by Jenna Weber
In that class, I made my first real culinary-school friend. Her name was Samantha and she lived in Melbourne, Florida, about an hour’s drive south, right next to my hometown of Vero Beach. We had moved to Vero Beach when I was eleven, and only recently had my parents decided to make the move across the state to Tampa. To me, Vero would always feel like home.
Samantha was of medium height and had gorgeous mahogany-colored hair, which she said she’d dyed pink and blue at one point in her life. She had a unique obsession with Disney World and had even gone so far as to get married at Epcot Center a few years earlier. We’d set up our stations next to each other on the first night of Breads and had been chatting away ever since. Samantha wanted to become a cake decorator after she graduated, and from the sketches she had shown me, the girl had talent.
The two of us also befriended a guy around our age named Jake. He was serious and intelligent, having just graduated from a small honors college in Florida the year before. He was the first student I’d met who had actually obtained a bachelor’s degree before entering culinary school, and over nightly cleanups we would talk about our favorite books and college classes. Jake was just as serious about baking bread as I was, if not more so, and he wanted to open an artisanal bakery when he graduated. On the fourth night of class, Chef Hill paired the two of us as partners for the duration of the class, and I was relieved to finally have found a partner with whom I really clicked.
Breads 101 is also where we finally made the food that had featured so prominently in my culinary-school fantasies: croissants. Jake and I took turns rolling whole sticks of butter into the soft dough, then folding it back up into a tight square and rolling it out again, until all of the butter had been incorporated and the dough was smooth.
“This is fun, isn’t it?” Jake asked as I folded the big blob of dough and stacked it on top of itself.
“I love this,” I said. “I finally feel like I’ve found some sort of calling, and it comes so naturally. There are no pots on the stove, no onions to be chopped or hot grease splattering. It’s just us and the dough.”
Samantha, who was working nearby with her partner, another wannabe wedding-cake decorator, chimed in. “I agree! And who wouldn’t want to work with Chef Hill?”
Jake rolled his eyes, and I laughed as I carried our dough away to place in the proofing box to rise. Later, we would punch it down and then roll it out super thin before carefully cutting it into triangles and shaping them into croissants. I mixed an egg wash to brush over the tops of the unbaked croissants. Jake was busy scraping bits of dried dough off the work surface.
Twenty minutes later, we had a dozen flimsy triangles on the floured counter in front of us. I opened my textbook to the diagrams depicting how to fold the croissants and got started. The dough felt soft and sticky under my fingertips. I had just finished rolling up my first one and placing it on the parchment-lined sheet pan in front of me when Chef Hill strolled by.
“How are you doing there, Weber?” he asked.
“Fine, Chef. Should the dough be this soft, though?” I held up a sticky triangle for him to see.
“Yep, that’s perfect. Just be sure to keep enough flour on your table so the dough doesn’t stick. And roll up tight, but not too tight.” He started rolling one of my triangles to demonstrate. “It looks like you guys are on the right track. Good work.”
Chef then turned to the class and announced in a loud voice, “Guys, I forgot to tell you, but there’s a box of chocolate over in the back that you can use if you want to make a few pains au chocolat.”
I looked at Jake and he nodded with a grin.
“Hey, grab me a few, too,” Samantha called as I made my way to the back of the kitchen. Chocolate croissants always made me think of the summer I spent studying abroad in Paris. Late in the day, between classes, I would go into a local bakery and get a flaky, sweet pain au chocolat as an afternoon snack. I would take my prize to the Luxembourg Gardens and sit in the grass and people-watch, the chocolate smearing on my fingers and little bits of flaky pastry fluttering around me. I grabbed a big handful of the dark chocolate tablets from the box and brought them back to our table.
“Sweet!” Jake said as he took a piece of chocolate and set it in the center of his dough triangle.
I nibbled on two pieces of the chocolate before stuffing my croissants. Then I brushed all of our pastries with egg wash and carried them to the oven to bake. They came out golden brown and puffy, and a few had chocolate oozing out the sides. I bit into the runt of the batch immediately. Instantly, the crumbs melted on my tongue and I was left with chocolate-covered fingers and a very big smile. Gone were all the initial hesitations about culinary school; this was one hundred percent where I belonged.
