Tante Marie and Me: Becoming a Pastry Chef: Week 2, Day 2: Quick Bread Challenge, cont.

Yesterday was day 2 of our Quick Bread Challenge. Jennifer instructed us to come to class with a game plan, ready to go. On Tuesday night, I wrote out the necessary steps to create each of my quick breads, a sour cream coffee cake and currant tea scones. I also listed out each piece of equipment that I would need to eliminate running around the kitchen like a chicken with her head cut off like Hung ;). All of us were rearing to go, but we first sat down to a review of quick bread types: dropped (like biscuits), poured, and stiff batter. The ratio of liquids to dry ingredients dictates the type of batter that will result from the recipe.

We also learned about sugar (sucrose). Sucrose = Glucose + Fructose. Inverted sugars are liquid sugars like honey or molasses or golden syrup. They are made by heating sugar and adding liquid (water) or an acid (like lemon juice). When you add water to sugar, it breaks down the sugar molecules to separate glucose and fructose molecules. Why do we care? Because inverted sugars prevent crystallization, and if you're making caramel or other candy, it's important.

OK-back to the coffee cake and scones. The coffee cake took a while-there are 3 components to a sour cream coffee cake: 1) filling 2) liquids 3) drys. Therefore, I needed to prep each component and then construct the cake. Tuesday night's pre-work was beneficial because I remembered to toast the pecans and melt the butter first. It came together very nicely and I was really pleased with the results. It was a light, fluffy cake. I would grease the pan better or line the bottom with parchment so I could avoid a potential reconstruction.

I decided to make Currant Tea Scones as my bonus assignment. I followed the recipe to make them smaller, but I think I overworked the dough slightly, so they did not rise as I had hoped. The dough came out nice and flaky however, and they looked pretty. Jennifer said I should have made them bigger, which I will do next time.