Getting Back On Track

Ooops, I missed a day didn't I??? It was nice last night to veg out, watch some TV, I had ice cream for dinner, and crashed out pretty early!!! It was a busy day in class..yes, yes it was. I'll separate Tuesday & Wednesday's posts...here's Tuesday's:

My favorite item of the day was Tomato Bread...OMG!!!! On Monday we sliced and roasted tomatoes and garlic then Tuesday incorporated these wonderfully aromatic delights into the dough. The kitchen smelled wonderful!!!

I could barely wait to eat one of these. I sliced one up while it was still warm...Mmmm
Mmmmmmmmm

Look at those slices of roasted garlic and chunks of tomato (granted, you may have to click on the photo to get a close up view, but if you do it may be worth your while):

We played with lots of Brioche Tuesday also. Chef asked that we make six of the Brioche de Paris and one Crown while allowing us to make six additional pieces of our choice. Though not particularly fancy I chose the chocolate filled brioche...yummy. "Cheese":

And then there's the ongoing struggle I've been having with baguettes. Why do mine look like this?

In case you're a kind soul & aren't certain what's so wacky about these check out how the centers are thinner than the rest of the baguette, or on a different side of the same coin, note how the ends bulge out, thicker and more bulbous than the rest of the bread. I have tried to remedy this a few times and I keep ending up with the same results. Chef said the problem is in how I am shaping the loaf & that he would show me on Wednesday how to properly shape and roll out a baguette. I was hopeful that my one on one time with him would pay off for me.

The last item we baked was Walnut Bread. These are pretty cool, if you're into walnuts (because there are lots of them). While I haven't even tasted this bread it sure did bake up wonderfully:

Seeing as I'm behind on these entries I'll call this one complete and get started on Wednesday's...it was a slower day and quite scrumptious :) I feel I should also mention that for the croissants we made Tuesday rather that plain chocolate, of which we've had no complaints, we made chocolate coconut croissants....I love the chocolate we use in class, in fact I've eaten more chocolate in the past couple of week than I've eaten in months and months, and I like coconut these didn't do it for me. However for the right person I could see how they'd be great...shredded coconut mixed with butter and flour, topped with gooey chocolate wrapped up in a flaky croissant. Good stuff!