Introduction to Baking Week 2 - Carrot & Banana bread, Sweet tart dough

Introduction

This week we are preparing Italian rosemary rolls, carrot bread and banana bread. We will also be preparing a sweet tart dough which will be used in the preparation of lemon bars and streusel kuchen.

Practical

The preparation of the rosemary rolls is similar to previous weeks work. The carrot bread and banana bread use the drop method of cooking into appropriate sized pans - for these we must be sure not to over-mix the dough as it is being prepared.

While preparing the sweet tart dough, chef explains the need to ensure all the butter is blended in well, as large pieces of butter will melt during baking and create imperfections in the cooked pastry. We also learn that we must dock (puncture) the dough before cooking it to allow steam to escape, otherwise the pastry will puff up while cooking and create an uneven finished product.

Observations

After preparing the sweet tart dough, while rolling it out we realized that there were still some pieces of butter which may not have been blended in well enough. This seems to be a fine line between ensuring products are adequately mixed and not over-mixing the final product. Although we had some small pieces of butter present, the dough cooked well and our lemon bars and streusel both turned out well.

One thing the streusel recipe did not call for was a fruit topping; although we used a jam layer between the pastry and the cake filling, the final product seemed a little dry to me. Chef commented that generally a fruit layer would be placed on top of the cake filling, which would have added some moisture to the final taste.

Our Italian rosemary rolls, along with carrot and banana breads both turned out very well.