A New Class In The Courtyard By Jennings.

Chapter 186 - A New Class In The Courtyard By Jennings.

The next day, after breakfast and during the morning meeting, Jennings and Hereford were involved in making their small statements before the day starts.

At least there's more involved with the rest of the citizens and even Michelle spoke up regards her participation in teaching the children if ever Heather was involved with other administrative duties.

"Lend me your ears, O citizens of Gracehaven, since our Industry Minister Ben had deployed the rest of the duties today, we move on to the head Baker and assistant, Jennings and Hereford." I motioned to the duo as they stepped forward before the crowd of citizens and made their announcement.

"We now have 2 bakeries and 20 bakers on our end which would be turning out the bread to supply the orders for the 5 towns. Previously we had to work 12 hours to make those bread, but then it became 6 hours and now with the help of more Ovens and bakers, we managed to shorten the process to a mere 3 hours now...! " Jennings stated her point and everyone clapped their hands aloud.

"With the shorter hours, we would be able to make other types of bread like buns and we have more than a few flavours, to begin with. Not only buns, but I would also introduce 2 types of turnovers which would be baked inside the Ovens rather than deep-fried." Hereford announced and the citizens were clapping their hands to hear about the introduction of buns in Gracehaven.

The citizens had tasted the free form buns and they saw the rows and rows of square baking tins and knew there would be new bread along the way. With the appearance of the 9-muffin trays, they also knew that they would be savouring fine cakes as well in the future.

"Would we be able to taste the new cakes and bread in the future, Hereford?" asked a person in the crowd. "Definitely, when we are baking these for distribution, there would be spares and furthermore we are having visitors coming over here too," replied Hereford ad she was equally excited to produce these new products and present it to the visitors, with hopes that they would extend the 30 days trial further.

"There would be biscuits — 12 types of flavours in 12 different types of shapes too. We would be waiting for the rest of the equipment but in the meantime, we would make do with what we have at the moment."

"Yes, these biscuits would come in the form of a round biscuit tin, a 3 pounder and a 1½ pounder tin. Although the biscuits in the tin would be sold, there would be plenty of leftovers for everyone to try too...!" Hereford added and this brought the citizens to a fervour of wanting to taste the uniqueness of bread, biscuit, turnovers, buns and muffin from our little town.

When Jennings and Hereford were mentioning about the types of bread, Biscuits, turnovers, buns and muffins from our little village, the crowd burst into waves of applause and everyone got so worked up with the types of trade that Gracehaven would be bringing in.

The 6 types of bread that were currently being supplied would be increased to a further range of varieties which could only mean one thing... More gold coins and also closer to the target of achieving the 100 gold coins a month.

Actually, the citizens didn't realise that we had already hit 100 gold coins prior to the 30 day trial of supplying the bread but we would only confirm when the period ends and confirmed if a long term contract would be offered or not.

The 120 gold coins a month for supplying bread to the 4 towns concerned had been achieved. The question lies if the visitors would be able to sign an agreement for the others or not. "Well, hopefully, the 4 visitors coming would give us a good tiding though, and this would be a morale booster for everyone indeed later on."

I wished for those thoughts deep within me as we concluded the morning meeting. The citizens then poured out and went about their duties as arranged by Ben. Today, Frank wanted to clear the forest at the knoll beyond and the oxen and the wagons were put to use.

Well, at least the horses were being used as a mean of transport for the bread and the oxen were put to hard work such as these. In this way, since the oxen had a less intake of food compared to the horses, they were a better option since these oxen can only move 10 miles each day. Hahaha.

As the citizens went about to their respective stations, the drivers were now being rotated with another 5 so that they won't be too tired working endlessly without having a proper break. Even the horses now were rotated as well.

A good day's rest of 6 hours horizontally would be a good bet for those drivers who have to sit in their hard benches on the wagon to traversed the horses to Barton Hill and back. Furthermore, these drivers would not be assigned to other jobs and they could have their own free tune right till midday the next day.

There wasn't a need for the men to help knead the dough so Chadwell and his gang rotated with Macquire's in terms of transporting the bread over. They were delighted with the new agreement and felt that their delegated work and tasks were fair for everyone.

Right after the morning meeting, the 20 bakers set to work to bake the bread for midday delivery — the ½ pounder loaves of bread with 4 flavours and one of them was the seasoned fish with cabbage and carrots.

The fish that was roasted over coals the other day and now had the flesh was taken out, leaving the heads and main spinal bones. The 6 cats were mewing and milling about near the fireplace since it smelled their favourite food.

