Decorative Breads- Dead dough

Dead dough, also known as bakers clay, is basically dough without yeast, or any leavening agent. Our task for the day is to produce at least 2 decorative bread pieces.

Chef Herve's demonstration. With a combination of normal bread dough and dead dough, he created this bouquet of wheat grass. This is super cool. You know, you have to cut and shape every single wheat you see there.... within the time that the normal bread dough below takes to prove. If you're too slow, the normal bread dough tends to explode, and you'll see little gaps here and there. Not good at all..

Crocodile. Chef says for some reason crocodiles look especially good in bread. The entire of the crocodile is made with the "live dough" (which is another name for the normal yeast dough). The fact that the dough is expanding all the time, makes it more difficult to shape. Especially for first-timers like us, we take more time to get the croc into shape. Let's say by the time the head is done, the tail will look a bit bulbous. Then you have to try to squash the air out, and roll the end more, to get the tapered off effect again.

So this is what happens. An obese crocodile which may very possibly be saddled with high cholesterol and diabetes.

Wheat sheaf is cool though. The middle piece is a porcupine. haha.

Better looking crocodile, but still looks over-fed.

Guess who made this. Stella. My roommate. She made this super huge owl with a mouse in its beak (though I don't think you can see it). Kimmy observed it and told me in a very calm manner: Heidi, I think you need to be careful. O.o

End.