Paddo Public's excursion to Brasserie Bread, as part of the 2009 Week of Tastes program

1. Brasserie Bread An Awesome Excursion Paddington Public 4S November, 2009

2. On our arrival, we sat in the 2 groups that were pre-organised. One group went on a tour of the bakery while the other was making bread and mini pizzas. Ruby H

3. This is the baker. His name is Matt… …and this is Mae, our tour guide. Lizzie

4. When we went on the tour, we had to wear hair nets. This is so that none of our hair would fall into any of the dough or other ingredients. (We thought they made great shower caps!) Ruby B

5. They don’t just bake bread…they create delicious desserts too!! Georgia

6. This is piping. The mixture is spooned into a baking bag then squeezed onto the baking tray. This lady is preparing the mixture to make eclairs…

7. …and here they are!! (It was hard not to reach out and have a taste!) Tom E

8. This is the cool room. The dough is put in here so that the yeast can “sleep” until they are ready to bake it. If it wasn’t put in here, the yeast would become “active” and the dough would rise before it was ready to use. Lotte

9. ARGH! . . ARGH! ARGH! . . . Aghhhhhhhhhh !!!!! And this is inside the cool room! When we were in there, one of the men shut the door on us and the lights went out!!! Greta

10. Wow! Look at this big machine! This mixes the dough because it’s too hard to mix this amount by hand. There’s a big corkscrew in the centre that mixes the dough…and kneads it. Elena

11. This baker has prepared a rack full of sourdough loaves ready to put into the oven. Hanna

12. This is an artisan baker. An artisan baker is one who has trained for 4 years and he does everything manually. He is not just any ordinary baker…he is a professional. Jack

13. These are the baked sourdough loaves straight out of the enormous oven. The aroma was…exquisite! Cameron

14. We finished the interesting tour of the bakery. Here we are … skipping merrily back to the dock because we could see and smell our bread and pizzas. Yummo! Samantha

15. In the Artisan Baking School

16. Matt, the baker, spread flour across the table to help make the dough less sticky when we were kneading and rolling it. Bijou

17. We were standing around the table and Matt threw a ball of dough to each of us. I caught mine…good catch! Tamara

18. Look at the face on Jeremy! He is concentrating on catching the ball of dough! Ray

19. This is the dough that Matt gave us. He showed us how to flatten it out. I flipped mine into the air like Matt when he threw it to me. Jonty

20. We had to roll the dough into 3 even coils getting ready to make plaits. Buster

21. This was approximately the length of the strand that we used to make plaits. Tom S

22. This is how we plaited the bread…the girls found it easier because they plait each other’s hair. Madison

23. This is me on the left finishing my bread plait and Ray is doing a pretty good job with his! Grace

24. These are the bread plaits we made ready to go into the oven! They look good, don’t they?! Deon

25. Now for the PIZZAS!

26. These are the rolls of dough we used for the pizzas. These are the toppings for the pizza - tomato paste, cheese, olives and capsicum. Bernardo

27. When we were making the pizzas, I just wanted to pick one up and eat it right there and then! Jeremy

28. When I was making my pizza, I put the cheese on first, then the sauce and then more cheese!!! Daniel

29. Everyone was given a show bag to put their mini pizzas and bread plaits in…they also gave us 2 rectangular sourdough rolls and a Brasserie Bread menu with extra information. Sarah

30. Look at our baked bread plaits! Matt handed us the ones that we made…they were numbered so that we knew which one was which. Mine was D2. Max

31. Our bread looked just as scrumptious and professional as the café’s out front!!!

32. These are our fabulous pizzas! We all knew which one was ours … … and the aroma!! They looked scrumptious too and we couldn’t wait to taste them!! Harry

33. We weren’t allowed to eat them inside so while we were waiting for the bus, we started chomping on our goodies. Yum! Harriet

34. We had the best time!