After a fun-filled and restful winter break, I'm finally back in the classroom and the kitchen. Even though this is going to be a long stretch (35-40 hours a week of class for the next 6.5 months straight), I'm really looking forward to the rest of this semester.
We got off to a running start today during our first post-break Baking Ingredients and Equipment Technology class. Chef Isaac lectured for about an hour on the properties of sugar/sweeteners and the most common varieties found in the bakery, and then we followed him into the kitchen for a sugar tasting. This was one of the coolest things we've done in class so far. Chef brought out a sample of all the different sugars we have in stock at the CIA, and we all got to smell and taste them. I had NO IDEA how many different types of sugar there are. There were all the familiar ones like granulated white sugar and powdered sugar and light and dark brown sugars, but then there were also these varieties:
pearl sugar
doughnut sugar
powdered glucose
muscovado sugar
turbinado sugar
dark cane sugar
demerara cubes
date sugar
powdered maple sugar
sucanat
tamarind
piloncillo
jaggery
Who knew there were that many types? And they all tasted different too, which was the coolest part. The best ones were Indian Jaggery (smelled earthy and musky, tasted bittersweet), Organic Dark Sucanat (an unrefined dark sugar that smelled like incense and tasted like pure molasses), and tamarind (a gummy, sticky brown block of fruit pulp that tasted like sour candy).
Days like this make me feel so lucky to be here.
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