Baking Cakes

This Tuesday Blanca shifted into cake-baking mode. I was already aware of the granduer of the occasion due to my exposure to her cakes during my last visit. We went to her mom's house which is close to the panaderia (bakery) where we baked them.

Carlos and his family went with us and babies Poogi and Karlita (future husband and wife, of course) got to see each other again!

Karlita would definitely be the head of that household.



Franches

The layout... I was using a pathetic little wooden stick to try and mix THREE chocolate cake mixes when Blanca encouraged me to "just use my hands." While I hesitated for a slight second, Esa dove right in! (He'd done this before.)

While all hands were still clean...

And now... the best part. Tasting! I will add that he had already used his pointer finger for the first lick, and had moved on to the pinkie.

Once again, he had already used up the pointer finger!

In front of the huge 25 year old wood fueled oven in the bakery that's owned by Esau's aunt. It's hard to tell from the picture, but the oven is the size of a small room.

These "panaderos" as they're called work long into the night making the morning's bread. They start at 5:30 pm and finish around 3:30 am. They rotate weekly between this shift and the 6am- 12pm shift. Both have worked for Esau's aunt for about 10 years and have worked together for 30 years. I asked them how they learned their trade so perfectly, and they said "with lots of hits." They both studied under the same teacher at the same time and he apparently believed in corporal punishment. By feel, they know exactly how much dough to grab, pull it in two, roll two little balls, and slap them on the pan... all at the speed of light.

Dumping a bag of flour into the massive mixer.

This is the panaderia from the outside. The person standing in front is buying bread from Esa's aunt. They sell some of the bread directly to the customers but most of it is sold to other stores who then sell it to their customers. The name "Panaderia El Mana" refers to the mana that God provided for the Jews during their journey to the Promised Land.

Chocolate and carrot... yum.

Esa checking to see if they're done.

They use this long paddle to take the bread out of the oven. He told us that different types of bread require different paddles for their removal! The art of bread making...

If it jiggles it's not done.

The perfect little balls of bread lined up rising. The two of them make more than 6,500 every night!

*Now all that's missing is a picture of us enjoying the cakes... they turned out very tasty!