Its Our Jam
Quarter 2 Newsletter from CVCC Baking Arts Volume 1 Issue 2
Friday Bake Sale
On Fridays throughout the school year, we have a bake sale. We showcase all of the hard work and tasty treats that we have made throughout that week, as well as showing our knowledge of baking and pastry arts and practicing customer service skills; not just to the school but also to the general public. In addition to bake sales, we also have lots of orders for local businesses and the school to prepare for weekly.
Preparing for a bake sale takes time. Friday’s can get a little stressful. We need to make sure that everything is set up correctly so we can have a smooth running bakesale. We start by making sure everything that we are selling is out in the refrigerated display case, or in the display area. We also have to put the items on separate trays so our products look presentable and determine the correct serving utensils if needed. Then we go through, make a list of all the products that we made to make sure we have everything, and then create labels for their names and prices. Then we move on to assembling boxes to make sure that each customer has an option as to what size box they need or want. Lastly, we check to see if each item has a sign in the front and back, have gloves and deli sheets ready, and blue aprons on.
Now it is bakesale time! We put the sign out at 9:45 that says the time of our bake sales (10-11:30) and what we are selling, and prepare for the first few customers. At 10:00 we open our door and then it begins! This is the time where I am always the happiest. I feel proud of, not only what I have made, but also that we can showcase our hard work to the public. I also like interacting with our customers because they ask great questions about our products. They ask what’s in it or how did we make them, and I give a short explanation of what we did so they don’t end up losing interest because of me talking for so long. Customers are always excited and happy with our bake sales and they also give us great reviews of our products and, to me, that feels great. So the bake sale experience, and I think I can speak for the rest of my classmates, is very fun and very enjoyable.
Written By: Drew Pecor
Pumpkin Smores Cupcake
Happy Inspector
Preparation of Smores Cupcakes
Cookie Decoration
Steady Hands
Finished Products
Yeast Bread Dough
During Quarter 1, our class made yeast bread for the first time. We will make more throughout the year, but since it was our first lesson we spent time learning about all the different types of bread that can be made (lean, sweet, soft roll, sponges, and sourdough, to name a few). We also learned about the yeast itself, as well as different types of sponges you can use as starters for different types of bread. Our class did a lot of reading before we made any bread, and I think this was a good thing because we were able to understand what we were doing.
First, we made dinner rolls. This soft roll recipe came out delicious and seemed to help us be confident in our bread making abilities before we moved on to the harder yeast breads. We made starters for different types of bread and used them in our doughs. To make a sourdough starter as we did, you combine the yeast, water, and a small amount of flour and leave it to sit overnight. This starter becomes the leavening agent for the bread (depending on the recipe, some doughs require more yeast to be added even with the starter).
The simplest types of bread are very cheap to make and, if stored properly, most will keep for an extended amount of time. Lean bread recipes only require flour, yeast, salt, water, and maybe a little sugar to feed the yeast. Yeast needs food to live, just as humans do, so yeast activates when it has sugar and oxygen to eat. It can also produce its own sugar source from the flour in the recipe. Once activated, yeast creates carbon dioxide and alcohol, and this is the process that leavens your dough. You can add different fats and sugars to give the bread more color and flavor (soft roll and sweet doughs rely on enrichers to provide them with these qualities), but the basic ingredients are cheap and easy to come by. Yeast bread is relatively easy to produce, and it can be made according to one's busy life schedule. Usually, bread recipes have twelve steps: scaling ingredients, mixing, bulk fermentation, folding, dividing, rounding, bench-proofing, makeup and panning, proofing, baking, cooling, and storage. Many of these steps are simple, but some can prove to be more difficult. Rounding and make-up are very important, and it is vital that these steps are completed correctly. Some breads, such as the Italian bread that we made in class, take little more preparation than putting the dough into a loaf pan and baking it, but others, like the challah, require more work so that the bread will have a neat look. In class, some of us were tasked with French bread, others with focaccia, and then eventually everyone made Italian bread. We also made Challah bread, and this was my personal favorite. There are many ways to speed up and slow down the proofing of bread, and this allows for flexibility in when the dough needs to be panned and baked. There were days when we didn’t have time to pan the bread that day, so we let it proof in the fridge overnight so they would be ready to use the next day.
Making yeast bread seemed to be fairly easy for all of us, and they were fun to make as well. We had to roll our dinner rolls into perfect spheres (this step is called rounding, and it took some time to learn how to do), make a six-strand braid with our challah, and spread and stretch the focaccia out to the edges of the pan (this took time as well!). The recipes for lean doughs like the Italian and French loaves were much easier to put together because there were fewer ingredients to worry about. The soft roll dough products like dinner rolls and challah had more ingredients than the lean doughs, and it took more effort to complete their shapes. We have not made any sweet doughs yet, but we will over the course of the year. I think these will prove the hardest to make because enrichers can be hard to work with. I think it was worth learning everything that we did because bread is a very profitable item in the bakeshop. Also, bread is easy to make at home, and I’m not sure about anyone else, but I know I’ve already used some recipes from our class at home, and they came out just as delicious.