By the second week, I felt more than ready for our first practical on French bread. It was Friday night, and I had on a clean, spotless chef jacket and starched white apron. I had studied for hours the day before, so I felt pretty confident that I knew the baking procedure and correct temperatures. For the practical, we were not allowed to use our textbooks but could refer to the notes we had taken in class. Chef Hill sat up at the front of the kitchen and gave us basic instructions and end times, and then we were cut loose. For the first time yet, the kitchen was absolutely silent as students scooped flour into their bowls and weighed out their ingredients. Jake and Samantha were working next to me, as usual, but we were forbidden to talk at all during the practical. Samantha had dyed a single lock of her hair bright red, and it peeked out of her hairnet.
I gave a nervous smile to my friends and started working on gathering and measuring my ingredients. I took great care in taking the temperature of my water three times to make sure it was a perfect one hundred degrees. I laid out my mise en place bowls, sifted my flour, and checked the weights on my scale meticulously. Pretty soon, I had a large, sticky ball of dough in my hands, which I covered with plastic wrap and set on the table to rest for an hour. Then, I scrubbed bits of crusted flour out from underneath my fingernails and cleaned up my area so that everything was organized and ready for the next step. After the dough had risen, I punched it down, expelling any gas, and worked with lightly floured hands to make one long batard, or roughly football-shaped loaf. The most difficult part of this process was making sure all the seams were pinched tightly on the bottom so that the loaf didn’t unroll or explode in the oven, which had happened when a few students took this practical earlier in the week. Using a paring knife, I gently scored three parallel, diagonal slashes down the length of the dough to allow steam to escape from the bread while it baked. Finally, I dusted a sheet pan with cornmeal, laid my sticky batard on top, and carried the tray to the proof box to rise for another hour.
When my timer went off, I anxiously opened the door of the proof box. But instead of the large, puffy mound of dough that I expected to find, my dough resembled a beat-up old couch, deflated and lumpy. I gasped out loud. What went wrong? What did I do? I had weighed out my ingredients perfectly and had checked my scale numerous times for accuracy. My water temperature had been exactly one hundred degrees, and I had made sure to grab the new, fresh yeast from the cooler. I had done everything right. This wasn’t supposed to happen, especially on the night of a practical! I carried the lump of dough back to my station and wordlessly plopped it down on the floured tabletop. Unable to give any guidance, Jake just looked at it with an expression of shock. I sighed and shrugged my shoulders, feeling like I might cry but not wanting to embarrass myself. Instead, I considered my options. I could show it to Chef now and be done with it, or I could start over. One quick glance at the clock told me I didn’t have enough time to start over; finished products were due in to Chef in an hour. I looked back and forth from my dead dough to Chef Hill’s gorgeous blue eyes and felt overcome with nausea. I had no choice but to swallow my pride and bake my flat loaf, hoping that five hundred degrees and steam could work some kind of miracle.
As I loaded the blob of dough into the oven, other studen
ts gave me sympathetic looks. We all knew that practicals were a huge chunk of our grade. Twenty minutes later, not much had changed—my batard was nothing but a very ugly, flat piece of bread, a bit burned around the edges and certainly not hollow inside like it should have been. I carried it up to the front.
“Weber, this yours?” Chef Hill waved his hand at my monstrosity.
I felt pinpricks in the back of my throat and anxiously wiped my palms on my checkered pants. “Yes, Chef,” I said.
Chef made a clicking sound and thumped the bottom of the loaf with his fingers.
“I’m just not quite sure what happened. . . . I scaled everything right; I know I did!” I was trying not to cry as the rest of the class circled around to see an example of what French bread should not look like.
Chef looked up. “It’s dead, Weber. Dead yeast. Your yeast must have gotten in contact with the salt and that killed it. Remember my lecturing about that on the first night of class? I said be careful, under no circumstances should your yeast touch your salt!”
“Yeah, that’s right,” I mumbled. “I don’t know how it happened.”
