New shift time – 4:30am

I am finally getting a taste of what it feels like to be a boulanger. With one month left, I was worried that I wouldn’t get to learn enough bread especially with all the sandwiches I have been making, filling in for our usual “traiteur” guys who is on vacation along with everyone else. It was very quiet in the store yesterday and today. Apparently everyone is on vacation in the south of France and Spain or in Brittany in the month of August.  They also mentioned Ramadhan having to do with the quietness which is surprising because I didn’t know the muslim population was so significant in Lyon. Anyways, I asked the manager, who is also the head baker, if I could come in earlier to do more bread and he said, “Sure. Come in at 4:30am tomorrow so you can start with me.”

So in I went at 4:30am today. Getting up was especially tough and I was started to kick myself for having asked to go in so early. It was weird going to bed last night when the sun was still up. When I arrived, Yohann, an experienced apprentice who had arrived at 3am, had already baked all these different breads prepared the day before.

First batch of breads for the day

Closer up. The paler bread is ciabatta. We make 3 different types - plain, with olives and with herbs of provence (my breakfast today).

Why did Yohann have to come in so early to bake? So that when the first sales lady comes in at 5am, she can start setting up for the store preparing for the  opening at 6am. Usually there are one or two people waiting outside for the store to open.

Our bread display being set up in the store

When I first arrived, I was told they were having a problem with the flour dispenser. We have this machine where we enter the amount of flour we want and it magically dispenses that particular amount of flour. It saves space in the kitchen and there is no need to measure out the flour. Thankfully our manager/head baker figured out that a switch was flipped on the side (maybe from when the new apprentice was cleaning) so it was a simple fix. Sweet, but I wonder if there is a backup for when it really malfunctions. Flour is at the heart of a boulangerie – no flour, no boulangerie. I suppose water is essential too.

Flour dispensing machine

Once the flour machine was fixed, the head baker and I got started on scaling the ingredients for all the breads for the next day. He has all the measurements in his head. We basically have a few base doughs, into which we later add different ingredients for different breads. There is the regular baguette dough, the whole wheat dough, the malted dough, the ciabatta dough, and the viennoiserie dough.  The name viennoiserie dough was confusing for me at first because it is not the same dough we use for croissants even though croissants are a type of viennoiserie.

Simultaneously, we knead the dough in this big kneading machine below and a also slightly smaller one that I don’t have a picture of.

Our Petrir or Kneading machine

Once the dough is ready (when it looks smooth), we transfer them into plastic cases and let it rest for about 30 mins. Care must be taken to not under-knead or over-knead the dough. If we under-knead, the bread will be small and dense. If we over-knead, it will rise too much and have less taste. It was a hot day so the resting dough was rising pretty fast. Thus, we (actually, I) had to start dividing pretty quick.

Place and spread out the dough in the divider dusting with lots of flour to prevent sticking

Close the lid, work a lever and Voila! It divides it up into even pieces

We give the pieces in the picture above a bit of a shaping and place them in this machine. We let it sit here for a bit.

And it pops out here slightly elongated. This particular one is the fatter baguette (Flute)

For the Flutes, we don’t have to do too much shaping. Just place the pieces on a bread couche (on top of a grill) dusted with a bit of flour and into the cold room. The next morning the dough would have risen and be ready for baking.

Next morning - Flutes ready to be scored and baked

Scoring the "Flutes" before rolling it in the oven

That’s our basic process in a nutshell. There are slight variations according to the different type of bread which I will try to get photos of in the coming days. For now I need to get ready for bed so that I can be ready for another 4:30am shift tomorrow.