C is for Coco Butter

Hello!
My, it’s been ages since I last posted here, and I apologize for that. The last two months or so have been very busy, and many a pastry has been baked in that time. Now, I could use this post to give you all a quick overview of the last dozen or so classes, but instead I will pretend that I have not been remiss in posting and simply tell you about last week’s classes.
I’m not sure how familiar you all are with the different components of chocolate. Good, basic chocolate has four ingredients. Coco solids, Coco Butter (the two combined are called Chocolate Liquor- don’t worry, there is no alcohol in it), Sugar and Milk (or oil/other substitution for parve Paskesz lovers). The percentage you find on commercial chocolate refers to the amount of Chocolate liquor – 70% bittersweet chocolate has only 30% sugar added, Baking Chocolate is 99% liquor and 1% sugar (don’t make the rookie mistake of eating baking chocolate- you’ll regret it). White chocolate, it might surprise you to know, has absolutely NO coco solids in it. It is made of Coco Butter, Milk, and loads of sugar (some foodie snobs claim to hate it and make snide remarks, refusing to call it true chocolate. We all know they have a stash of Hershey’s Cookies and Cream bars under their beds. But I digress).

Now that I have provided the background knowledge, let me set the atmosphere for my embarrassing story. Last week was Cookie Week. My classmates and I baked dozens of different types of cookies, making thousands of cookies in all. 0% exaggeration and about 150% sugar. There were loads of ingredients strewn around the room, with and without labels, and we were working double time to finish in time for Milk and Cookie Night- when we were allowed to invite friends and family to eat the cookies.

A running joke in my class is that while I don’t sample any of the baked good we produce, I eat more than any of classmates anyway- the raw ingredients that is. Oranges, figs, bananas and chocolate- ALWAYS chocolate. I was happy, on this Sunday night- the production frenzy night- to find every type of chocolate available. Bittersweet, semisweet, milk and white. As the night progressed, no one was surprised to find me snacking at the chocolate bags. To be tricky, I’m sure, Chef hid a small container of small white chips at the bottom of the pull box (for definition of “pull” see an earlier post, not sure which). Nonchalantly (I always “play it cool”) I dipped my hand in the container and popped a handful in my mouth. And then I chewed. Then I chewed some more. They were smooth, had an initial crunch, were NOT melting and had NO flavor, but were kind of oily. These were not white chocolate chips. I had no idea what I had just put in my mouth, which I risky, as they could have been a) something so rancid that had no discernable flavor or B) something not kosher (gelatin pellets? Did those exist?) In any case, I spit them out and continued my work, hoping no one would find out.

Finally, Cookie and milk night arrived. After days of crazy production, we made gingerbread, linzer cookies, chocolate chip, rugalah, ice box cookies, lemon bars, brownies, white chocolate macadamia, macarons, macaroons, spritz cookies, rum cookies, ginger cookies, snicker doodles and MANY more. Avi brought Trader Joe’s Cat Cookies (chocolate) and we snaked in the back and watched people sample and box up their holiday cookies. It was a truly great party.

The next day (two days after the initial incident), I was still pondering about these odd mystery chips. On a run to the equipment closet with Chef, I slyly asked her, as though the thought had just occurred to me, what the white small chips were. It took her a moment and then she said “Coco Butter”.
I had eaten pure cocoa butter. The stuff used in hand lotions. Apparently, it is one of the most stable fats, used as an emulsifier in baked goods. Again, it is also used in its pure form in Hand Lotion.

Happy Chanukah,

Sarah, the ultimate food snob who will only eat pure Coco Butter, none of that adulterated, sugary “chocolate” made for the masses.

PS. Fun Fact- Those poor souls who are allergic to Chocolate cannot eat White chocolate, even though it lacks Coco Solids- the butter is enough to elicit the allergic reaction. Learned that the hard way, Dad, didn’t we?

