We made three different kinds of bread today in lab. We began with the "Butterkuchen" which is a little like a foccacia bread, as it is a flat rectangle and has a spongey texture. We mixed the dough and let it rest for a little while. Once it had sit, we rolled it into a rectangle big enough to fit a medium sized sheet pan and placed it in the proofer for approximately fifteen minutes. Everything was going fine, however somehow all the pans of dough in one of the proofers fell to the bottom, and my pan just so happened to be at the bottom of the proofer. My dough was completely squished! That was a bit of a setback. I had to fix the dough by fitting it once again into the pan properly, then let it proof all over again seeing as all the air that had once been in the dough had been squeezed out. Once it had finally proofed, we poked holes all throughout the dough with our fingers. We then whipped some butter with a little sugar, and piped this into each of the holes. We sprinkled some sliced almonds and a little sugar over the top of the bread, then baked it.s Once it had finished baking, the crust was a nice brown and the butter in all the holes had melted and become all delicious. Yum! Next we made a caramelized onion and cheese bread. We started by caramelizing the onions and mixing the dough. Once the dough had almost finished mixing, we took it out of the mixer and stretched it out a little. We then put the cooled onions and the grated cheese in the centre of the stretched out dough and folded the dough keeping the filling in the centre. This then went back in the mixer to evenly disperse the onions and cheese. The dough then rested. This bread was a braided loaf, so we cut the dough into three even pieces, rolled them into thin logs and braided them together. We proofed the braided dough then baked it in the bread ovens. It looked and smelled so good! Lastly, we made a challah bread. We mixed the dough (which was very wet) and let it rest for quite some time allowing the gluten to develop. Next, we divided the dough into eight even pieces and rolled the pieces into logs just like the cheese bread. The challah bread was an eight part braid, and quite a bit more challenging to do as there are many steps to follow in order to achieve the proper braid. Luckily, I was able to successfully braid the challah without much trouble. The dough then proofed, then we brushed it with an egg wash before baking. It didn't take long at all for the dough to bake into a perfect looking loaf. It came out looking great! My instructor seemed to also be pleased with how my bread came out, although he said that my Butterkuchen was a little darker than preferred. Tomorrow, we make Foccacia bread something else that I can't remember!

The Butterkuchen

The caramelized onion and cheese bread

 The Challah bread