Making Dough Abroad – Becoming a Baker

The streetlights were the only source of illumination as I walked to the backdoor of the bakery on Monday morning.  Commuters zoomed by on the streets, and parents were dropping off their kids at the local school.  It was 6 AM, and all the bread and rolls were already out of the ovens when I arrived.  The bakery that somehow agreed to take in “someone interested in learning more about bakeries” was also the only bakery left in this small town that made all of their bread onsite.  As capitalism usually plays out, the other bakeries had either closed their doors or succumbed to lowering costs by buying bread dough or completely baked bread from mass-produced factories; those other remaining bakeries have become a resale front shop.

Although the bakery is usually closed on Mondays (their weekends being Sunday and Monday), this was the week of Fasching, a carnival for Germany, Switzerland, and Austria corresponding with the week before Lent begins; Fasching ends with Fat Tuesday.  What I have learned is that the Germans love them some jelly doughnuts during this time.  The bakery was working on this Monday to output hundreds and hundreds of Pfannekuchen to meet demand.  While I was more of a hindrance than an asset, I was stationed to help out one of the proprietors in the filling and sugaring of the fried pastries.  This continued for the entire morning.  Around 11 AM, the dough ran out and cleanup began.

So, this bakery employs a baker (guy), a pastry chef (lady), and a couple other ladies who also studied baking at a technical school.  During the day, the baker told me that one of the helpers, who had a good handle of English, also spoke French.  Impressed, I asked her about this during cleanup.  She clarified that she didn’t know a word of French.  Confused, I replied that that’s what I was told.  She humphed and went back to the dishes.  A couple minutes later she said, “blow job.  You want a blow job.  GIVE YOU A BLOW JOB!”  I was speechless.  She then explained that “she knows French” is another way of saying that “she gives blow jobs”.  I think the clarification would have been a bit more appropriate than her shouting ‘blow job’.  She then continued with a generalization that the Germans think Americans are really prude because our movies very rarely show the full sex scenes.  After the discomfort I felt when she was yelling ‘blow job’, I may just agree with her assessment of American prudery.  And this concluded my very first day at the bakery.

Fortunately, my dedication shown on jelly doughnut day allowed me to come back throughout the week.  Unfortunately, my new start time was 4 AM.  On typical weekdays, baking begins at 2:30 AM, but they let me sleep in and come in “late”.  When I arrived, I was treated to watching the process of creating the hard rolls called Brötchen.  And then as local festivities continued, I spent most of the morning making more jelly doughnuts.  For a break in the morning, I rode along with for the 6:30 AM deliveries to the local businesses.  At 8 AM, most of the baking is done for the day.  After that on Tuesday, I was treated with learning how to make my favorite pastry: the Amerikaner.  On Wednesday, we made more traditional cakes that layer dough, fruit or nut pastes, and a crumbly finish.  I had Thursday and Friday ‘off’ due to other conflicts, but I was all set to participate in the marathon that is Saturday.

Germans love their hard rolls, but honestly who wants to get up early on the week day to get fresh rolls?  I was informed that the community makes up for this on Saturday mornings by flocking in droves for their rolls and breads.  To prepare for the onslaught, baking begins at midnight on Saturday morning.  While I was asked to come in around 2 AM after the dough had already risen and ready to be worked, I really wanted to see and experience how the dough was made from scratch; I joined them at midnight.  It was pretty amazing to watch as flour and additional water was (to the untrained eye) seemingly haphazardly added to make a dough with the exact consistency to produce delicious bread and rolls.  As it was early, I was advised to hold off on questions, but just observing showed me that most of what I did when making bread at home was wrong when compared to traditional German techniques – no butter, no milk, and no waiting for the dough to double in bulk.

At 2 AM, two additional helpers arrived with a third coming around 4 AM to make the jelly doughnuts (I was sadly happy seeing someone else burn their fingers with hot oil for a change).  The whole morning was like a very intricate dance to output loaves and loaves of bread and then an additional 5 or 6 different types of hard rolls – single, double, kid-sized, nut-covered, and onion-covered as well as white, rye, and egg-white.  It was such an amazing and exhausting process.  It is also confounding that every piece of bread is handled by a person in this process; there is no automatic, machine-constructed output of fermented dough from this bakery.  By the end of the morning, I was rolling dough with the best of them.  At 7 AM, we all sat down to enjoy some fresh bread, coffee, and shot the breeze.  The break ended, and people scattered with the chore of selling the bread at various locations; I went back to bed.

One bit of conversation is still turning over in my head: the baker explained that part of the rising of bread is driving off the alcohol produced by the yeast.  Upon further research, bread yeast is the same yeast used in ale beer production, albeit a different strain.  This was new information for me.  Now I’m wondering if beer is liquid bread, can I devise bread that is “solid beer”?

Progress has been made on the visa front.  I stopped by the office on Thursday morning armed with a specific regulation that allows that office to grant me a visa for an “other” reason.  Passing along the SF Consulate’s offer to answer any questions the visa office had about that process, I was told that the visa office requires no assistance and knows exactly how to process this type of application.  I’m sure this process and option simply slipped their mind the last two times I was there.  I will be returning again this coming week for the verdict.

And, finally, I have come to understand why we were rushing through the choreography in my Thursday evening tap class: There is a Spring Showcase coming up at the end of March.  Although I only know the last third of the song, I have been asked to participate.  I’ve been promised a video to help in learning the choreography (it’s a long song) on my own time.  If it’s experiences I wanted, this will be one.

Looks like I’ll be donning my baker’s apron again for the remainder of the month (although I already am using vacation days Friday through next Tuesday…).