Hello Everybody,
As you may know, for the last two weeks of August until Labor Day, baker Codruta Popa (TFL screen name codruta) who writes the wonderful blog codrudepaine.ro worked as a Back Home Bakery intern.
In preparation for opening a bakery in her hometown of Timisoara, Romania, (still in the planning stages at this point), we tackled the usual task of making plenty of bread and pastries. The goal was to give her as much experience as possible in each of the different areas of the baking process, and as you'll see in the photos below, she excelled in each area. Although the styles of our breads that she and I make often differ in variety and consistency, I tried my best to see that she was proficient as possible in handling everything from two-handed roll shaping to laminating pastries to mixing and shaping 77% hydration baguettes.
Enough of the chit-chat, and on to the pictures.
Don't forget to check out the video at the end of the post, of Codruta using the sheeter to create the beginning stages of Palmiers.
Image may be NSFW.
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Working with new and different doughs is always interesting, isn't it? Here's some two-handed shaping, sour rye, focaccia, and Sal's Rolls aka mini-baguettes.
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Above is the stretch and fold of 20 pounds (9 kg) of focaccia dough. The key to working new doughs? No fear!
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From top left to bottom right: Baguette crumb, Buckwheat Flaxseed loaves and Portuguese Sweet Bread Rolls, Cherry Danish, Rustic White and Sour Rye loaves
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Codruta looks like she's having a good time making Peach Turnovers and Apfelstrudel. Both were made with puff pastry dough that she had laminated from start-to finish a few days before.
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More pastries. All of these were new for Codruta, and she enjoyed making them more than she had expected. Cutting the Bear Claws, Shaping for the Cheese and Cherry Danishes, Putting the final touches on an Apfelstrudel and a tray full of shaped croissants.
Image may be NSFW.
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Two-handed preshaping with 77% hydration dough is not easy! Shaping a baguette. Scoring with a lame that she brought as a gift. The end result is perfect!
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Set-up and ready to go at the Kalispell Market. Everything came out great.
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A happy baker showing off some perfect bread.
And last but not least, check out this short video of Codruta working with puff pastry and doing the first stages of Palmier making.
Thanks Codruta for all of your hard work and I wish you all the best in your future work as a professional baker!
-Mark
http://TheBackHomeBakery.com