There are two ways to roll out the dough between each folding of the dough when making viennoiserie. You can do it the old fashioned (read: time consuming way) by hand, or you can do it using a machine called a sheeter. A sheeter is a must have if you are planning to make croissants on a daily basis. It also is a near-necessity for truly perfect croissants because it gives you perfectly even rolled out dough (and butter), and it works fast, keeping things cold, which is important. I first discovered the sheeter in this video from The City Bakery, which shows you the whole process in mass production, if you are interested.





Using a sheeter makes a potentially hard part (rolling the dough, focusing on the temperatures) easy, and frees you up for concentrating on the really hard part: shaping. I’ve made croissants at least five times now in class, two big sheet pans at a time. I’ve also made raisin danish spirals with pastry cream and apricot cream cheese pinwheels, both, unfortunately, not pictured. All of these items are really hard to shape perfectly, although the chefs make it seem effortless.





Learning to make croissants became a fixation of mine, and I started using it as the opening argument in the ongoing internal debate: Halt Career to Go to Cooking School? Yes? No? It was one of those things that I would never be able to learn how to do well without the proper equipment. A very small bullet point in the “pros” column that was a catalyst for getting more serious about considering school a viable possibility.





And lo, I am not an expert, but these are pictures of croissants that I made, and I’m getting more happy with my technique each time I make them. It’s a skill I’ll take with me when I go looking for baking work after graduation from bread class next week. Exciting times!

Just minutes make a big difference, and when you are dealing with eight different breads, each on it’s own schedule, it takes focus to ensure that the dough develops properly.





This is especially true of many German breads, which often contain a large percentage of rye, because rye does not contain gluten to help give it structure. If rye is allowed to ferment past it’s prime, it becomes flat, extremely sticky, and will not yield a properly formed loaf. You have to be vigilant. And with so many doughs on the schedule, you have to work fast.





We’ve never had such a busy day. We scaled ingredients with precision and our mixer barely stopped spinning. Our team divided like lightning, at times spreading two or even three massive tubs of dough across the bench, scaling each piece carefully on the balance. We shaped with focus. You could hear a pin drop in the bread kitchen.





And at the end, when all the breads had been pulled from the ovens and were stacked high and deep on the cooling racks, we stepped back and admired what we’d done. As we packed up our tools and wrapped up bread for the weekend, a clam settled over the bread kitchen. No one had to say a word, our faces, full of satisfaction, said it all. We are six weeks into our bread education, and we are loving every minute.

The whole point of doing these things repeatedly and every single day, is that each time I do them, I absorb a little more knowledge of exactly how the tiny nuances of the process should feel, or look, or react. There is simply no other way to become good at the art and science of making bread – you must do it over and over in a very focused way.





You might begin to see how the masters who practice every single day still discover new things to learn about technique.





On Friday in the bread kitchen, surrounded by the organized chaos that comes with three teams of four people each working through their own schedules of baguette, bordelais, siciliano, ciabatta, olive bread, and brioche baking at the same time, I was pre-shaping (that’s the first shaping, the one that is followed by resting and then a second shaping and more resting before it can be loaded into the oven) a piece of dough in my favorite style (the round pre-shape), when I paused to think about why I love the round pre-shape so much.





With the round pre-shape, you start by folding the edges if a piece of dough inward and over one another, forming a pouch-like shape that you could pick up by the gathered edges. You then flip the dough over and roll it carefully against the bench with moulded hands that are both strong and soft, pulling the dough tight enough to create tension that will give the dough structure and prevent it from slumping into a puddle, but not so tight that it rips apart. I love how the dough feels in my hands when I’m shaping round, it’s something to do with the precision and perfection involved, and the speed to keep moving at an efficient clip.





This is just one small example, but it is helping me come to terms with how I’m feeling about all of this bread stuff; the meditative properties, the hard, physical labor, the mental preparation of being ten steps ahead, the heat of the oven on my face and hands and the satisfying feeling of shoving a wooden peel into the oven and getting to see the results.





When I arrived at the Fire Island house, I opened up my flour sack and pulled out some breads I’d baked that day. There were a dozen people staying with us and no one went hungry with all the French toast, burgers atop grilled ciabatta, baguettes smeared with stinky cheese, and hunks of crusty olive bread dunked in hummus. As much as I love the work involved in making the breads, the best feeling of all giving people satisfaction and enjoyment of eating bread made the way that all breads should be, but too few are. Even people who know nothing about bread can see and taste the difference.


