Here we go again

All I can do is apologize, I've been running around for the last month or so without much time to spare! Where did I last leave you.... Cakes, Week 2 was cakes

This is an orange bunt cake which I thought was pretty tasty. 

Some advice: When you're making an angel food cake or bunt cake or cakes such as those. You want to spray the bottom of the pan, but NOT the sides. The cake literally clings on to the sides and pulls itself up and that's how it rises. When you take it out of the oven, you want it to cool upside down or it is quite the pain to take out of the pan.

And we decorated cakes, these were my first attempts at roses, not shabby.

And then I got bored with flowers and played with different tips. I just used the colors available. Nice flashback to the 80s, yes? I'm sure it still tasted good.

I then went to Utah for Ms. Sarah's wedding. It was a great time

Week 3- Tortes

The difference between a cake and a torte? Cakes are fattier and what we Americans think of as cake. Tortes? Generally less fatty, and European style. And 8 billion layers made of different components. This week was quite painful.

Tiramisu

Eros torte, hadn't heard of it and had a big breakdown while making it, but it's pretty good. Cooked pears that are then frozen, a couple different types of cakes, caramel mousse, a caramelly nut later, whipped cream, and that's spun sugar on top.

The last day, Chef said "he could tell he was losing us" so we had a cupcake day. Each team made some creative stuff. One did a bacon cupcake (bacon in desserts is in these days, one team did a multi flavored cake. My team made peanut butter mousse (YUM), raspberry mousse, banana mousse, and chocolate mousse, and did some fun filling and topping combinations.

Parents part one visited me

Week 4- Cheesecake, puff pastry, pate choux, pastry cream

Lots and Lots of production this week. Not pictured are creme brulee (MMMM one of my favorites) and flan. Did you know that brulee is an actual verb? It's what you do to the product brulee=to burn, as you take a torch to the top and burn it.

Cheesecake- we made ours raspberry and mango. We also cooked it using the "low and slow" method. The oven was at 250 and it probably cooked for about 3 hours. The graham cracker crust is still my favorite part.

Eclairs and profiteroles (cream puffs), they're actually the same thing. Made out of a batter called pate choux. You make the batter almost like you make a roux (butter and flower thickening on the stove with a couple other things, then put in a mixture and slowly add eggs). Then you insert pastry cream into them. Pastry cream is a temperamental thing to make. You need to make it in a stainless steel pot (others such as aluminum will give it a green tinge), and you're boiling cream/milk/sugar and then tempering in eggs and starch, and cook stirring constantly til it's thick but not too thick (a delicate balance)

Napoleon; Puff pastry (we used pre-made) that you have to dock (put a bunch of tiny holes in which keeps the pastry from rising too much), and layer with pastry cream and strawberries. 

We did some plating this week as well

Some chocolate bread pudding with banana in it. Oh, there's some creme brulee in the background.

Pear tart that you cook on the stove in a cast iron pan, you then keep cooking it in the oven in the cast iron pan.

St Honore cake which is cream puffs and more pastry and more cream drizzled with caramel, whip cream, and chocolate.

The picture didn't turn out too well,  but I got quite the burn while making the napoleon.

Parents part 2 visited me

Week 5- sugar and chocolate

We had a guest chef come in that does competitions and things as well as being a pastry chef, and does amazing things with chocolate and sugar. Fun to watch! Not quite as fun to play because man it's harder than it looks.

Candy Ribbon

Chunks of isomalt sugar, it's actually really warm when you work with it, yikes!

After a short amount of time, the chef made this

Other classmates were pretty good

and creative

and realistic

but look what I made!!! I made a fish! I blew the sugar to make the body and pulled it for the tail and fins. I'm proud, it's above my stove.

I apparently didn't take any pictures of the chocolate (sorry). Chocolate is very temperamental to work with and you spend a lot of time getting it to the write temperature and texture to work with. But I learned to make some fun things. I also made some chocolate raspberry truffles, which I received some compliments on.

I went to Iowa for Megan's bridal shower. Had finals (intense), and Am finally wrapping up my spring break (too short of course! Not that I did anything but work and relax, but ahhh nice)

Next week I start 2 brand new classes. European Cakes and Tortes (man, I hope it's better than torte week), and Artisan breads (excited!)

Intro to Pastry

Baking is over, let the Pastry begin. The difference you ask? I'll keep you posted. This week. Pies.

Apple Pie is no longer so simple (but it's still delicious). With 3 different kinds of dough (flakey, mealy, crumb); 4 kinds of filling (fruit, custard, cream, chiffon); and even more subdivisions within those kinds of fillings, baked, unbaked, kinds of tops.... it turns out there are waaaaay more possibilities than I realized.

