dark ale with white flour

I made the dough for the evening restaurant class on thursday as there were quite a few absentees from the class the lecturer said you dont want to make the bread for me do you? The deal was that i had a free hand,and could make whatever I pleased! SO I had several bottles of coopers dark ale set aside that were up to their code date so at 2.30 pm I refreshed my sour dough starter and added what i would have discarded to 1.5litres of dark ale  and 1 kg of Bakers flour and made a nice slurry. I went back to my office and worked out the rest of the formula completed a couple more purchase orders shut down the computer and went back to the bakery.

I ended up with 1 young student who was also going to be making the fresh fruit salad component of the desert trio to be served.

I quickly got him to weigh up the other ingrediants  after finding we had 40 patrons for the restaurant. The other ingrediants were

(1kg flour                                                                    1,000 grams)

(Coopers dark ale 4 x 375ml stubbies                     1500 grams)

(sour dough culture                                                              100 grams)

3kg flour                                                            3,000 grams

salt                                                                        80 grams

Dry yeast                                                                80 grams

butter                                                                    120 grams

water                                                                   1300 grams

Dobrim bread impover                                               5 grams

My helper had not made bread before so  i gave him  a run down on what the different ingrediants do in the dough and explained how to work the percentages  so that this dough could be made larger or smaller and that 1% in this dough represented 40 grams.

We also worked out how to make a dough to the size required  for a certain number of rolls, the dinner rolls are scaled @ 50 grams each, we have a hand press that cuts out 14 pieces  so made him work out the size of the dough pieces required (700 grams) and suggested that we make  70 rolls as the patrons don,t usually say no to the additional roll when offered. i then told him we would make a 4 loaves @ 500grams and then some sticks at 250 grams, this was all before the dough was mixed.

A tip i passed on to him and one that is well worth remebering is that if you measure up more than the amount of water you want it is ready to go at the right temp as you need it and that it is easier to calculate want went in by what you have left.

Anyway back to the dough after it was mixed i put it into a 25litre plastic bucket, showed how to mark how far the dough came in the container  and where it might come when doubled. i then said i was going home  to feed my aviary birds, and that i would be back in an hour ( i live quite close by) so left him to get on with his fresh fruit salad.

When i got back the dough had exceeded our expectations as far as the marks on the bucket were concerned  it had actually pushed the lid off and had a distinct muffin top look. So the knocking back was demonstrated as well as taking in the aroma of the gas that was released.

Scaling was quickly completed and dough pieces rounded up and allowed to recover for 10 minutes, the rolls were quickly finished  and the bread pieces were shaped  these were all deposited in a steam prover.

The requirement of the restaurant is that they have to have a fast dough as students only have 4 hours to make and bake fresh product for both lunch and again for dinner. hence the fast 1 hour bulk fermentation time achived with the 2% addition of dry yeast.

The rolls were then pulled from the prover and paint brushed with a boiled cornflour wash and seeded and rice flour dusted and cut in a number of different ways to show the different effects achieved with the knife.

The rolls were then baked and after inspection of the results fom the cuts racked to cool before being handed to the front of house staff ready for service. The bread loaves and sticks were placed in the oven next while I was given a serve of the fish that was on the menu, magnificent red snapper.

Once the bread came out my work was done, i made sure that the staff behind the bar that provide the ale and the flat white coffes had a loaf to take home, the instructor for the front of house staff and of course the chef instructor as well as for the procurement team i work with all had a loaf.

Next morning the verdict came in  the young trainee chef had been out and faced the diners who loved it with many asking him  why it was so nice and the best bread rolls thay had tasted.

I must say that the loaf i took home remained really fresh and tasty for a couple of days. UNFOTUNATELY the camera is left at work for the weekend but i will add pictures to this blog on Monday

Regards Yozza  

Sorry about the cut shot i only had a smallish serrated knife, its amazing the difference a good knife makes in cutting bread