You say bread....I say straight improved baguette with autolyse

OK, so I've finally made it to SanFran and had three days of class. I may not be able to walk the walk yet but I can certainly talk the talk! Up until last week, bread was pretty much bread - white, wholegrain or multigrain at a pinch. Now we're talking straight mix / improved mix / intensive mix, tight crumb / open crumb, preferment / biga / poolish, classic cut / chevron cut / sausage cut and baguette / batard / boule!!! Thank goodness exams aren't until week 8 because I'm completely and utterly confused.

A few pictures to prove I've actually made it....

Mac, our lovely teacher who has taken to just sighing when he sees my efforts come out of the oven. And those aren't sighs of admiration! Mac is pictured here with one of the giant mixers we use to knead our 35kg batches of dough. Boy do I want one of these in my home kitchen.

My week one baking buddies - Julie from LA, Thiago from Sao Paolo and Jonathon from Denver. We are a multicultural class with others from Sydney, Taiwan, England, Germany, Switzerland and various states of the US.

Week 1 has been all about baguette baking. Day 1 we made 5 each, day 2 we made 10 each, day 3 we made 15 each.....starting to see a pattern here? 20 tomorrow perhaps?

Check out the ultra-professional holes in these baguettes I made.  As Mac says, plenty of room to hide mayonnaise in these.

Late today, progress with a few more shapes, namely boules and batards - pictured here the pre baking views and the money shot post baking.

Lastly, a view from the huge hill I climb every morning to make it to class. This justifies me doing a double taste test of morning tea. Today was strawberry sponge. Happy to walk back down the hill and back up to justify a third slice!

In sum, having a ball. Bring on day 4!