Introduction to Baking Week 5 - Baguette, Pecan Pie, Bird's Nest Cookies

Introduction

This week we are preparing the classic French Baguette, along with Pecan Pie, and Bird's Nest cookies. We were also supposed to be doing a Lemon Meringue pie, although due to a meeting happening at the school, time constraints prevented this.

Practical

Chef demonstrated the correct method for rolling out our baguette after our dough had enough time on the bench. He commented that this dough should be benched at room temperature so that the yeast will have enough strength to help "burst" the dough once it goes in the oven. He explained how the size of a baguette is regulated by the government in France, and that the hardest part in preparing it is rolling it out properly.

For the Bird's Nest cookies, Chef demonstrated how we should roll these out as well, along with holding the sides of the cookies in when making the indentation for the "nest."

Observations

While the baguette was the simplest recipe of the day in terms of ingredients, it turned out to be the most complex in preparation, ensuring appropriate quality standards were met along the way.

Our pecan pie turned out quite well, although I felt the texture was slightly too gelatinous, although this may have changed had it sat longer to cool.

Our bird's nest cookies turned out quite well, retaining the appropriate shape and not having any of the jam filling overflow during cooking. The texture and flavour were quite good.

Unfortunately due to the time constraints this week we were unable to get much feedback from the Chef regarding out work, although I was generally happy with the outcome.