Usually when I'm working, I've got to write out a full plan of what I've got to get through that day. It'll have a list of the tasks I'm assigned to, as well as timings so I can actually get everything done on time. It's one of the perils of being a bottom rung Aircraftwoman (ACW), but I don't mind it. I'm not that much of an organisation nut or list junkie, but I like looking at a timeline to get an idea of whether I'm ahead or behind schedule, so I can sing out for help or give someone else a hand as necessary. It really helps in sweets to have stuff nutted out before the shift as well, because I often struggle trying to get things baking, mixing, setting, and garnished simultaneously, and there's not enough time in the day to do everything as separate tasks.
Fridays mean a bit of a reprieve from all the planning - if the week's gone well, I know what ingredients there are in the fridge that are leftover and to be used up, and I know what we've run out of in the freezer or the dry stores so I'll come prepared with ideas that I'll be able to do without having to beg other messes for the right ingredients. There's a lot of flexibility with the sweets we can offer with meals - there used to be a set menu, but now it's pretty much an open choice as long as there's a hot sweet for lunch, and fruit salad with lunch and dinner.
I started off with a mega muffin mix, seeing as it's good to get the baking requirement of the day done first. It also helps warm up the kitchen and fill it with that awesome baked goods smell, which always gets the other cooks wondering what's cooking... and later swooping like seagulls for whatever scraps they can steal. The other thing about Friday sweets is that as well as preparing assorted platters of sweets for the upcoming weekend, the sweets cook has to offer something to the 58 Gap Year Cadets that have a weekly barbecue up at the Officers' Mess for lunch. I figured that I didn't have enough leftovers kicking around to sacrifice to the cause, so a giant batch of banana, mixed berry and white chocolate muffins would just have to do!
Doing something well whilst in sweets bay elicits a variety of responses:
'Ooh, yummy! What a shame you don't have a penis.'
-- from a seemingly easily impressed female
[Walking past the oven and looking in] 'Oh my God! Those muffins look like shit!'
-- the most backhanded of compliments from one of the guys
'Why are you wasting perfectly good muffins on the Gappies?'
-- from the new kid who was probably too scared to ask for one directly
My favourite response of all - busting a couple of the cooks stealing muffins from the bowl I was filling up for the Gappies, while they didn't think I was paying attention. :)
Due to the lack of equipment on hand, I only had a 24-cup tray, so I did two and a bit rounds of spooning the mix in and baking, giving the tray a quick wash in between. I ended up having enough mixture for 58 exactly, but with some muffins going AWOL earlier on in the piece (gotta love how blatant some of the guys are, not even putting the glad wrap back over the top of the bowl properly after yoinking a muffin), if each Gappie wanted a muffin, they might have to duke it out for the last couple. Well, they're going to have to learn sooner or later that life isn't fair and rations aren't always what you expect them to be. They looked so happy to receive a giant bowl of muffins for their dessert too! I can just imagine how crushed the last couple of Gappies would've been, discovering that they're too late for pudding. Survival of the fattest, ey?
While the muffins baked, I got platters ready for the weekend, as well as plating and garnishing up some desserts for lunch. I had a big tray of chocolate cheesecake brownie slice to cut up, something I prepared yesterday because the recipe said that brownies taste better the day after they're made. They weren't wrong! The beauty about cutting up good sweets is that anything you trim off the edges, or happen to cut unevenly, just gets eaten without you even realising it. Limited wastage all round! The guys thought that the hybrid of cheesecake and brownie was a bit unusual, but still dug it once they gave it a shot. I've made this recipe a couple of times, but I still can't match how one of my favourite cafes back at home does it.
The second round of muffins went in, as I decorated some mini-pavlovas for the weekend. I later discovered that I shouldn't have spread the pavlovas around all the platters, because they won't be any good beyond about 24 hours. Yes, sweets can indeed self-destruct. Something about the moisture making meringue go all spoogy after it's been sitting in the fridge for too long. A few bits of strawberry and some mixed berry coulis to finish off the pavlovas, and there's only a few gaps left on the platters to fill.
That's where my totally ghetto recipe for the day came into play... I made an orange polenta syrup cake yesterday, but buggered it up somewhat when flipping it out of the tray too soon after taking it out of the oven, so I ended up with a heap of scrappy bits where the cake cracked apart and I couldn't salvage a square-sized serving out of it. However, with a waste-not-want-not mentality, and spaces in the weekend sweets platters to fill, I thought I could turn these cake bits into Jaffa Truffle Balls. Feel the fear and do it anyway, right? :) A couple of cans of condensed milk, a smattering of cocoa powder, rolled into disturbing poo-balls and finished off with desiccated coconut. Everybody wins. I totally kick food wastage butt!
All that was left to do for the day is the hot sweet. Today's masterpiece was butterscotch self-saucing pudding, served with hot vanilla custard. I thought I should face my nemesis from Monday once more, after the pudding I tried to cook was nowhere near ready for the whole of lunchtime, whether it was due to too much liquid in the recipe, or the oven was turned down too low for most of its cooking, I still don't know. This time around though, I got the pudding in early, held back on the amount of liquid it recommended to pour in for the sauce, and it was ready ahead of schedule. I wasn't even using a recipe that I had tried before, but it all turned out like it was meant to. What a relief! After cleaning up the sweets bay area and putting out my hot sweet for lunch, it was time to... cook burgers.
I'm not kidding. Yes, I get paid way too much per hour to flip burgers, but this was my lunch job. One could argue that I also get paid too much to make sandwiches to order, but I might save that rant for another time. The new kid Harry was torn between the torment of sandwich bar, and the pressure of cooking burgers to order back in the kitchen... he first requested to swap jobs with me for lunch, but then went back on his wish and opted to go out to sandwich bar anyway.
This left me to find out all the wild and wonderful ways to not assemble a burger, according to Adam's Rules of Burger Assemblage:
- Do not melt the cheese onto the base of the bun.
- Do not start with any salad item other than lettuce.
- Do not melt the cheese onto the top of the burger patty.
- Do not put unmelted cheese underneath the burger patty.
- Do not attempt to close the burger with salsa on the underside of the bun lid.
I have a feeling they're going to make me do remedial burger cooking at Ron's barbecue on Monday... I think I might have to plead strategic incompetence to get out of it. Who knew that there were even five ways to mess up a burger? Apparently it was painfully obvious that I never worked a job at Macca's or Hungry Jack's. I'm kind of glad that it shows, though. :)
Too bad I can't give up my day job until 2011!
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