Rum Savarin with Apricot Passion Fruit GlazeIt's been another busy week of working at the store and going to school. I made a lot of bread this week, and learned a lot. The Rum Savarin was from Tuesday's class. The Savarin is an enriched bread. It starts out like many breads with water, flour and yeast, but then eggs, sugar and butter are added to the mix to make a sticky glossy dough/batter that has to be pipped into the tiny savarin molds for baking. Once it has been baked and cooled, the Savarin gets dunked into a tub of Rum simple syrup (Kirsch and other liquers can be used also). Not just dunked, but dunked and held under till every crumb is saturated with the intoxicating syrup. Then it gets brushed in glaze and decorated with bilious mounds of fresh Chantilly creme and garnished with fruit. We were out of stawberries, and I thought some fresh orange segments would pair well with the rum flavor.
Monday we also baked bread. I made an Olive loaf. The recipe was originally olive and red pepper bread, but I omitted the red peppers from my loaf because they do not agree with me. I also made a cinnamon raisin Benoiton. Both breads turned our with breatiful colored, tender crust, and nice soft crumb. The Olive bread played a great role in the tomato, fresh mozzeralla and pesto sandwich I made for lunch yesterday. The Benoiton is great toasted with some butter. I'm think of using some of it to make french toast this weekend. Sometime soon, I need to eat some vegetables.
Olive bread
The highlight of my week was Wednesday night: our weekly seminar. This week was Chocolate. The class was taught by a great History PhD candidate from Boston University. I learned a lot about the history of chocolate. However my first question and concern when starting class that evening was: "Are we going to get to taste some chocolate tonight". I love hands on learning. We did get to taste chocolate and it was amazing the things I discovered.
Our first tasting was of 4 different chocolate bars all produced by E. Guittard. They all contained 65% cacao, but each bar was produced from beans that grew in different parts of the world. One from Madagascar, one from Columbia, one from Ecuador, and the fourth from Venezuela. As we tasted one piece to the next, I was surprised by the noticable flavor nuances of each bar. Columbia and Ecuador were my favorite.
The next part of the tasting was tasting bars with different amounts of cacao. First taste was of a 99% cacao bar. It was interesting. Kind of chalky at first in your mouth, almost a little bitter because of the expectation of seeing the chocolate and thinking it be sweet. The aftertaste it left in the mouth though, was very pleasant and intensely chocolate. Then we tried 85%, 72%, 65% and 58%. From this test, I discovered that 72% cacao was my preference. Just intensely chocolate enough without an overwhelming sweetness.
Finally, we tasted some more exoctic boutique chocolate bars. I have seen the Vosges brand bars before (actually paid a ridiculous price for the Gianduja bar at Whole Foods last week, hoping I could use it to recreate one of the quick bread recipes from Day 1 at school) and was intrigued by the flavor combinations. These are combinations you don't usually associate with chocolate, like Wasabi, ginger and black sesame. Its flavor is amazing and reminiscent of sushi, which sounds odd, but I love them both; chocolate and sushi. We also tried the Naga bar, which contains coconut flakes and curry powder. It had a smokey sweetness to it and was also wonderful.
I've always loved chocolate, but after this class I have a new appreciation for it. I'll definitely be trying more of it soon and really thinking about the flavors. Later in my school program there will be more learning about chocolate, but this is when we will get our hands dirty and start to make wonderful things out of it. I can't wait.
This week's breads:
Monday we also baked bread. I made an Olive loaf. The recipe was originally olive and red pepper bread, but I omitted the red peppers from my loaf because they do not agree with me. I also made a cinnamon raisin Benoiton. Both breads turned our with breatiful colored, tender crust, and nice soft crumb. The Olive bread played a great role in the tomato, fresh mozzeralla and pesto sandwich I made for lunch yesterday. The Benoiton is great toasted with some butter. I'm think of using some of it to make french toast this weekend. Sometime soon, I need to eat some vegetables.
Olive breadThe highlight of my week was Wednesday night: our weekly seminar. This week was Chocolate. The class was taught by a great History PhD candidate from Boston University. I learned a lot about the history of chocolate. However my first question and concern when starting class that evening was: "Are we going to get to taste some chocolate tonight". I love hands on learning. We did get to taste chocolate and it was amazing the things I discovered.
Our first tasting was of 4 different chocolate bars all produced by E. Guittard. They all contained 65% cacao, but each bar was produced from beans that grew in different parts of the world. One from Madagascar, one from Columbia, one from Ecuador, and the fourth from Venezuela. As we tasted one piece to the next, I was surprised by the noticable flavor nuances of each bar. Columbia and Ecuador were my favorite.
The next part of the tasting was tasting bars with different amounts of cacao. First taste was of a 99% cacao bar. It was interesting. Kind of chalky at first in your mouth, almost a little bitter because of the expectation of seeing the chocolate and thinking it be sweet. The aftertaste it left in the mouth though, was very pleasant and intensely chocolate. Then we tried 85%, 72%, 65% and 58%. From this test, I discovered that 72% cacao was my preference. Just intensely chocolate enough without an overwhelming sweetness.
Finally, we tasted some more exoctic boutique chocolate bars. I have seen the Vosges brand bars before (actually paid a ridiculous price for the Gianduja bar at Whole Foods last week, hoping I could use it to recreate one of the quick bread recipes from Day 1 at school) and was intrigued by the flavor combinations. These are combinations you don't usually associate with chocolate, like Wasabi, ginger and black sesame. Its flavor is amazing and reminiscent of sushi, which sounds odd, but I love them both; chocolate and sushi. We also tried the Naga bar, which contains coconut flakes and curry powder. It had a smokey sweetness to it and was also wonderful.
I've always loved chocolate, but after this class I have a new appreciation for it. I'll definitely be trying more of it soon and really thinking about the flavors. Later in my school program there will be more learning about chocolate, but this is when we will get our hands dirty and start to make wonderful things out of it. I can't wait.
This week's breads:
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