The children had helped to catch these fishes the day before and they had about 50 to 60 pounds of fishes. Just imagine a troop of 30 over children armed with handlines and bamboo fishing poles catching fat, juicy fishes from the banks of the river.

In just two hours their children were able to catch every single type of fish while the other kinds were thrown inside the reservoir instead. Algae and other water plants were thrown into these reservoirs to give some kind of food to them and a place to hide in the sun as well.

The cats had the fishes head while the spines were being broken up to mix with the food for the pigs. Although there were abundant of fish head, the cats could possibly eat 3 to 4 heads each and the rest were strung up near the fireplace and given to the cats if they felt hungry again.

Cats and humans were fed 3 times a day as well.

In order to make the fillings for the ½ pounder loaves, old Kayla had ordered for some 10 cabbage heads, 20 carrots, a half basket full of onions, some celery and garlic as well. The leaves of the cabbages were peeled one at a time and then it was thinly sliced.

This method was slow but it reduces damage if a cabbage were to be halved or quartered and then sliced. To make pottage and to serve others paying for bread is different.

The cabbage after it was thinly sliced looked like shreds of hair, it was so thin, so light and yet so crunchy. The onions, chives, celery and garlic were being thinly chopped after washing and mixed into a single bowl.

The thing about these vegetables and other ingredients were that it would be practically raw. Even the fishes, after being half roasted were stripped of its flesh, placed in a large bowl and pounded with salt, spices and some bell peppers.

Then all would go into one huge mixing bowl where it would be mixed thoroughly. As the ½ pounder loaves have their own baking rectangular tin, the insides of the tin had been laid with dough.

Then 2 teaspoon of those filling would be spread inside, a thick layer of dough would be added and then another 2 teaspoons of fillings would be filled.

These two-layered fillings would then be covered with a layer of dough and set aside to rise before it would be finally be placed inside the oven to be baked.

There were 20 bakers and everyone assisted to prepare these bread first before baking them inside the oven. It doesn't take long before a group moved to the 1st bakery, prepare the loaves inside the baking tin and then moved to the other bakery to repeat the process.

Before long they had finished preparing 625 freshly baked ½ pounder bread with seasoned fish fillings with cabbage and carrot. The next 4 loaves of bread were so simple that they could do that with their eyes closed.

15 bakers were busy kneading 3 pounds of flour and for every 5 to 8 minutes, they were able to churn out ninety ½ pounders loaves of bread and they worked about half an hour before they joined the rest to bake the bread.

There's only a need of 3 to 5 bakers manning the Ovens so basically, the rest were kneading and making the ½ pounders and it was such an easy task. With the use of yeast, the flour was easily raised when it was set aside after using the hot water to mix and creating the dough.

There was no need to physically beat the dough 120 times with a stick to leaven it. This was what Jennings was told to do so back when she was a Baker and it was harder work to do so back then. Now with yeast, and just a few minutes of kneading, the dough is ready to sit to raise after being covered with a damp cloth.

With the easy method of leavened bread, Jennings dared to make a proposal to create the buns sets and also muffins. 4 sets of 625 loaves of ½ pounder bread had been completed and it was then packed into the wicker baskets and loaded up into the wagons accordingly to the right amount to be delivered.

After all the bread had been loaded up, Jennings and Hereford had the bakers to have their early lunch and then they would be starting to start a baking class soon right before the courtyard.

When Jennings had arranged a dining table and had set some benches in the courtyard, curious citizens began to form around Jennings as she had lain several ingredients on the table before she began.

Heather who had finished teaching her mandatory 2-hour classes based on the basic and intermediate lessons for the children was also curious to find out about the new 'class' organised by Jennings.

Heather and I picked a bench and placed it next to the dining table as we watched Jennings displayed such confidence in holding such class before the rest of the 18 other bakers and some curious citizens.

On the table was 1 cup of Butter, some sugar, a small jar of extract which we soon read as a vanilla extract that Marcel had supplied, an egg, some salt, a bowl of milk and also some flour.

"This is for a standard 1 pound of flour, ladies so if we are using 3 pounds of flour, what shall we do? " Jennings asked the bakers and they all looked at each other for answers.

"Hehehe. You just multiply the amount on the table by 3...!" Heather was excited and I hushed her since we were mere spectators and informed her to let the bakers the one to answer the questions.

However, I was excited too since we all going to learn the uses the biscuit shaper and dispenser she had set on the table as well.