Sarah Goes to the Hospital and Other Thrilling Tails

Hello Everybody!
Due to my schedule insanity, this post will have to fill in the gaps of the last (two? three?) un blogged about weeks. If only I could fill in the gap on my finger…but I’ll get to that shortly. I believe I have already blogged about making two types of laminated dough (doughs with layers of fat rolled into it and folded in onto itself to create hundreds of layers of dough and butter/lard/shortening) namely Danish and croissant. The crux of the last few weeks has been a third laminated dough, the most widely used dough in a kitchen.
Lauded for its transformative properties, its abilities to straddle the line between savory and sweet and its visual heights is the Puff. Puff pastry is something found in many home cook’s freezers. Why would you make it yourself when you could easily find it in your grocer’s frozen section? Because chef tells you it’s a must. And then she tells you it’s actually more cost effective to buy it in most cases because it takes a long time to make. Truthfully, if you want really astounding height and even rising, you should make it yourself- but for what you would mainly use for, you could BUY IT. Being the fancy pastry students that we are, we made puff pastry three ways; a fast puff, a classic puff and a machine puff. I won’t go into the nitty gritty of making puff pastry because it is very similar to making croissants, just without the yeast. Besides, I have more gruesome tales to share.
One classic dessert you could make with puff pastry is a napoleon. Napoleons, for the uninitiated, are layers of crisp puff pastry, layered with pastry cream and sometimes berries, topped with either powdered sugar or glazing fondant. They are generally regarded as delicious (by me and my family) and are a cinch to make. They are not, however, a cinch to cut if you want to maintain the beautiful and delicate layers. To do so, you need to use a long, sharp, serrated knife. I was packing up a classmate’s napoleon for her as she washed dishes- (who wouldn't swap cutting napoleons for dishes?), when I carelessly cut my finger. I had cut myself before, and no one was surprised to find me heading to the first aid kit. Luckily, I have two ex-nursing students in my class and they were able to place bandaids on my finger like pros. Chef spotted some blood on the floor before I was able to clean it up and insisted I remove the bandages and show her my cut, then hailed in another chef to ask her opinion. The consensus? HOSPITAL. I put up a fight until chef held up one of her fingers and told me how she no longer has feeling in it because she didn’t make it to the hospital in time. A classmate gave me a lift to Bellevue (a lovely hospital) where I was super glued back together (literally- I didn’t want stitches and asked instead for Derma-Bond. I would recommend stitches). I came in my uniform and was asked by no less than five members of the hospital staff why I hadn’t brought them any treats- they are used to seeing people in the culinary field and were disappointed that I had left my napoleon back at school.
My finger is on the mend, and I was back in school this week in time to make Sfogliotelle, Cannoli and Breton. I would describe these foreign treats (Sfogliotelle and canola are Italian, Breton is from Brittany) but my half hour lunch break has expired. Suffice it to say that Sfogliotelle are as interesting to make as they are to spell, and require lard -Look out for an upcoming experiment using Crisco and butter as substitutes. Cannoli are awesome and probably the next trendy sweet treat and Breton is pleasant enough but not all that exciting (I hope I haven’t offended those of you hailing from Brittany).

-Power Puff Girl

Fun fact: I was not allowed into the adult wing, but was made to use the children’s emergency ward because I wasn’t yet 25. A special thanks to my Mom for picking me up!

Strudel Elves

Hi!
I took a pretty long hiatus from this blog, over two weeks since my last post, I believe. This isn't to say that I haven't been baking treats, just that I have been to tired to report about them, busy celebrating various holidays and doing all of that other stuff that fills my time in between culinary classes. In my last six classes, we have made pies and tarts galore. There have been pie fillings in nearly every imaginable flavor (alas, no banana cream) and have experimented with different doughs, from the flaky to the sweet and back again. When it came time to roll out and bake traditional pies (I was assigned pumpkin) I crimped and rolled my dough-a Pate Sucre this time-with gusto. I know you will tire of hearing this, but making pie is fabulously fun and I would be more that happy to bake some with/for anyone who asks- after all, I need that practice.
My personal favorite type of pie was a galette. Galettes are rustic pies baked without a pie pan, free formed on a baking sheet. The filling simply placed in the center of your dough, which is rolled into a rough circle, and then the edges are folded in onto the filling, leaving some peaking out. Brush with cream, sprinkle with sugar and bake! Chef described it as an open faced pie (bad description chef- all pies without a top crust are "open faced". I would just describe it as a rustic pie, which I did only a few sentences ago.)
Last Tuesday night, we made something unusual and incredible to make- Strudel. Good old fashioned, old world strudel. The old world I am referring to Austria, or perhaps Hungary. Though we haven't all hailed from such places, chances are you have all probably eaten/seen strudel before. It is a flaky pastry filled with either cheese or apple and topped with powdered sugar. If you are lucky, whipped cream is served on the side. They are very very tasty. To make strudel, you make a pretty basic dough with flour, water, eggs and the like. Then, once it comes together, you form the gluten by slamming the dough against the counter. 100 times. No exaggeration, I was in charge of counting for my team. You pick up the dough, throw it hard against the counter (floured, naturally), fold it up and repeat until the dough is smooth and pliable. Then, once the dough has rested (and recovered from the brute treatment), the real fun begins.
Roll out a clean, think white table cloth and cover it with flour. The dough at this point is about an eight by eight inch blob, four inches thick. With the help of two or three classmates, this changes fast. You begin to stretch the dough, from the center out. Palms down, with the back of your hands (fingers poke holes) bring the dough from the center outwards. The goal is to get the dough so thin that you can read a paper through it. The eight by eight inch blob becomes a five by five foot blob that you can, indeed, read through. We made it through the process with only minor tears (it is very hard to remember to stretch with your palms down- reflexes tell you to stretch it with your fingers!). Then, brush the entire thing with melted butter and sprinkle with either bread crumbs or cinnamon sugar, depending on your filling. Place filling on one end, and then using the table cloth, roll up the filling over and over in the paper thin dough. Imagine using a sushi mat to roll up a California roll, only infinity larger, flakier and butterier. (i'm getting awfully annoyed at spell check for insisting that butterier isn't a real word). Brush with more melted butter and bake. Once cooled, sprinkle with sugar and slice. Though I couldn't taste it, the cross-section of this thing was enough to tell me how flaky it was.
Chef claims that there are old women in Europe who can do this process by themselves. These super human woman apparently have a huge arm span and the ability to fly; strudel elves. Would you doubt anything Chef says? Neither would I.

