Before we get into class though, some fun at home. The previous night at the end of class, the chef showed us two sourdough starters that he had made at the end of the previous quarter. One was a normal organic sourdough starter (more on that in a sec) and the other was pretty interesting. It was made from the left over yeast used to brew beer from a class called "Exploring Wines in Culinary Arts" which he fed with half AP flour and half rye flour, as opposed to all AP. Interesting because I thought I read that beer yeast won't give rise /shrug. I'm sure he knows a lot better than me.
Sourdough starters can be made from a number of various ways, so long as there's yeast, moisture, and food for the yeast. You can start it with some active dry yeast, with orange or apple peels, a bit of grape juice, or even exposing flour and water to open air, allowing yeast particles in the air to land in it. The method taught to us by the chef was using organic grapes. Grapes get a little white powder on their skin, which is yeast, and if they're organic, that means there's no pesticides or herbicides. So I gots me some organic grapes and made my own starter. Yummy.Now onto class. More quick breads.
Morning Glory muffins. I had never even heard of these until I worked at Firehook. Apparently most people never have. Like mini carrot cakes. There's carrot, apple, nuts, coconut, and more. Sounds like it'd taste really bad but they're surprisingly good, and ours came out well. Could have risen a little better though.
Next up were cream scones, with raisins and sultanas. Although we sold scones at Starbucks, I had never tasted one till I worked at Firehook. I liked them. Pretty much like biscuits, only with some kinda mix-in, a little sweeter. We cut ours a little too small I think, they were a bit dry, but overall pretty decent.We made one more item, sour cream muffins with streusel topping. Unfortunately we were pressed for time at the end and we didn't have enough time to let them cool properly and they pretty much fell apart when we took them out of the pan. And since I didn't consider taking a picture of them in the pan, I didn't really have a product to photograph. However, I think I enjoyed them more this way than I would have whole. The chef gave a recommendation of eating it like cereal, ya know, broken up with milk. And I must say it was delicious. I verily may replace my normal cereal with that, it was awesome. I haven't baked them at home yet but when I do I may forgo the streusel topping-it's pretty much butter and granulated and brown sugar and cinnamon. Tastes really good but I'm a health nut so I don't think that'll fly with me. I'll try making them with just a bit of cinnamon and brown sugar and see how it compares.
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