frutti.gummi

Recently I have developed an interest in cooking and baking. I've thought of taking part-time classes but these classes are usually a few months long and cost a few thousand bucks. I'm not sure if it is something that I really like to do yet so I'm not comfortable with making such a big up front investment for it. Plus, I don't have much money at the moment.  After much searching, I came across one day workshops which allows me to have hands-on experience along with the guidance of an expert.

Since I'm currently not interested in making cakes, I specifically chose a bread making class. I also think that making bread should be less complicated and easier to learn. So I finally went to a bread making workshop and I came home with lots of bread. It was my very first bread making experience and I totally enjoyed it. The instructor is awesome as she did not only taught us the practical skills but also gave a bit of the technical background involving math and science. I never knew you need math skills to do baking. Hahaha.

There were only 3 students including myself in the class and all three of us are noobs. Each of us got to operate the dough mixer and knead the breads. We made five types of bread: wholemeal, white loaf, walnut+raisin+chocolate chip, sweet bun, and french baguette. Not all of them turned out well because there was only one oven and it was a bit problematic. The wholemeal breads were pretty good as they were the first ones we baked. The french baguettes were alright too except that they were not as porous as they're supposed to be.

 Wholemeal breads

The walnut-raisin-chocolatechip and sweet buns ended up browned on top because the oven was already hot and it didn't require as much time as we had anticipated. When we were baking the white loaf, something went wrong with the oven. The heat went off. We were not aware of that and kept waiting for the the breads to rise. We found out when we went to check and had to restart the oven. Even though we tried to continue baking them, it didn't work. Only the bottom part of one loaf is edible.

Baguettes in the oven, walnut-raisin bread waiting for its turn in the oven, and fellow student making the dough round

Softbuns (Hamburger & muffin shapes) and the Instructor cutting the white loaf

By the time the class ended, my feet were aching like mad. I had been standing and walking the entire day. Luckily I was wearing flats. I guess the class had also been a good exercise for me. After making several attempts at making the dough round and smooth, I even felt slight pain on my upper arm. Well, all the hard work was worth it for the breads that I got to eat. Hehehhe.

The workshop has been a very informative session and I did learn a lot. More importantly, I realized that I might enjoy baking afterall.