“It’s fine, Weber. Happens to the best of us. Now, taste it.” He broke off a tough piece and pointed it at me.
I looked up at him in horror with no other option than to accept the flat bread and put it in my mouth. Immediately, my mouth began to salivate as all I could taste was pure salt. It tasted like a salt lick, the kind you’d give to a horse, but worse. I chewed and swallowed. My tongue was raw, and the bite of bread sat in my stomach like the rock it was.
“That’ll teach you a lesson, Miss Weber. Never, ever let your salt touch your yeast,” Chef Hill said before jotting down a large, red C in his grade book.
Whole-Wheat Pizza Dough
Makes enough dough for two medium (10-inch) pizzas
This never-fail pizza dough produces the most amazingly chewy crust. Since the recipe makes enough dough for two pies, you can either have a party or freeze half in a plastic bag for the next time.
1 packet (¼ oz) dry yeast
1⅓ cups warm water
2 cups all-purpose flour
1½ cups whole-wheat flour
1½ teaspoons sea salt
1 tablespoon olive oil, plus additional for rubbing dough
In the bowl of a stand mixer, combine yeast and warm water and let mixture sit for 5 minutes for the yeast to dissolve completely.
In a small bowl, mix together flours and salt. Turn stand mixer to medium-high speed and add flour mixture slowly to yeast.* Drizzle in olive oil. Mix for 5 minutes, until the dough is soft and elastic.
Remove dough from mixer bowl, rub dough with more olive oil, and return it to the bowl. Cover with a dish towel and place in a warm spot to rise for one hour.
After dough has doubled in size, cut it in half to make dough for two large pizzas. I like to freeze one large ball of dough for a later use.
When you are ready to make your pizza, roll out the dough, cover with toppings of your choice, and bake at 425°F for 10–15 minutes.
* The salt in the yeast is fine here because the yeast you are using isn’t fresh and the salt isn’t coming into direct contact with it.
NOTE: My favorite pizza toppings are simply fresh goat cheese, sliced tomatoes, and mushrooms. Cover your pizza with the cheese of your choice and the toppings you like best. You could also add a pinch of red pepper flakes for a spicy kick. In my opinion, the more goat cheese the better.
12
WRITTEN IN CHOCOLATE
IT WAS SEVEN O’CLOCK ON MONDAY MORNING, AND I WAS hunched over my kitchen table gripping a parchment pastry bag with both hands, trying desperately to keep myself steady as I drizzled chocolate cursive letters on wax paper. A steaming cup of Earl Grey tea sat next to me, along with a now-empty bowl of oatmeal. I had chocolate smeared on my forearm and below one eye, the result of having attempted to push a strand of hair behind my ear a moment before. I’d awakened early that morning to practice my chocolate writing, since I would be at work all day and needed to get this down before class tonight.
I also enjoyed working early in the morning, when everything was calm and quiet. My favorite time to read, write, and cook was just as the sun was coming up, and I always felt that if I worked hard in the morning, I could relax at night. Now, however, that wasn’t the case, since I usually didn’t get out of school until midnight most nights. Classes were supposed to end at 11:30, but we rarely ended on time; there was always that last dish to be washed or bag of garbage to be taken out.
I had spent the previous weekend at home with Rob and my parents. I had a wonderful time, but I felt a strange sense of relief upon returning to my empty apartment, school, and work. On Saturday night, Rob and I had gone to a friend’s engagement party, which ended with the same tension that had recently been plaguing our relationship. All of Rob’s friends were older than I was and in very different life stages. They were all great people, and I knew it was important to Rob for me to be friends with his friends’ wives, but I never felt like I quite fit in with them. I was the quiet one, the conservative one who would rather stay home and read a book than go out and get drunk at a bar downtown. For the most part, Rob respected my introverted ways, but he still didn’t believe I was trying my best to connect with his friends. If he only knew, I thought. On Saturday night, I had overheard three of his friends’ wives drunkenly discussing how uptight I was and how I never “let loose.” My face grew bright red and I felt like I wanted to cry, but all I could do was stay where I was and listen to them size me up. Afterward, not wanting a confrontation, I quickly walked past them as if I hadn’t heard a word and found Rob, who was laughing and drinking with a few of his friends from college. We left soon after, and I never told him what I had heard.
