dailydelicious: Bread & Viennoiseries class with chef Sebastien Chevallier

I don't think that we can stop learning, and learning something new is what I love^^.

It's my third times at PBA World (P: Pâtisserie, B: Boulangerie A: Arts) (if you want to read about the first and second class just click the link).

I participated in Bread & Viennoiseries class with chef Sebastien Chevallier (Meilleur Ouvrier de France 2011, in Bakery category).

In this class, we had a chance to learn how to make many kinds of bread and Viennoiseries.
Such as:

Croissant

Croissant (Bi-colour)

Space cafe (croissant dough filled with coffee creme brule and crumble speculoos)

La couque Zèbrée à la fraise (zebra pattern croissant dough with strawberry custard)

Pain au chocolat (with two-tone croissant dough)

Pain au chocolat

Baguette

Ciabatta

Baguette curry-Graines

Chicken, peppers and tomato Sandwich

Meli Melo (Brioche dough filled with pears and nut)

Crumble abricot (Brioche dough filled with apricot custard)

La brioche chocolat, noisette et sucre grain

(Brioche with chocolate, hazelnut, and sugar)

La brioche sucre grain

(brioche dough with butter and sugar)

Sable aux Amandes

(almond cookies)

Sable 3 chocolat

(chocolate cookies)

All of them (17 kinds in total) are the photo of what we made in this 3 days hand on class.

My group: Me, Lukpad and Pui

As there were 9 of us, chef divided us into 3 groups.

We started the first day with croissant, as chef wanted to test the flour and water, and it's one of the most important things in bread making. By using a different type of flour and amount of water, we got a different croissant from the same recipe.

2 Way of shaping

Not only the water or flour, but different way of shaping is also matter too.

And there was no waste in the bakery, haha, as he showed us how to use croissant scrape and turn it into something delicious.

As there were many things to prepare, we spent our first day making all the insert (creme brulee, custard, crumble and etc). And the most important part of the class: kneading bread dough. We used a large mixer to knead many kinds of dough, and the chef shown us how to check when the dough was ready.

The next day, all of us would have to make croissant by ourself (from a-z, haha), and I was excited because I never used the rolling machine for making the croissant before.

I arrived early (as I didn't want to drive, I stayed at the hotel next to the school building, just 2 minutes walk ^^), and prepared for the croissant moment.

All of us had to roll and fold the croissant by ourselves, I really love this kind of class, for me, I can remember better if I have a chance to touch or feel it.

We learned many tricks in making beautiful and delicious croissant, well as the chef said that he had been baking for more than 30 years, so his skill is far away from ours.

Chef showed us how to shape the croissant, this simple step was amazing, with gentle movement, the thin dough turn into a beautiful croissant.

There are 2 ways of shaping the croissant, the chef told us that crescent croissants were the one that sold in Boulangerie, while straight croissants were sold in Patisserie.

Now it's time for us to shape OUR CROISSANT ^^. It's not hard to make but you need to be precise in rolling and cutting.

And yes, gentle tough while rolling it into a lovely croissant shape.

After spending a half day with our buttery croissant, we moved to another kind of Viennoiseries: Brioche.

I had to tell you that, the broiche that we made in this class was very, very delicious!!!!!!!!!!

It's the best one, moist and buttery but not greasy, and the key for making it is temperature and liquid (for this recipe: egg).

You have to control all of them, and it's another thing that I learned from this class.

Well, I bake a lot of bread before, but sometimes I just didn't pay attention to this detail. For simple bread as butter buns, you can go easy with it. But for something special such as brioche, this class opened my eye.

If I never had a chance to come to this class I might make it the same way, but after this, I think (and hope, haha) that I will make more delicious bread at home.

It's good that the school has all the equipment and machines that we need for making delicious bread, esp. proofing machine (a refrigerator like machine that you can adjust the temperature), or streamable oven.

I couldn't count how many croissants that we made in this class, as there was a load of them.

The croissant that we baked on the second and third day were very beautiful and delicious, as chef adjust the recipe to suit the flour that we use in the class.

Traditional style bread was something that I really wanted to learn. I know that it's not easy to make delicious bread from a simple ingredient such as water, flour, yeast, and salt.

But from this class, I had a chance to touch and feel the dough, and it's very important for me.
Watching is not bad, but sometimes it's not enough. As when chef let us shape the baguette, saw him shaping it easily, but when I started shaping it, it's another story -*-, so I ended up asking him to show me the method again.

Scoring the baguette dough before baking was the same, I will have to bake more ^^ until I can make it as beautiful as the one that chef made.

But I think the point for attending the class is to learn and try, skill is something that you will have to collect from practicing.

I had a chance to use many equipments in this class too, hand peel (or transfer board) was one of them. I was still not good at using it but it's fun to learn how to use it.

Hand on class good for people who don't afraid to try, and if you can't do it well, you can ask the instructor.

After that, it's time for you to practice, and practice (well it's better if you can practice a lot in the class too, hehe).

Tip and technique from chef such as how to prepare or handle the dough (I have never known that we can make a basic dough and use it for making baguette and Ciabatta too) is something that we got from the class too.

Plus it's fun to spend time with people who have the same passion.

Oh, I shouldn't forget about a lot of delicious freshly baked bread that we ate in the class too.

Well, it's a very important part, right, as we have to know what the bread taste like, so we can compare it with the one that we make at home.

We almost came to the end of the class.

And now we had a load of bread on the racks.

We only had one day left, but there were so many things that we should do.

We started the last day by making more croissant pastry, two tones, zebra pattern or filled croissant.

From a lot of baking, the classroom filled with delicious aroma.

And now it's time for decorating.

And taking more photos ^^.

The sandwich was the last menu that we made.

Baguette curry-Graines with a lot of filling that we had to make it a feast for the eyes.
And now, we finished all the work and started cleaning the room.

My team, and delicious brioche, ^^.

Thank you, everyone, hope that we will have a chance to see each other again.

And Thank you all the staff at PBA, everything in the class run smoothly because of you ^^.