The recipe called for 7g of salt.... I measured out 70g because I was an idiot. I had thought the measuring scale was measuring things to the first decimal point, so I thought when it showed 70g, it was 7.0g. And the problem with me watching myself pour the copious amount of salt into the dry ingredient mixture was that in my mind, I kept thinking it was sugar, and that it was normal to have that much "sugar" in a bread dough.... the recipe didn't call for any sugar at all.
The chef was actually really upset when he tasted the demo batch he made to demonstrate to us the techniques, and he made everyone taste my mistake, he was angry about it but he was also nice enough to not single me out, instead he told everyone later that since it's paid for by the school, he didn't really care about the wasted ingredients, just the time wasted.
Needless to say I felt really bad about it... and it didn't help that I was the sous chef of the day.
Anyways, deviating from the topic of my stupidity and sense of guilt.... My Challah Bread. The one that's in focused.
In order to differentiate my bread from the others, I didn't really do anything on purpose because my bread's braids decided to proof off into the other direction, explaining the deformity. Apparently I hadn't sealed the ends quite tightly and properly enough. Still tasted awesome though.... I think, the chef allowed us to smuggle some home and the bread I took home was really good, so I assume the quality of the entire batch should be the same.
Just yesterday, we had a change of chef instructor and we made Sable Viennois, it's French so my pronunciation of it is the butchered version. "Sar-Bah Hwa-Nuah" is how I pronounce it in my head because I have no idea which letters are silent and which letters are not.
This lesson was more fun because there was pipping involved. Mine are the ones at the top right hand corner, first 4 rows.
The pipping of a hundred macarons didn't help me with this lesson though because this one is a rosette swirl. That being said, I think I did a pretty good job after a while, they came out looking decent enough. Good enough to be presented at a shop counter, but not good enough for people to actually buy.
The school served this for lunch as dessert so many times that after making them, I didn't really feel like eating them. Not to say I won't be making this at home one day, I bought a bottle of Nielsen Massey Vanilla essence from Phoon Huat, it would be a good excuse to use it.
One bottle of this cost $8.
I needed a bottle of vanilla essence anyways since the ones I am making by myself aren't gonna be ready until 3 months later. Hopefully it will taste good, then again my taste-buds are exactly the sharpest around, I mean I can't even tell why Valrhona is better than Hershey, I'm only buying Valrhona because I'm a brand whore.... my school's chocolate is sponsored by Valrhona, that's very impressive in my opinion... and why do I think that?... because I am a brand whore.
I also got a bottle of rose water from Nielsen Massey whilst at Phoon Huat today because I didn't want to walk out the shop empty handed.... or at least not with only a small bottle of vanilla essence in a plastic bag that's obviously too big for it.
A few things happened the past few days....
I found out my NS ez-link card expired, right as I was boarding the bus on the way to school. That wasn't fun, especially on a crowded bus with limited free seats, I was like the first to board, but ended being the last to get my choice seat, had to be sandwiched between this JC kid and another buffed up guy who was taking up more seats than one person should, well his biceps were taking up too much space. I am the bacon center ,the JC kid is the white bread and the muscled guy is the other white bread that was sliced too thick.
Another thing I realised this past few weeks while boarding the bus is that Bangladeshis really like hoarding up the front of the bus... something about them and bus entrances, they never move to the end of the bus, even when there's a crowed about to board... even during peak hour. This didn't just happened to me once but on multiple occasions.
I always end up have to push my way past their bag packs to get to the other side, sufficient space to probably fit like 3 or 4 more people, or 5 if you are really that comfortable with people getting all up in your face and breathing down your neck.
It's also quite funny that I saw this advertisement being displayed in some buses.
I wonder who the 4% are.
And...
A random kid on a train offered me food, well I think it's food, he reached out a brown doggy bag in my direction and asked me if I wanted it, I don't really know what's wrong with him because I know it's definitely not out of kindness, I know I have horrible fashion taste, but I am pretty certain I am not pulling off a begger chic fashion style.
I think the kid's screw is a bit loose because before his food offering to me, he was going around the train hanging door hanger advertisements on the train handles, and then walking back and forth the train.
