Ginger Snappy

Before get into this blog too deeply, I figured I should share a little tidbit about our chef instructor since she will be making several cameos in this blog at least until we start our next module. She, Chef Nameless, is a delight. I was very scared that the chef-instructors would yell but the most she ever does is raise her voice to get our attention. She practices piping with us and nibbles on chocolate or bread or cookies or whatever food is around almost all the time. She is very kind and very Italian and obviously very passionate about her craft. She is also very encouraging and helpful whenever you need a hand. I heart her. Plain and simple.

Ok, on to the events of today...a very exciting thing happened...we got to bake Gingersnaps! Although as our chef said, this was not a day where she was teaching us baking but it was more an exercise for us to get used to scaling out ingredients and measuring out liquids. It was a lot of fun. My partner had not only her proper uniform but she also had her tools! Gasp, what a concept! We worked not too bad together, in fact, the chef told us that ours were perfect! I'm so surprised that so many of the people in my class don't know simple things like how long to cream butter for in cookies or even how to cookie scoop to put the dough onto the sheet pans. I guess I knew more than I thought I knew because I was giving a lot of direction to my partner.

The other exciting/terrifying thing was using the oven in the classroom. They are called deck ovens and are about nine or ten feet tall. There are actually three ovens in the deck and each one can be set to a different temperature and there are special injectors for steam when you make bread -- they are rather intimidating actually because of their size and how many dials and buttons they have but I will figure it out in good time because any oven that can bake 18 half sheet pans at a time is a good oven to have around even if it was an odd to have to use a ladder to remove your cookie sheets from the oven.

After we had baked our first batch of gingersnaps, our chef asked each of the groups in the kitchen to change one specific aspect of our recipe, be it an ingredient or a procedure and then to note the results. Our group changed the amount of time that we creamed the butter and sugar from about three minutes to ten minutes but other groups had to do things like change the baking soda to baking powder or remove all the granulated sugar in their recipe and replace it with all molasses. Man alive was there ever a mo-lasses tang in that cookie. After all the groups had finished baking, we lined up the cookies, discussed the changes and results and tasted our spoils. It was very interesting what simply adding an extra egg does (it made the cookies look, technical term here: "yucky" but helped them to retain moisture) or by changing the flour to a high-gluten variety (which made the cookie quite crisp and a little browner).

These cookies are the ones from the first batch that Collin didn't eat.

After we had finished our baking, we practiced piping for a while -- all those cornets went to good use, and then we did some baker's math. I hate math and today was no different. I think that with practice I will get it but every time I get out my calculator, I am reminded of why I studied liberal arts...

Tomorrow we are doing a jams and jellies tasting which is quite exciting but I wish that I had some of Rod's Famous Raspberry Chambord jam to slip into the tasting -- it would blow the socks off of all the students and the chef without doubt.