A Dollop of This and That: Bready day

Hello hello! Today was my first day working at Great Harvest Bakery in Upper Arlington. Cooking at Four Seasons is my primary focus but I also wanted to get some experience in baking bread and sweets and that’s why I’m also going to Great Harvest. Originally I was going to go there at 5 am but after hearing that the owner doesn’t head there till 8am, I opt for 8am.

Breakfast was Greek yogurt with crushed Nature Valley’s granola bar and some microwave-thawed blueberries. I really love that slightly tangy taste so the sweetness from the blueberries and granola bars were not too overpowering and there’s nothing like the thick creaminess.

Yah, so once again, GSP was not reliable. I obviously eventually found the bakery. Great Harvest makes Honey Whole Wheat, White, pepperoni Rolls and coffee cake and other sweets. At first I as tentative because everybody seemed to just have their head down kneading the dough and I wasn’t sure what I was going to do. But thank goodness, they opened up as I also got my hands dirty. I learned how to knead and roll rolls, big round loafs and long rectangular loafs. I was really impressed with their products and their service. Since they started at 5am making the sweets, I only saw the bread part. Anyhow, I worked with a bunch of different breads. The pumpernickel rye was sticky and had a earthy aroma. Cinnamon swirl had a full cup of cinnamon brown sugar rolled into it so when it’s baked the middle is just oozing with sweetness. The apricot almond was a chucky dough with big dried apricot chucks and whole almonds. The everything bread and the ten grain had toppings. And lastly, the pepperoni rolls had pesto, shredded cheese and pepperoni rolled in. Yum. I brushed the dough with water, scored it, decorated it, filled the loaf pans and filled an order.

It’s really cool that they still use an old measuring scale that uses weights to measure out the dough.

Twist your head!

I learned about the dough proof times, the exact temperature for each fickle bread and the gigantic oven as big as your wall.

I also made some sandwiches to fill the lunch orders. It’s a hit or miss and they take the chance of no one buying their sandwiches.

And they also had a tasting board with all their baked breads and sweets with butter, cinnamon butter and garlic cheese butter. It was so good! I tried almost every single one and left me stuffed.

After the glorious fun comes the dirty work. I wiped all these pans and more with this shortening (??? That’s gross). It was dirty work and by the end of it my gloves were sticking to my hands and sweat dripping from my face from the stuff hot room. Yes, I’d imagine that baking bread in the middle of the summer would not be pleasant.

I headed to Meijer for some grocery and supplies. I wanted to introduce you guys to some products. The tempeh is a popular alternative to meat and it’s basically a soy product. And the tofu noodles are also made of soy (I think) and they are used as an alternative to pasta and the entire package only as 40 calories!!!

Oh, and biscoff, the love of my life. It’s an intense spicy gingerbread snap. It is thick and sweet and a popular product from England.

See how I like to arrange my thinks on the conveyor belt? Fresh produce together, packaged products together then protein (meat and seafood) together and lastly the others of milk and eggs. It makes sorting the foods into plastic bags so much easier and the cold foods keep cold with each other.