fandomhigh | Baking: Sweet and Savory

Current Location: Danger Shop

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baking

Baking: Sweet and Savory | Monday, 3rd period

Class met in the Danger Shop this week, and at the front of it were a masonry oven, a cooking pit, a rather fancy grill, and a stainless steel oven. The whole room smelled like baking flour and sugar.

"Welcome again," Hannibal said with a smile. "As I mentioned last week, the simplest definition of baking is cooking things by means of dry heat. So, no water or broth or oil is used to cook things in. There are any number of ways to bake things, most of which have changed little or not at all for centuries. In some cases, for millennia."

He turned to the ovens. "Some use wood or coal, some use stones, some simply use fire - either burning things or simply a gas flame. And modern ovens may also use heated metal elements. The point is to heat the air around your food, and the container the food is in. These two things combined cook the food."

He gestured the students closer. "Masonry ovens have been used since at least the middle ages. These days, they're mostly used for things like artisanal breads and," he gave them a sardonic look, "pizza. They may be constructed of clay, brick, or stone. The fire - wood or coal - heats the structure, and heat from the structure cooks the food. They can take quite a bit of fuel to sustain, and as you can feel -" he put a hand close to the thing "- they heat up quite a bit around them, too.

"A cooking pit or earth oven contains that outward heat by burying the structure in dirt or sand. If you recall any chemistry, fire can't exist without oxygen, so generally these involve heating stones or coals that will keep heat for some time, then smothering them. Less heat is lost to the air, but as you can see, it's a bit more difficult to open the door and see how your food is doing."

He led them to the next one. "Most of you have probably used one of these at some point. A grill is generally more similar to a stove than an oven, but you can use them for baking, too. And of course, the modern oven most of us know some variation of. Fire in a box," he said, amused. "The details change, but the nature doesn't."

He adjusted the Shop's controls and the first three ovens disappeared, leaving just the modern one. "We may touch on the others later, but for now we'll be working with modern gas ovens. Some may be more complex, but in general they have two dials - one for where the heat comes from, and one for how much heat there is." He finished explaining the intricacies of ovens.

"Yeast breads would be a good introduction, since they use a number of techniques you can apply to other things. Unfortunately, unless you all wish to stay here for several hours watching your dough rise, we will have to skip that for now. Instead, we will be making a quick bread. Quick breads do not use yeast to rise, and tend to be denser as a result. The most common one in the US today is probably banana bread." You wouldn't be making that.

"We will be making an apple pomegranate spice bread. You each have your own station, so if you head to those, we can begin; I'll explain as we go."

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Hot!

Emma Swan

Sparkle

Kathy Li

Cosette Fauchelevent

Kira Yukimura

All about ovens!

Hannibal will be making his at the same time and walking you through the steps, plus giving any help you need.

Sparkle~~'s player can only get like two sites to load from work today and that recipe apparently isn't one of them~~ was pretty happy to get to work today, measuring ingredients, prepping stuff... Some of it was actually kind of familiar from other food-making ventures from Hannibal classes past, and some was pretty new, but it was all kind of weirdly zen.

He was cool with that.

Hannibal smiled and nodded as he wandered by. "How are your classes so far this semester?"

"No complaints yet," Sparkle replied, grinning up at Hannibal from where he was working, his fingers stained pink with pomegranate juice. "I introduced myself a lot. It was, like, really hard work."

Totally.

"It's this class, and Atton's self-defense, and then I'm taking this independent study thing where I get to pick my own topic, and this thing about cities with Professor Wayne, so it actually all sounds kind of promising."

"And potentially quite useful." Hannibal nodded. "I heard about your independent study class on the radio; you were planning on a musical?"

"I think so, yeah." Sparkle pursed his lips a little. "Like, it's a big freaking undertaking considering my instrument of choice is the tin whistle, but... like, I could find someone who plays piano or something and do a one-man show, or... hold auditions? God, I'd have to rent that theatre space or something if I had an actual cast, though. And like I know how to direct something."

"I play piano," Hannibal pointed out. "And I'm certain Mr. Starsmore would be delighted to let you use The Boards. He or Dracula might even be able to help with directing."

