Day 9 and 10 of BPT – It’s all a blur now…

We’ve done so much baking I’m having troubles keeping it all straight. Ok let’s see..

On the first day of baking the Chef assigned to us… no no cannot do that again. I’ve got to stay focused.

Ok day 9 we had a big pizza fest. Three groups, 6 pizza’s each – 3 thin and 3 Chicago style. That’s a lot of pizza folks! I’m not sure what everyone else did but our group did the following

Thin # 1 – Pesto with Prosciutto and Mozzarella

Thin # 2 – Tomato base with cherry tomatoes roasted in EVO and balsamic vinegar and garlic slices, fresh basil and Mozzarella.

Thin # 3 – Base was carmalized onions, roasted garlic and Gorgonzola cheese.

Chicago # 1 – Cheese, tomato base, green peppers, mushrooms, pepperoni and onions.

Chicago # 2 – Cheese – Mozzarella and Parmesan and pepperoni’s.

Chicago # 3 – A margarita style pizza, fresh tomatoes, cheese and basil

One of the other teams made a buffalo chicken pizza that oh my lord made my mouth water (and burn) even after I had eaten several pieces of our pizza. I ended up eating 6.5 pieces of pizza that night.

And if that wasn’t enough we also baked off our Ciabatta (Italian for ‘slipper’) bread. We each made a large loaf of this bread and I ended up bringing 2 loaves to my office to share. I have so much bread at home!

On day 10 we switched gears a bit and while still baking went over to the sweet side once more. It was a day of Croissants, fruit-filled Danishes, cake doughnuts and blueberry muffins. Since there were 4 in our group we each took and item and went to work. Well sort of. The dough for the Danishes and Croissants had to thaw a bit. So I worked on the blueberry muffins. Not a big fan of muffins and no fan at all of fruit. I must say they came out very good. ‘J’ worked on the doughnuts. We coated some in chocolate, some in cinnamon sugar. Chef made a point of saying ‘do not over-work the dough or they will be tough’. Ours were a little tough, but hey it was his first time making this dough. At least they weren’t as tough as one of the other groups chef said. Next up Danish time. What fun!! We made pinwheel shapes, fold overs, window panes, inverted pinwheels and a lot more. They were do tasty. Ok so I don’t like fruit, but the jam wasn’t too bad. The dough far outshone the jam and even chef said “These are the best I’ve had in 2 terms.” Woo Hoo’s to Carey she was in charge of the Danish dough. It’s Croissant time. Our dough is ready and let’s roll these bad boys out up and over. They get baked off and while a beautiful color the chef said they were slightly under cooked. I’m trying to think of how we could have cooked them longer without them getting too dark. I shall have to ponder this or ask Chef about it tomorrow.

Tomorrow is cookie night and ice-cream night along with prepping for our Plated Desert Presentation set for Friday. That’s when we’ll use the Truffles we made way early on in the program.

Until Then!!....