-Sarah, das strudel stretcher

All Hail Butter

This week, Butter was king.
Rich, wonderful butter was featured prominently in all recipes, used as much for texture as for taste. Sunday night’s class began by baking our pre-made Brioche dough (from way back when- Tuesday night). They came out of the oven golden brown and delicious, and most prominently ended the reign of Yeast Breads. Onto bigger and better and Buttery-er things.
We began with Croissants and Danish dough that same night- both are in a family called Laminated Doughs. Why such an odd name? Because the layers of dough are insulated and separated by, layers of butter. To do this, we pounded out a pound block of butter into a thin sheet- about a quarter of an inch thick. We then rolled out our dough and wrapped the butter in it like a business letter. We rolled out our dough, sandwiching the butter and folded it again. Roll out thin and repeat. The layers of dough and butter multiply exponentially until you have about 80 layers of alternating dough and butter-impossibly thin and impossible delicious.
Monday night’s class was devoted to rolling out our croissants and making a dozen or so fillings for our Danishes. Apple, prune, cheese, raspberry, chocolate, almond, crumb and so on. There were endless flavor combinations and endless shapes you could make your Danish into. As for the croissants, we stuck to the basics and the universally familiar- crescent shaped plain croissants, chocolate croissants and, optionally, ham and cheese pocket croissants. I opted out of the last one. Interestingly, chef recommends making the croissants with part whole wheat flour. “Wont that make them taste healthy?” I asked. She looked at me like I had said something ridiculous, which I guess I had- the idea of a healthy croissant is laughable. Chef explained that the whole wheat gave the pastries a deeper flavor.
When we took them out of the oven, they were puffy, and flaky, and golden brown (the French like their croissants a dark brown on top, Americans prefer golden) and sizzling slightly around their edges where the butter had oozed out and melted. The kitchen smelled heavenly. Making the laminated dough is a long process from start to finish, and require strength, endurance, patience, perfection and a deep love for butter. Anyone up for helping me practice?
Onto Tuesday night. Finally, the class I had been waiting for- PIE
We didn’t actually bake pie this week, but we made pie dough and other baked good using similar doughs and similar methods. Pie dough is a type of Pate Brisee, literally meaning "broken dough" in French. This is because the butter is broken up in the dough, and when baked properly, produces a flaky (broken) crust. Other baked goods using this method include biscuits and some scones- they too are best when flaky and buttery. A similar dough, called pate Sucree, or mealy dough, has you break the butter up into smaller pieces, until it ultimately looks like corn meal. Scones, tart doughs and short cakes use Pate Sucre- it has a finer texture than Brisee.
As Chef introduced this topic, I got so impatient to begin I literally couldn’t sit still- I began to play with the bowl of flour sitting in front of me. I tried hard not to finish Chef's sentences for her and allowed others to ask questions and attempt to answer hers so as to not give away my pie-freak tendencies. After what seemed like ages but what was actually about a half hour demo, we began making our dough. Thankfully, we weren’t asked to do this with a partner- I very much doubt I would have allowed my teammate to touch our (my) dough.
Begin with flour (a mix of all purpose and cake flour) and a bit of salt. If you have no faith in the leavening ability of the butter (I will explain soon) you can also add some baking soda. But this is for the faint of heart! You see, the reason you must keep the butter cold and in large-ish chunks is so that when it bakes and the butter melts, the water in the butter creates steam. The steam pushes the dough apart and then the protein structures from the flour form around these air pockets, creating the flaky result- no chemical leavener needed! Back to the ingredients. To the flour mix, quickly add the butter and try to break it up into small pieces- around the size of a cranberry. Once this is accomplished (if your warm hands and the heat of the kitchen hasn’t already melted your butter and ruined your dough) add in cold water and mix just until the dough forms. Don’t over mix! Gluten will form and butter will melt, and that can only lead to heartache later on.
We froze our dough, to be used next week when we prepare, fill and bake PIES.
The second half of class was happily and hastily spent making quick breads- the genre used to describe scones, biscuits and short cakes. They are a really a mix between a cake and a bread (and cookie of you over bake them), the word “quick” is used because they use chemical leaveners and not yeast to rise, making them much quicker to make than bread.
My team made chive cheddar biscuits and currant scones, both of which I am eager to try on my own, swapping out the currant for chocolate, of course.

