Intro to Baking Recap: Week 5

The entire five days of last weekend (the 12th ~ 17th) were devoted to the final project for the online Purchasing class. We had to create a Purchasing Manual that will serve as a guidebook on how to buy products for any foodservice operation. Mine ended up being 25 pages or so (with graphs and tables)...it was fun, but grueling. But I am officially done with the online class at last! I can now concentrate on the Intro to Baking class and bake to my heart's content at home!


I looked over the syllabus for the Intro to Baking class. One of the projects for Week 5 said Brioche. Yes...that rich, buttery, eggy slightly sweet bread, traditionally molded with that signature "topknot" or "head", then baked in a fluted pan.


This bread requires fermentation in the fridge overnight. I wasn't sure how we were gonna pull this off with a 5-hour class. But I decided to give the recipe a try at home, just so I know what to expect.
I let the dough ferment in the fridge...unfortunately, the dough got partially frozen, but I continued with it anyway. I molded it, poked a hole in the middle, secured (or so I thought) the topknot on it, let it proof--then in the oven they went.

When they came out.....

....Darn. This is a prime example of what happens when the topknot isn't secured. Yep. It rolls of to the side. But the resulting shape was so comical, I couldn't resist drawing a face on it with chocolate. They tasted great--rich, buttery, eggy, although it could use more sugar.

I went to class, hoping that I can do better in class.
The project for Intro to Baking Week 5: Brioche, Apple Pie, Cream Pie, and German Chocolate Brownies.

For the Brioche, the Instructor told us to mix the dough, bench (let it rest for 20~30 minutes), punch down, portion/round/shape, proof, then bake it. No overnight fermentation?? The texture will be totally different from the one I made at home then... I thought to myself as I started on the Brioche. The other people in the group started on the Pies.

But goodness...although the batch produced three loaves, the recipe called for 12 eggs and 1 1/2 lbs of butter! ...Wow. That's 4 eggs and 8 oz. of butter per loaf. According to our recipe, this bread contains 475 calories per 4-oz. serving (about the size of a medium roll?). Yikes. I am now officially scared of Brioche.

As I continued to add the butter, I noticed that the dough is really wet. The dough was so sticky it was borderline 'batter' consistency; there was no way I could've taken it out of the mixer and kneaded it by hand.
While proofing the dough, I started on the Brownies. Another gal in my group made the coconut topping for the Brownies...and I almost messed us up by putting the Brownie in the oven too soon. The topping is supposed to go on the brownie batter before being baked. Good thing she rescued the brownies out of the oven....

So far, so good. The Brioche got baked, and came out....

...Nice and golden. The egg wash definitely did its job well. The bread was....crumbly. It was more like cake, not like bread at all. It was rich and buttery, and the Instructor said this is the way it should be, but I'm skeptical. It probably needs the overnight fermentation to achieve that bread-like texture.

Our apple pie was a bit underbaked; the bottom crust was still a bit doughy. But it tasted pretty good, and hey, at least it looked pretty. We brushed it with apricot glaze and sprinkled sanding sugar on top.

Cream Pie. The crust was a little overbaked and was crispy. We got to choose our own variation on the cream--we did coconut, topped it with whipped cream and toasted coconuts.

Alas. German Chocolate Brownies. None of the other groups got done on time, and we just barely managed to get ours done. It was gooey and chewy, and pretty good. Sorry, I'm not a big coconut fan...

We were really late in cleaning and finishing up--the Instructor was not happy. Lesson learned: time management is sometimes the key to making the recipe work.