Written By: Bailey McHugh
Italian Pan Bread
Pre Proof Box
Challah 6 Strand Braid Preparation
Sysco Food Show
We went on a field trip to the Stoweflake Resort in Stowe, VT, and it was cool!! We went with the culinary arts class from CVCC. There were a lot of booths there and pretty much most of them had samples and even whole food items such as a slice of pizza! And a slice of cake! I also noticed that some of the booths had chefs in front and they were in the process of cooking the food!! I had a great conversation with one chef. He was very knowledgeable, and he told me all about his business in Massachusetts.
The first vendor that I went to was a very polite gentleman. He was a chef for a restaurant in Massachusetts. He had four different saute pans with already cooked samples of food to try such as lobster stuffed ravioli, cheese ravioli, and a couple of pasta dishes. I sampled one of his pasta dishes, and it was AMAZING!!! It was smooth, creamy, had a nice texture to it because of the bacon in it. The Chef also put some fried onions in it as well which made it have a nice crunch.
The next vendor I went to was this man who had a bunch of meats. I forgot the names of them, but I do know that I tried a slice of sirloin. The beef sirloin he had prepared was tender and flavorful, which I enjoyed.
To wrap it up I have to say that food show was cool. It made me want to cook dishes like they were demonstrating. All the people at the vendors were very polite and welcoming to all of us, and it made my experience a lot better. What's cool about these food shows is that they have a bunch of food that you can sample and try — all or most of the products that were made with local ingredients.
Written By: Max Kisner
Delectable Pastries
Scallop Plat Presentation
The Sea
Pie, Mmmmm, Pie
There are many different types of pies. My class and I all learned about the different types of pie crust that go with certain types of fillings from our Professional Baking book and our Chef. The types of pie crust we learned about are mealy, medium flaky, flaky, and crumb crust.
Mealy pie dough is a dough that forms a paste, and this type of pie crust is used for more of a liquid filling such as custard, pumpkin, and fruit (fresh fruit, frozen fruit, canned fruit, and dried fruit). Pumpkin and custard fillings are cooked with the dough because they usually contain eggs which have to be heated. Mealy pie dough is best to use for these types of fillings because they typically don't get "soggy bottoms."
Medium flaky pie dough is a mix of fat and flour to form little clumps of dough in the shape of little peas. This dough is mostly used for pre-cooked fillings like Apple/ fruits and non-runny fillings because this type of dough will get a “Soggy bottom” and it will change your end product.
Long flaky pie dough is almost the same thing as medium flaky except for the fact that it has more substantial chunks of fat and flour. This dough is strictly just for pre-cooked pie fillings. Each one of the pie crust types works with specific kind of pie fillings.
Fruit pies tend to be the most common types of pies. Fruit pie flavors vary as the season's change. For example, people generally eat berry pies during the summer due to the berries being in season and apple pie during the fall. Fruit pies can be prepared from fresh fruit or from canned fruit. The mixing method changes slightly depending on if you are using fresh fruit or canned.
Cream fillings are similar to a pudding, like banana pie or basic pastry cream. Most cream pies are thickened through the use of starch such as cornstarch or flours, and both include eggs. Cream pie fillings are usually served in a precooked pie crust or graham cracker crust because the filling is cooked prior to placing the filling in the crust.
Custard or soft pies are pies with an uncooked liquid filling that contain eggs. The eggs in the pie filling are what makes it thicken. Pumpkin pie is an example of a custard pie. Custard or soft pies are usually poured into a partially baked mealy pie crust and then baked until the center of the pie is firm. The crust is partially baked to help limit the amount of moisture that can absorb into the crust.
Chiffon pie fillings are a fluffy and light filling that is created by the use of beaten egg whites and sometimes whipped cream folded into a pie filling base. Chiffon filings can be made from almost anything. Gelatin also creates a type of stability and allows for the pie to hold a cut edge when serving versus the filling oozing out of the crust.
As you can tell, my class and I learned a lot about pies. How all of the crust have certain types of food that they are filled with. So, the next time we make a pie we will know what kind of crust we should use based on the filling. Learning about how different types of pie crust and fillings allowed us to work with things and have the end product looking great.
Written By: Kiersten Mongeon
Perfectly Toasted Lemon Meringue Pie
Individual Chocolate Cream Pie
Key Lime Mini Pie (Tartlet)
Lemon Meringue Mini Pie (Tartlet)
Linzer Tartlet
Central Vermont Career Center Baking Arts
Email: wclarcvcc@u61.net
Website: http://cvtcc.org/
Location: 136 North Main Street, Barre, VT, USA
Phone: 802-622-0333