Food in Provence (and elsewhere)

And the first results…

Today we turned the baguette dough from yesterday into a real product! And a product I just enjoyed eating for dinner, too! We each shaped two baguettes and learnt how to place these onto the “carpets” used by boulangers. Then, after a second proving, how to move them from the carpets onto trays ready for baking—and, of course, how to slash them:

Baguettes ready for baking

And after half-an-hour or so…

My first baguette

Well, that was more than half-an-hour later as we also advanced our brioche making (and also wiped, washed, acrubbed, soaped, brushed, rinsed and squeegeed…).

We divided our brioche dough into a 250g piece which became a boule shape with pralines, a 200g piece in an 18cm disk and three 50g pieces in foil cups. No pictures of these, but working with this buttery dough was hard. And I learnt how you really do that snazzy rolling technique with a ball of dough under a cupped hand: you need to push your fingers down much harder than I’ve been doing in the past. The prepared dough is being left in a proving oven overnight set initially to fridge temperature but then to prove them to be ready for us to bake them tomorrow.

The task for the afternoon was to prepare a Tarte au confit d’oignon et tapenade, légumes croquants.

My finished tarte

I learnt how to ¨fraiser” dough to better incorporate butter (push small chunks up the bench with the heel of your hand), how to shape, bake and finish a tart base and had a first go at plate decorating…

Returning to the residence was then an adventure as A. had been lent a bike so I offered to show her the mud free route home. Unfortunately, the first 1km or so is not car free and A.’s bike was stuck in top gear. Rush hour drivers were not best pleased to be in turn stuck behind slow cyclists. Impatience was shown and safe passing distances were not maintained. Life was better once on the cycle lane and A. seems to be up to go by bike tomorrow morning, especially as she now has a helmet. We also found a place that can fix bikes but haven´t yet worked out the logistics of getting hers to the shop whilst we are at the school. A Saturday outing is probably needed. A suivre…

Tony
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2 responses to “And the first results…”

  1. Dave B avatar
    Dave B

    The baguette looks awesome. I presume it tasted as good as it looks. What is the dominant factor: Ingredients or Technique? I spent years working on creating “Montreal Bagels”… I only ever buy Canadian flour (CostCo sell it by the sack) but it still took me ages to get anywhere close to the right taste.

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    1. Tony avatar
      Tony

      The chef would certainly say technique. I asked him about making baguettes at home and you can do the second proofing on the tray to be used for baking (so no need for a home carpet) but that led on to a discussion about proofing. Lower temperature for longer is better than using an oven that can maintain, say, 30C. And he emphasised the need to experiment and see the impact of changes in kneading and proofing times and techniques. He laughed when I said I might if I were living in the UK but the best experiment in France is trying the local boulangeries.

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