Kitchen tales... and BREADS!!

OK, it does NOT help that the government has embarked on this 'register all workers' (legal and illegal) in this country. My question is - WHY do you have to REGISTER LEGAL WORKERS? I mean, the fact that they are LEGAL implies they are "ALREADY" registered? No? My mind is confused. But what this means is because of the HUGE number of workers in this country, the registration process has resulted in loads of employers losing hundreds and thousands of man hours, while their poor LEGAL workers sit in various immigration offices, sometimes till the wee hours of the morning, trying to get this extra paperwork completed... and, of course, this means that all work being done by these workers is HUGELY delayed. NOT fun, I assure you!

OK, enough moaning, let's get on with the story!

Where are we now? Let's see...

- All the tiles have been selected and delivered (kitchen and maids room floor, reinforced concrete internal surface, parents room extension, parents new bathroom)
- Wiring (and accompanying hacking for new wiring) has commenced. Wires are all in place. But no connections will be done till the tiling, painting, etc are done.
- Reinforced concrete surface with all internal tiling DONE
- Floor tiles in the kitchen DONE
- Kitchen double sink in place
- Roof tiles in kitchen and my parents room extension DONE
- Space for cooker properly tiled and ready

So, what's next for this week?

- measurements to be taken for the kitchen cabinets.
- wall plastering
- parents and maids room tiling, and hopefully parents new bathroom tiling as well
- Window frames and windows and (hopefully) security grilles
- the "pro-range' Elba cooker (with the HUMUNGOUS oven) will be delivered.

THEN - the final things:
- Close up the door from my parents room to the maids room - a new wall basically!
- all plumbing FITTINGS have to be put in
- wiring has to be completed
- New back door for kitchen to be put in.
- roofing, plaster ceiling, downlights, have to be done
- fitting aircon in kitchen (taking the unused aircon from my Dad's study upstairs :-p )
- all painting has to be done
- kitchen cabinet installation
- granite table top has to be installed

OK, we are getting slowly closer to the finish line, but it has definitely gone WAY above the original estimated time. I will be so happy when it is DONE!

And now for some pictures:

- This is the sink area. Double sink in place (each sink will have its own tap). Also the tiling on the inside of the reinforced concrete (RC) has been done. Ready to take measurements for cabinets now!

- And this is where the cooker is going to be placed. All the tiling is done.

- The long stretch of RC where there will be cabinets as well. Note the area to the left where there is no RC. A TALL cabinet will go there.

- And this is my soon-to-be baking area. No RC, as it will be cabinets with granite top all the way.

- And here I am looking to the back of the kitchen. You should be able to see the back door, the entrance to the maids room, and the little support pillar in the centre of the kitchen around which my granite island is going to be fitted.

- Here I am looking into the new room for a (future) maid, straight through to my parents room. That door between the two rooms will eventually be walled up.

- And here is my parents room. Still a HUGE mess, but, right now, the priority is on getting the kitchen completed!

With any luck, the kitchen should be done within the next two weeks (not talking about the rest!!, just the kitchen). Hopefully it will get done in time for me to make a cake for my nephews birthday! Fingers crossed :-).

OK, having got that out of the way let me tell you what's been happening with actual baking since my last update. First of all, the last week of July (25th to 29th July) we had our assessment week, marking the end of 6 months of the course. In other words we completed the intermediate level. I'm afraid I forgot to take pictures of the items we had to make for Monday and Tuesday of that week - basically we had to make Mille Feuille (with mousseline filling and floral decorations), Moka Cake (with Happy Birthday written on it), 3 types of Danish Pastries (I did the pinwheel, the duchess, and the butterfly), Multi-grain baguette, and Brioche.

Then, from Wednesday to Friday, we had to make Hand-dipped chocolates (I made Chocolate Chilli Pralines), Guanaja (Choc Mousse cake) with decor, 2 types of cookies (I made diamond cookies and choc chip cookies), Linzer Torte, Japanese Cheesecake, and one plated dessert with 3 dessert components. I DID remember to take a picture of the presentation of all these, and here it is:

This week marks the start of the final 3-months of this course, the *ahem* 'advanced' stage :-). How far advanced I will be, especially compared to the amazingly talented youngsters doing this course, is yet to be determined :-D.

And what have we been doing this week? Well, feast your eyes ...

- a TWO-LAYERED croissant. There is a layer of chocolate soft-roll dough on the outside, with the croissant dough on the inside. Looks interesting, doesn't it?

- And here we have a TWO-LAYERED croissant, in reverse - the plain soft roll dough on the outside, and the chocolate croissant dough on the inside.

- Pistachio cream and nut rolls!

- Rye bread. Like the designs? Made by putting various pastry cutters on the top of the dough before baking, and sifting flour over it, then removing the pastry cutters.

- Brioche puffs with creme brulee filling. Looks a bit like egg tarts right? But it isn't!

- Brioche puffs with raspberry jam filling.

- Herbal bread. Very strong tasting, but nice with curry. Smelt a bit like French onion soup!

- OK, we tried a 3-layer croissant - croissant dough on the inside, then two layers of puff pastry dough - the green one is pistachio puff pastry dough, and the brown one is chocolate puff pastry dough. Did I mention that the puff pastry doughs were both INVERT puff? Which means that instead of having the dough on the outside with a sheet of butter folded into the centre of it (like normal puff pastry), INVERT puff has the butter on the OUTSIDE with a sheet of dough folded into the centre of it. Have I mentioned that butter MELTS? So can you imagine the fun of folding and rolling something that has BUTTER on the outside? Well, we did manage it, but it took a lot of TIME!

- And here's the 3-colour croissant baked. Not very successful, unfortunately, as the puff pastry requires much longer than croissant dough to bake, but if we baked it for that long a time, the croissant dough would burn! Must try this again, but maybe using 2 layers of soft roll dough of different colours/flavours, rather than puff pastry!

- CARROT CAKE! First time making it. YUMMY! But must try it with soft brown sugar next time, and maybe a touch of maple syrup???

- Kouign Aman. Sinfully yummy... one TON of sugar (well, that is not TOO much of an exaggeration!). Check it out on Google to find out more about what it is.

- Pain Aux Herbes. Very nice!

- Double Hydration Ciabatta - this has got more liquid in it than it has flour. Olive oil and water... resulting in a very LIQUID dough. This did not turn out quite right. I think because in the process of transferring this very liquid dough from the work surface to the baking tray it must have collapsed a bit. Still tasted quite nice though!

- Bread made from LEAVEN (a mix made of 60% milk and 40% flour, left to ferment over a period of a few days with constant addition of more milk and flour in the same proportions). Minimal yeast is required for this. And it tastes REALLY nice!

Well folks, that's it for now. Till next time, have a good day, every day!