I got to play with bakers today and it was really fun!
The Southeast Retail Bakers Association and Dawn Food Products hosted a seminar in Georgia.
This is Adam (one of the bakers at Dawn Food Products), showing us how to make biscotti from a basic recipe, while changing out the flavors. Chocolate (with white chocolate chips and sliced almonds). Cherry Cordial. Lemon. Almond. Trail Mix. Several new flavors to add to our already popular Orange-Cranberry with Pistachios.
Then we learned how to mix fruit flavors with chocolate to dip them. Then dip them in lots of add-ons like chopped nuts and chocolate curls.
They will be in the bakery soon. Maybe even Tuesday.
Then we played with bread dough. I learned how to make a rolled bread with our baguette or ciabatta dough, filled with spinach and cheese. They use a really cool starch to keep the filling from getting runny and messy while you roll the breads. Larry (also from Dawn Food Products) and Aaron (who owns a bakery in South Carolina) had a great time seeing who could spread the filling fastest (yeah, that's what we do...).
And I learned how to make some cool shaped breads. We made epi bread, learned a six-braid for challah, and how to make knotted rolls.
Then we had "show and tell." I brought our Hunger Games inspired bread recipe to share with the others. One brought a doughnut stuffed with sausage and topped with maple glaze (we can't make them because we don't have a fryer); another brought cheese & jalepeno bread (that one has potential). One lady shared a gift basket idea -- the ribbon had the name of her bakery printed on it.
As if all that wasn't enough, I came home with lots of samples, and some nice dough dividers (that double as icing smoothers) and oven mitts.
Except for almost getting a speeding ticket (FYI, the speed limit between Talladega and the Georgia state line is 55 mph, and it is strictly enforced, even on Sunday at 6 a.m.) -- the highway patrolman took pity on me and let me off with a warning -- it was a good day.
Comments