-Sarah Baer, Flaky and Proud

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

Braiding Bragging Rights

Good Evening!
Last night I came ten minutes late to class. As a result, I had no partner, and instead of grouping me with another pair, Chef had me work alone for the first part of class. While I really do like my classmates and enjoy working with them, this was a rare treat. I should come late every night! What freedom! Unshackled by my anxiety of being bossy and controlling, unfettered by fears of screwing up not only my own product but a partner’s, I began baking. [ Note: doing things by yourself is more time consuming and often more confusing than it is when doing it with a partner.]
I made my own soft bun dough and my own Biga starter (this pre-ferment was a lot thicker and drier than either the sour dough or polish, but it should make for some good Ciabatta next week). Because I was working alone and Chef didn’t want to over load me, I didn’t make hot cross buns. I had never seen, let alone eaten a hot cross bun, but I did offer to play it for Chef on my recorder. I wish I was making that last bit up, but I did tell her that. When she stared at me blankly, instead of letting it go, I continued to explain how we learned to play the recorder in the fourth (?) grade. Then, to my horror, I started singing it…except the only words I know to the song are “hot cross buns” and I was forced to just hum the rest. Thankfully a classmate backed me with her own elementary school story and I was spared further embarrassment.
What hot cross buns actually are, are small sweet buns with a thin dough/paste piped on top in an X (or cross depending on how you hold them). Once they come out of the oven, the whole thing is basted in a light syrup. They looked delicious. I believe they originated in England, which makes them even more endearing.
Because I didn’t make the Hot Cross Buns, Chef gave me the great honor of feeding her sour-dough starter (yes, I’m STILL talking about that sour dough starter/pre-ferment. The hurricane threw everything off, and now we aren’t baking our sourdough until Tuesday). When I feed my own starter, I don’t measure anything. Apparently, we are supposed to use only a pound of starter and add eight ounces high gluten flour and nine ounces water. I only know this because I looked it up in a panic after contemplating messing up Chef’s pre-ferment, and after feeding hers I went right back to my hap-hazard ways with my own pre-ferment. Old habits die hard.
Soft bun dough is different than the other dough we had been making in that it has fat in it- Eggs and oil. For someone such as myself who has only ever made bread with an egg dough, this wasn’t so strange, but classmates were exclaiming over how smooth and springy the dough was. Chef demonstrated how to shape the dough- either into braided loaves (read: Challah) or small rolls that were shaped like garlic knots (read: challah rolls). The dough itself wasn’t quite the same as challah dough (which is more similar to brioche dough) but it was close enough for me to segue into my own experience and rhapsodize about it to both Chef and classmates. Now, I have attempted to make challah many times to various degrees of failure, but this time was different. Normally they come out misshapen and doughy. While I cannot vouch for the taste of my loaves from last night’s class, they looked great- large and round and nicely brown, shiny from the egg wash. A classmate took them home to her mother.

-Sarah, the Recorder Prodigy