My brother was another growing source of stress for me and my family. He had just turned eighteen and seemed to consider himself invincible. The day before I headed back to Orlando, Mom pulled me aside and told me in a worried tone that she had found a few beer bottles hidden in his car. I had feared that he was getting into trouble, and this helped confirm my suspicions, but I knew that my talking to him wouldn’t solve anything. To him, I was just the overly anxious big sister. Still, I couldn’t help wondering if there was something I could do to help him get back on the right path.
Now, as I sat sipping my tea and practicing my chocolate writing, I let all of that go and just tried to focus at the task at hand. In that moment, I felt confident that John would turn out fine and that Rob would accept the fact that I sometimes would rather spend time alone than with him and his friends. I glanced back up at the clock and saw that it was already almost 8:00 a.m. I squeezed the rest of the still-warm chocolate into a little bowl and balled up my wax paper to throw away. I didn’t enjoy my new class, Introduction to Pastries, as much as I had liked Bread 101; the pastry class required a sense of patience and decorating talent that I seemed to lack, no matter how hard I tried. I was much better at the messy jobs, the sticky dough and puffy croissants, than I was at rolling fondant, a puttylike icing used to decorate elaborate cakes and petits fours, but I was trying.
That night in school, we were making Opera Tortes, a very traditional French petit four made up of thin layers of delicate almond sponge cake that had been soaked in coffee liqueur, sandwiched together with coffee buttercream, and topped with a shiny chocolate glaze. The end result was ridiculously rich and delicious, but it took a steady hand to cut the sponge cake evenly. An uneven cut would result in a lopsided torte, which was unacceptable to Chef.
I brought a small stand mixer over to my station and cracked three eggs into the mixing bowl to start the French buttercream, which is essentially beaten eggs mixed with boiling sugar syrup and butter. (Personally, I prefer Italian buttercream, which uses only the egg whites, creating a lighter, airier frosting.) Once my eggs were thick, pale, and ribbonlike, I slowly streamed in my boiling syrup. Pouring too quickly would scramble the eggs, an issue I had already
dealt with on my first attempt at making this frosting at home. When all the syrup was added, I cranked the mixer on high and let it go for a good eight minutes while I prepared the rest of my ingredients: two pounds of soft butter, and pure coffee extract, which smelled nothing like Starbucks. My favorite part of making both French and Italian buttercream was the moment after I’d added the butter, soft chunk by soft chunk, when the frosting looked like it was ruined, with tiny chunks of butter floating in a creamy sea. But then, almost like magic, it would come back together and billow up high around the sides of the bowl. It seemed like a good metaphor for life: just when you think that it couldn’t get any worse, suddenly things start to look up.
I added two teaspoons of the dark, strong coffee extract to my frosting and stirred. I wondered what all my friends from college were doing right now, on a late Monday night in March. After we’d all graduated, a few friends had gone straight into graduate schools at prestigious Southern universities like Johns Hopkins, UNC Chapel Hill, or University of Virginia. I had lost touch with most of them, since my schedule was not really conducive to spending hours on Facebook or Google Chat. Still, I wouldn’t trade staying up late to make frosting for anything, even if it meant losing touch with a few friends.
I felt my cell phone vibrate in my pocket, signaling it was time to check on my almond sponge cakes in the oven. I slid out my sheet tray and peeked in the middle. My cake was perfectly golden and pulling away from the edges of the pan. I breathed a sigh of relief. It wasn’t a practical night, but we were preparing pastries for the school’s open house tomorrow, when all the parents from the area would come in and see firsthand what their children were up to. We worked in groups again, and I was teamed up with a pair of Spanish-speaking twin sisters two years younger than I was. Most of the time I had no idea what they were saying, but they were hard workers and concerned with their grades. Both Jake and Samantha were in my class, too, but were assigned different groups on the opposite end of the kitchen.