I have no doubt that my relationship with bread with continue to evolve, but for the time-being, I’m having an unexpected love affair, which I hope will become more of a long-term thing.

The chefs had told us that we were not allowed to ask them any questions as we moved through our tasks for this spectacularly busy day. Instead of helping us and critiquing as we went, per usual, instead they watched us with intense, piercing eyes, mentally tallying each and every mistake. I’ve often prided myself for being able to perform well under pressure, but once I felt one of the chef’s eyes on me as I was leveling the beam balance scale before measuring flour, and I freaked. This small task that I’ve done a million times without even thinking about it suddenly eluded me completely. I’m sure that chef was blown away by my incompetence as he watched me fumble and fail about ten times.





Somehow our team pulled through the day, and we finished up by examining our handiwork, which was overflowing off of the floor to ceiling cooling racks. When the chefs called our team over to debrief, I expected that I’d be shamed for the countless silly mistakes that they’d been check, check, checking all day long, but instead they made positive remarks about the shape, crumb, and score of our finished products and our ability to work as an efficient team. In cooking school no one ever says “good job”, but this is the closest I’ve come so I’ll take it and continue the futile toil to win the approval of these chefs for whom I have nothing but respect.





With two weeks down, I’m sad to say goodbye to the French unit, although we will still be baking boudelais and baguettes for the restaurant each day. After the test I went home, got off my feet, and took stock of my mental drain, my physical exhaustion, and the rainbow of colorful bruises decorating my forearms. None of these things matter to me in the slightest. I’m having the time of my life at bread school, but with two weeks down, I need to work on the balance of the other parts of my life – the ones where I do part-time marketing work, cook balanced meals, exercise, spend QT with my man, and return phone calls. The bread I am making is ridiculously good, but that is no excuse to eat it for every single meal. It’s the height of the market season, and time for me to assert some balance, or have to buy new pants (and I really don’t want it to come to that).


It’s time to get back into a more healthy meal routine and I’m starting with this delicious, crisp, beautiful, and flavorful slaw. It’s a fun way to use jicama, which I found at Whole Foods (and then later saw at the corner fruit and veg stand for so much less money), and with a nice balance of sweet, savory and crunch, it is a perfect, light and satisfying companion for grilled veggies, fish, or meat. This recipe yields a ton – easily enough to feed 6-8 people as a side, and it kept well for several days in the fridge. Don’t be like me – remember to buy the carrots when you are picking up supplies for the slaw – I suspect they will only improve something that is already very tasty.


Jicama Slaw
Adapted from Epicurious, 2004

For the dressing:

1/2 cup fresh lime juice

2 tablespoons rice vinegar

2 tablespoons ancho chile powder

2 tablespoons honey

1/2 cup mild vegetable oil, such as canola

Salt and freshly ground pepper
For the slaw:

1 (2-pound) jicama, peeled and cut into matchsticks (I used a mandolin)

1/2 head napa cabbage, cored and shredded

2 carrots, coarsely grated (I did not include carrots, simply because I forgot to buy them. I would definitely use them next time)

1/4 cup finely chopped fresh cilantro leaves

There is one bread that I have committed completely to memory, and it’s an important one to know. Each day, no matter what other types of bread our class is learning to bake, it is our job to make baguettes for L’ecole, the school’s restaurant. And so, each day, we work in teams to complete these 14 steps, and each day we become a little better at making our baguettes than we were the day before.





This kind of repetition might seem boring to some, but to me there’s nothing more exciting than going over to the rack at the end of the day to retrieve my tagged baguette for a critique with our chef instructor.





I’m getting much better at shaping the baguettes (my first one was quite misshapen) but I’ve got some work to do on scoring them properly. It’s harder than it looks, but of course, I am determined.





You may notice that there is no recipe in this post. I’ve been thinking a lot about how to structure the blog while I’m in school, especially the first 8 weeks, which is continuous bread baking, which can get old. I’m considering a couple of different options, such as alternating post types (after all woman cannot live on bread alone – although Brian has tried since I’ve started bringing so much of it home) or perhaps blogging home adaptations of the recipes we make in class. Any suggestions, blogosphere? I know you’re out there! That’s what the comments box is for (hint, hint). Cheers!