Whole Wheat Bread in Epi and Fougasse shapes

How was your Wednesday?? Mine was super fun. I had an awesome time in class today :)  We made more bread, and as I mentioned before, there's nothing like the smell of bread baking in the oven. :) :)  Here is the result of my day:

I'm sorry these pictures do not have more color. Bread isn't the brightest color in the box!  I will make up for it! 

We were supposed to make 100% Whole Wheat bread today but unfortunately the ingredients that were brought in were not the correct ones.  We made Italian Wheat bread instead. What is the difference? We used emulsified Wheat instead of 100% Whole Wheat. The result? Deliciousness melting in your mouth :)  I'm not too picky when it comes to bread. I like it hot, hot and hot with butter, butter and any kind of butter! :)  I have already been reprimanded by the Chef , he made it very clear that bread CAN NOT be cut warm. :( Boo... I am truly sorry chef, but for me, hot bread is bread that is going to be cut, smothered in butter and placed in my mouth. I know, detention for me! Bring it on!! :)  Just let me take the bread with me! Here is the recipe for you!

Ingredients for Italian Wheat Bread

1 lb and 1 oz of Water

1/4 oz of Instant Yeast

1 lb of Bread Flour

12 oz of Wheat Flour

1/2 oz of Salt

1/4 oz of honey

The recipe will make 4 creations of your choice.  :) We created two shapes today, Epi and Fougasse. Epi literally looks like the wheat stem and the Fougasse has the shape of a silver dollar or you can play around with the shapes to where it looks like a leaf with cut out veins? I dunno... just saying. ;)  To create the Epi, you roll it like you would a baguette, and then you take your scissors and cut it at a 45 degree angle as many times as you would like. I cut mine 8 times.  This is what it looks like cut up:

You then take and alternate the pieces, separating them from one side to the other. Once you do that, you will lay it on your sheet pan and let it ferment.  This is the shape going into the oven and the shape that will come out once your bread is done:

The Fougasse is rolled out in a round shape and then you slit the dough with your razor blade 5 or 7 times. ( or however many you would like to cut) This is where you can get creative. Yes, this is where I lack creativity ;).  I will stick with Classic cuts.  Here is what they look like before going into the oven after the slits are stretched out:

And here is what our "babies" looked like after we waited for them to come out of the oven! Man they made us wait a while. It was worth it though!  We didn't quite get the color the chef wanted, because he constantly asks us to get GOLDEN BROWN AND DELICIOUS... this is golden ... BEIGE but Delicious? Does that count? laughing.. it better!!

The Chef made some Honey Butter that I thoroughly enjoyed on my HOT Bread... .shhhh :) :) It was just soo good. He just whipped together butter and honey. I love honey. I love bread. Like I said, it was a GOOD day.

I hope you take a look at this and make it in your mixer! It's an easy bread to make and a fun one to play around with.  I would definitely create an oil and vinegar dip for this one as well.

I hope you learned a little something new, and if not, I will continue learning for you! Tomorrow we create  Country Style Bread. :)

Enjoy your amazing night. I am going to catch up on some reading and maybe even watch a little movie. I rented THE FIGHTER... not sure if anyone has seen it. A few people told me they enjoyed it so I'm going to check it out and relax the mind.  Too much in the brain creates unnecessary chaos!

We have our first practical Friday!! Surprisingly, I am not nervous, I just want to make sure my scoring and shaping are good.  He is alternating who does their practical this Friday because we have too many people in class. So some of us will have it this Friday and the rest will have it two Friday's from now since the following Friday is GOOD FRIDAY and we do not have class.  I hope I have mine this Friday!!

Goodnight and see you tomorrow!!

XO