Baking and Pastry

Phase 4, Week 1, Day 1

Finally, I've caught up on posts- sort of, well at least I'm now in the same class I'm blogging about. LOL. I am very excited about this class and I hope to learn a lot. I'm glad we are given the opportunity to learn a bit about baking and pastry in the industry because it is so important, although it seems as if the pastry Chefs are not always given the same respect at savory Chefs and they defiantly have a different personality type. Besides often being female, they are more precise and detailed orientated. It must be because their craft is less forgiving than savory cooking. I am looking forward to finding out more about it.

In this phase we will learn about the fundamentals of the baking ans pastry arts including terminology, technology, equipment, measurement, and formula conversions.We will be producing a variety of rich and lean doughs, laminated doughs, cakes, icings, cookies, tarts, quick breads, custards, frozen desserts, chocolates, and plated desserts. Man, I hope I don't gain back the weight I've lost so far....

Today we went over the precursory syllabus, expectations, and projects for the phase. We then jumped right in to a lecture about the functions of flour in baked goods. We also discovered the importance of scaling and weight versus volume. All measurement is not created equal. Fun fact for the day. The only ingredients in baking that can be measured out in volume are milk, water, whole eggs, and egg whites. All other ingredients should be scaled. Who knew?

Strap on your seat belts for a ride through Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory......