A caboose full of dinner rolls

Well, after a week off for being sick, class sure returned with a bang. Let’s just put it this way….anyone that makes their own dinner rolls from scratch at home on a regular basis should be put in the looney bin. And I thought making a pie from scratch was hard. This won’t be a funny post, nor a lengthy post as I am still tired from Wednesday nights class!

Not only did we learn the 12 steps of baking bread this week (and were tested on it on Friday) but we put it into action. The mixing part was pretty easy. The kneading until you think you are going to die or pass out? Not so much. I don’t want to knead bread again any time soon and unfortunately in 2 weeks will be repeating this last week’s process for the practical midterm. I already had rolls coming out my caboose and now I will have more! I kneaded bread dough for 35 minutes. And this is not something that is done slowly. This is quick and gives you a workout. I was sweating more kneading dough than I did the first week of school when it was almost 100 degrees out and hotter in the bakery! Kneading bread isn’t a difficult technique to master, but your muscles need to be built up, that is for sure. The good thing was that when the bread was benched so it could rise, we got a bit of a break. However, this was just followed by another 45 minutes of working as fast as you can. Unfortunately, I wasn’t fast enough per the Chef. We had to divide our dough and then shape them into dinner roll shapes. 7 round, 7 French, 7 single knot, 7 figure 8’s, and 8 crosses. Well, this being only the second time even trying these shapes (and not all of them were done the first time) I struggled. But I wasn’t the only one. And of course I managed to screw something up on the figure 8’s. Well, at least they tasted good according to friends and family.

I am off to pull out my play dough that was made a few weeks ago so I can practice my techniques for shaping. The fact I will be graded on it in 2 weeks does get me a bit motivated. I need to keep that A!