"You... think so? I mean, I guess I could try. I mean, if I can get the space for rehearsals and stuff, there's not really a reason why I can't pick a slightly bigger show?" Sparkle tilted his head, mulling that one over. "I was gonna, just, like, do a presentation on current events on Broadway, but Jones talked me into something bigger."

Twisted his rubber arm, really.

"It's entirely up to you, but we've certainly got the resources," Hannibal answered. "Why not try something big if you can?"

So help him, Sparkle couldn't argue with that logic.

"Go big or go home, huh? If I can get use of a real stage for the show and rehearsal time, and bring somebody on to be, like, musical director or something, I'll do a bigger show. If I can't... I dunno. I'm not above studying for a one-man show to be done on the front lawn of the school. Like. I'm not too proud for that."

"That would also take quite a bit of skill and planning. You should do whichever you prefer," Hannibal said with a shrug.

"Lots of skill, lots of planning, but I'm good at memorizing songs and choreography, and it means I wouldn't have to spend the whole semester herding cats, you know?" Sparkle shrugged his shoulders. "I'm up for either, but one takes a lot more resources than the other, you know? And if I can't cast it, I'm still fu -- screwed."

Hannibal smiled a little at Sparkle's aborted profanity. "Maybe Ms Jones can help you decide which would be a better fit."

"Yeah, maybe... I mean, the rest of the semester? That's more than enough time. Next few weeks can be, like, dramaturge duty, and figuring out what my resources are. Maybe I'll... pick something small and something big, just so I have my options there for me if something falls through?"

Sparkle was trying to be proactive, for a change. So far, he actually kind of wasn't sucking at it.

He wasn't!

"It's always good to have a backup," Hannibal told him approvingly. "You'll do fine."

"And if it's a disaster," Sparkle mused, pursing his lips for a moment before breaking into a crooked grin, "at least it'll be a glorious one."

If he was going to somehow screw this up, he was going to have pyrotechnics on standby or something, just so he could screw it up properly.

Hannibal laughed. "Never do anything by halves."

Before starting anything, Kathy read through the instructions to get an idea of the whole process. And then raised her hand. "Excuse me, Dr. Lecter? It says that in this recipe, sugar counts as a dry ingredient. It...doesn't usually?"

"It does sometimes," Hannibal answered. "A very good question; the answer has to do with chemistry." He smiled. "Gluten is a protein that helps bind starches together. It makes dough more elastic and chewy. Too much, and your bread will be too dense; too little, and it falls apart."

He came over to Kathy's station to demonstrate with her ingredients. "A number of factors can influence the amount of gluten that develops in dough. One of them is water - the more liquid, the more gluten. Sugar, however, ties up water and prevents it forming gluten. So, if you want a less glutinous bread, add the sugar to the wet ingredients before you add the dry. If you want a bit more gluten to form, add sugar to the dry."

He chuckled. "More than you wanted to know?"

"No, actually, I thought that was pretty cool." It was hard to nerd so much at Kathy she lost interest. "So this bread is gonna be chewier rather than...crumbly, I guess?"

"Quick breads don't use yeast to rise, and they tend to need a bit more structure, so the extra gluten will help keep it from falling apart."

You've got your own loaves and Hannibal's, and he encourages you all to try all of them!

To go with them, he's made roast duck with spicy Christmas rub and marsala gravy (http://www.jamieoliver.com/recipes/duck-recipes/roast-duck-with-spicy-christmas-rub-and-marsala-gravy/) and roasted vegetables (http://www.jamieoliver.com/recipes/vegetables-recipes/roasted-vegetables/), plus tea and coffee.

Yeah, like Kathy was going to pass up second breakfast! Or...brunch, maybe? Not that duck and roasted veggies were breakfast foods anyway.

Oh man. Now she knew why Dr. Lecter's classes were always so popular. Mmm, maybe she could ask for seconds?

Early lunch! And there were always seconds available.

Before or after class, he's here.

Can I go home and sleep under cats yet?

Once he pings in. *innocent whistling, this was totally here all along, LALALA*

Sparkle was totally here all along, too! It was just that now, he was a tiny bit more alert than he'd been before, like maybe he'd been having difficulty waking up before.

He was going to thank the coffee for this.

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Baking: Sweet and Savory | Monday, 3rd period

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