Baking School Diaries #6

Zebra bread, bi-color croissants, and pain au chocolat troubles.

The Baking School Diaries is a series about my three months as a student in the Intensive Professional Program in Bread Baking & Viennoiseries at Ferrandi Paris. Bienvenue!

Zebra bread 😍

When I woke up with a cold last Saturday morning, my heart sank. At least it was the perfect moment to get sick, if I had to get sick—my entire weekend could be focused on recovering.

Still, I knew I’d be returning to school before I returned to baseline.

Even a week later, I have a mug of tea close by to help ease my congestion. But while I was worried about being on my feet all day (during a stretch when I would’ve rather been in bed!), that didn’t stop me from having a fun and successful week.

Below, you’ll find:

• 🥐 Mouthwatering details about everything I baked this week,

• 🇫🇷 The highs, lows, and takeaways from this week’s classes, and

• 🎬 Daily video updates for the full play-by-play.

On Sunday, paid subscribers will get a bonus letter called Weekend in Paris about my off-duty adventures abroad. This week, that includes:

• 🍫 A tale of dueling hot chocolates,

• 💎 Visiting a jewel box of an artist’s cooperative, and

• 🥐 My order at a pint-sized French-Taiwanese boulangerie.

On to today’s letter!

Pain perdu. They don’t call it “French toast” in France, but that’s exactly what this is. We took leftover brioche and made two versions of this brunch treat: one with caramel sauce and vanilla whipped cream, the other with fresh orange juice, a splash of Cointreau, and blood orange supremes.

Tiger effect burger buns. We painted a rye flour-beer slurry onto an enriched dough base, dusted the buns heavily with flour, and watched the top open into a beautiful series of crackles while baking.

Flavored butter blocks for our laminated doughs. We flavored one butter block with parsley and another with blue cheese, so that after laminating them into the dough, the results were bursting with flavor—and some color, too.

We made a gorgeous “wreath” with the green dough and a stunning laminated blue cheese loaf, which was scored deep down the center to reveal each layer inside.

Bi-color croissants and bi-color pain au chocolat (plus some mini viennoiserie, just for kicks). We affixed a thin, colorful square of dough onto one of our croissant books, then proceeded to roll and shape it as usual—with eye-popping results. The fact that we included handmade chocolate-hazelnut batons in each pastry didn’t hurt, either.

Pain de mie three ways. Instead of making plain white sandwich bread, we infused portions of dough with cocoa, turmeric, and charcoal, then used creative shaping techniques to make the insides resemble a leopard, a zebra, and a hypnotic swirl.

Pain rustique redux. We took one of my favorite bakes from a previous week and made it again, this time with stiff sourdough starter—and served it with lots of French butter and wild blueberry jam.

Flavored baguettes. We took our standard baguette dough and divided it into three portions, mixing the first with turmeric, the second with mustard seeds, and the third with cocoa powder and chocolate discs. Heaven on a plate!

If this week’s bakes sound appealing, check out the videos below! They offer a look into each step of the process—including the finished product. Plus, they offer extra context, like how we structured our mixing, rolling, shaping, and baking schedules each day for maximum efficiency.

The great stuff

• Feeling cared for by my classmates. When I was gone, everyone came through with notes, explanations of what I missed, and portions of dough upon my return.

• Realizing that complicated-looking bakes aren’t always as they seem. I love the “a-ha!” moment when finding out how straightforward it is to make something as showstopping as zebra-striped bread.

• Getting the skinny on our internships. The head of Ferrandi’s international program (who also happens to be the beloved former chef of the boulangerie program) gave our class a presentation about our post-program internships. Next week, we’ll meet 1-on-1 to discuss our plans once class ends. It’s all getting real!

The hard stuff

• Running on empty. I don’t miss much about my old desk jobs, but not being able to work remotely when you’re sick (or, you know, not work at all) is one thing I pine for. I was definitely in “surviving, not thriving” mode this week.

• Miniature pain au chocolat woes. It was my third time making these treats, and my third time missing the memo on shaping them correctly—many of them unfurled after proofing. The silver lining: our chef promised to give me a personal (remedial) lesson next time we tackle them. Fourth time’s the charm, I hope?

• Communication breakdowns. Another downside of not feeling 100%? Having a shorter fuse. There were moments this week when, try as I might, I didn’t hear instructions from our chef, or missed chatter within my team about what we were supposed to be doing. But that served as a reminder to address communication problems calmly and directly, rather than letting them fester.

Lessons learned

• Don’t panic; clarity is on the way. After missing a day of class, I was completely lost upon my return, even with the help of classmates. Instead of spiraling, I decided to keep moving through the day, even if I was confused—no need to spend my precious energy worrying or fretting, right? And sure enough, within a handful of hours, everything started clicking again.

• The skill-building process is a magical thing. I couldn’t have wrapped my head around making bi-color croissant dough at the beginning of my baking journey. Now, it’s almost—dare I say—easy, and that’s all because I’ve gotten used to trying incrementally harder things in class each day. One foot in front of the other, my friends.

• There are no stupid questions in baking. With those aforementioned bi-color croissants, it really does make a difference whether or not you score the colored dough right up to the edge, and whether you score it with a shallow or deep stroke of the razor blade. I’ve adopted the habit of asking every possible follow-up question that enters my mind, no matter how detailed, and it’s been paying off.

Every school day, I’ve been posting a video recap as a Note on the Substack app.

Here’s a roundup of this week’s baking school vlogs from Tuesday through Friday (or, more accurately, du mardi au vendredi!).

And with that, it’s on to le weekend!

Warmly,
Maddie

Breakfast Club is a newsletter about pastries with a side of personal growth, from an ex-financial planner turned baker. If you savored this edition, click the ❤️ (or share with a friend!) to help new readers discover it—and subscribe to get each letter fresh from the oven.