A Piece of Cake

It’s that time again, the bi-weekly department switch. This past week I began my fold into the bread department. Being in the bread department is delightful. I wake up in the morning and go through my regular morning routine, half asleep as always, until the first thrust of bitter Eastern Canadian winter air hits my face as I step out the door, and wakes me up.

My walks to school aren’t as lonely as they used to be and the risk of being chased by foxes has significantly decreased. Instead of briskly walking through the park singing Rosemary Clooney songs by myself and dodging curious foxes, I have a plethora of snow plow drivers, trackless operators and men and women scrapping off their cars to wave and bid a good morning to. However, I am disappointed with the lack of snow that PEI has. I was promised snow in apocalyptic proportions and we only have 6 inches of snow on the ground. Mama Jo disapproves of this weather pattern.

Bread department starts 15 minutes earlier than the other morning departments so I have to be in class by 6:15am. Like any other department we have our regular duties. We have to make Vienna Rolls, Kaiser Buns, and Biscotti for the Chef upstairs managing Lucy Maud Lunch and Sticky Buns and German Pretzels for retail on Tuesday and Friday. Once our regular duties are taken care of we are free to bake any bread we want and as many as we want to sell in the cafeteria during lunch time. Once our breads are cooled, packeage and ready to sell we have time to work on our portfolio’s and skills and technique stamps. And if we still have time after all of that we feed Sebastian, our sour dough starter. A sour dough starter is a vat of yeast, water, and flour that constantly feeds, ferments, and festers. I have never seen something so disgusting and yet so beautiful at the same time.

What did I bake this week? I’ll show you:

                         Italian bread with orgenao, sundried tomatoes and cheese

                                                   Kaiser Buns

                                                Rye bread

                                             Hazelnut and Orange Biscotti

                                           Whole Wheet Honey Oat Bread

                        Sebastian, our sour dough starter. Grow Sebastian! Grow!!

So as you can see I had very productive week and I didn’t even break a sweat, I guess you could say it was a piece of cake J

Chocolate pound cake with rasperry jam filling and raspberry buttercream, glazed in dark chocolate ganache, a.k.a yum!!