More rolls? Yup! More rolls! Well, the midterm proved to be a bit tough but fun at the same time. I got to class early so I could grab the equipment that I am always the last to get, and what do you know…I was the 7th person there. Yes, I was 25 minutes early to the bakery and I was still the 7th person there! I guess everyone else had the same idea as me. Luckily I was still able to get my large bowls, etc, to be ready. I felt calm and confident, so I was ready to get started.
I measured, mixed and kneaded away. I felt like I was keeping up a bit more with everyone than I was the first go-around a few weeks ago. Unfortunately my rounded, benched dough didn’t rise quite as quickly as some so I still had to wait to put it into the divider to cut it into even pieces ready for me to form. Once I got to that point I started to rock it! My makeup and panning step was going awesome! My rolls were looking awesome and I didn’t screw up the figure 8’s and crosses this time. AND my French forms looked awesome. People were telling me they were jealous! (Thank you play dough for helping me out!) So, I got the first pan in the proofer and started on the second and last pan. Well, when my second pan went into the proofer, my first one wasn’t even CLOSE to being done proofing. What the??? Yeah, leave it to the lame ones in class to basically stand there with the proofer door open for long periods of time so those of us with pans still in there get screwed! If it wasn’t for that I might have been done about 20 minutes before I was.
Well, my first pan was finally ready and the rotating oven was full. So, fortunately I got to use the convection oven for the first time! I love that oven now! No one uses it and it bakes a lot faster. K…a bit of a reminder here…remember at the beginning of the semester I mentioned a guy that was going to test the Chef’s patience? Well, I have dubbed him “the annoying one.” Seriously, during the lecture class you can tell the students from the other labs are really happy he isn’t in their lab! Anyway, when I put my pan in the oven, he had put his in there as well. I went back to my station to clean up a bit and a friend of mine…we will call him “nice guy”…told me that annoying guy had just got him in trouble and he was really mad about it. He told me the story and seriously, annoying guy is not nice. Annoying guy asked nice guy a question. Well, it is midterm and we weren’t supposed to be helping each other at all. Well, totally not realizing he was doing it, nice guy started to answer annoying guy’s question (hence him being dubbed nice guy). Well, Chef overheard and got mad. When nice guy said he was sorry, he wasn’t thinking when annoying guy asked him the question…get this!!!!…annoying guy LIED and said that he hadn’t even ASKED nice guy for help!!!! WHAT? Poor nice guy. I was mad for him too when he was telling me the story.
So, this leads me to the fact that now my first pan is done in the oven and I went out to get my pan out of the oven. Well, “surfer guy” and “quiet guy” were out there waiting for surfer guy’s pans to be ready. I went into the oven, got my pan out and put it on the cooling rack. Surfer guy said, “What about the other pan?” I told him it wasn’t mine. He asked whose it was. When I told him it was annoying guy’s he said, “You aren’t going to take it out?” I said, “Of course not. It is midterm and [annoying guy] needs to learn to do his own work for a change.” Surfer guy and quiet guy said that was messed up but they hadn’t heard about the story from nice guy. Plus it was midterm. I wasn’t about to get in trouble like nice guy just had.
So, I laughed it off and went about my business. I got my other pan out of the proofer and put it in the oven. I weighed a roll from my first batch to make sure it was correct and kept on going. When my last pan was done and started to cool, I took it to the other kitchen to be graded. I was so happy! Chef had a lot of nice things to say about my rolls which was definitely a relief after my first go around in lab a few weeks ago. She said the forms were nice, the crust was smooth….the only bad thing she really said was about the egg wash. When you put egg wash on bread, it creates a shiny brown crust. Although my crusts were a beautiful color, she noticed that there were spots that were shinier than others which just meant that my wash wasn’t sprayed on evenly. She cut a roll open and complimented the texture inside and tasted it and liked it! I got a 96!!! And luckily I wasn’t last to be done this time. Haha The first 8-10 people done got extra credit so there were a lot of people that got over 100 points but I was so happy that I wasn’t last and I still got a 96!
I gathered my stuff and put my rolls in a bag to bring home. Annoying guy was just taking his second pan out of the proofer…..
Written test:
Holy cow that written test was HARD!! Brutal even. I felt pretty confident most of the way through it but when I got to the end….fill in short answer! YIKES! Well, I only need to get an 83 out of 100 on the written to keep an A on my whole midterm. Keep your fingers crossed! I get my results next Friday!
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