 Pecan Pie

Apple Cranberry, Blueberry (with a "cheating" lattice top...there's a cutter that does this for you) 

 Peach (mmmmm)

 Chocolate Cream Pie and Lemon Chiffon Pie (yum) before...

 and after (made candied lemon)

Quiche is a kind of pie too...

Then there were tarts, made with yet a different kind of pie dough (sweet dough), filled with pastry creme (quite difficult to make and get right actually) and filled with some tasty fresh fruit.

Giganto French Apple Tart with Almond Cream (needs to have more apples and be more "shingle" like

And folks, that was just the stuff my table did....there were tons of others

 Coconut cream, lemon meringue

 Banana Cream

Fun fact- we made chantilly cream for the whipped topping. And for those of you who don't know chantilly cream = my favorite. We whipped the cream with powdered sugar and vanilla. mmm tasty

It has been a crazy week. I have finals Mon-Wed for the baking class (written exam Monday and practicals on Tues, Wed). I've been prepping for that and will post when it's over!

Sneak peek, brioche, croissants, doughnuts, danishes and more...

Week Three

Day 7- mmmm breads.... I love yeast, and getting my hands all gross in the dough. Can't we all just get along and play with flour?

We made a kaiser roll/vienna loaf (turns out it's the same thing, the Kaiser-ness of the roll, if you will, comes from the design on top). It was our first time using the proofer and a skin formed over the top of it which makes it harder to make an impression in the top of it, but overall it went well. You can also use a razor blade to cut into the top of it.

 

Sauerkraut Rye Bread- I was pretty skeptical (not being the biggest fan of sauerkraut), but it's really pretty good and you can't straight out taste the sauerkraut it actually just makes the bread really moist.

All the culinary people in my class were dreaming of the things they could make with this bread.

French bread- I actually don't have much to say about these guys. They fell a little, apparently meaning they proofed too long.

Soft Yeast Dinner Rolls- mmmmm adding a little egg and butter makes bread TASTY (especially for us uncivilized American pallettes). They taste like Sister Schubert rolls which my sister in law introduced me to. Just what a dinner roll should be. We also used a press for these. Put a big chunk in a pan and it slices it into 38 pieces, then you can shape or not shape as you see fit.

We also started 2 kinds of prep an old dough which we take parts of in different recipes in the future (gives it a different character and flavor) and a Poolish dough which is another kind of starter dough that we made baguettes from (individually) the next day

Day 8-

We made Olive Bread which the instructor proceeded to bite into and directly into an olive pit....greeeeat... though I can say I didn't do it :)

Focaccia mmmmmmmm, probably the best with a rosemary/garlic/olive oil on top

White sandwich bread, where we learned to mix and match things to make creative fun loaves, pretty fun actually. And I taught one of the guys in my group how to braid.

Whole wheat bread (pretty)

Day 9-

Apple Pecan Bread

Potato Herb Rolls (got to use the big press again, and we added cheddar, yummy)

Pita (in a plastic bag to keep them soft), kind of interesting, but not my favorite. I don't know how many times were told DO NOT BROWN THEM

Pretzels- yum yum. You boil them before you bake them like bagels

And last but certainly not least...pizza pizza! We made the dough on Tues and made the Pizzas Wed. We all did individual ones. Did you know you should put olive oil between the crust and the sauce so the sauce doesnt soak into the crust and make it soggy. I made mine with garlic/rosemary olive oil, spinach, sun dried tomatoes, fresh tomatoes, fresh mozarella and some basil. (there may have been a couple mushrooms for good measure)

Science for the week- Most bread is flour, salt, yeast, water. 1) Salt, though necessary, actually prohibits yeast from growing and doing its thing. 2) There is an entire process on finding out what your water temperature should be. You want the dough to be a specific temp so there's a formula to follow. You want your dough to be 75-80 degrees and take that number, multiply by 3. Then you take the temp of the room, the temp of flour, and the friction factor (the amount of heat you add while mixing the dough, which we say is about 20 degrees) and add them together. You subtract one from the other, and tadah....the temp you want your water to be. Let me tell you, doing that work and standing at a sink with a thermometer temping the water that comes out of the sink, give slightly more warm now cooler now warmer....man I just want to make slightly warmer than my hand and call it a day.

Listening to Madeleine Peyroux on Pandora

Reading "I thought There'd be Cake" (not actually about baking, a series of humorous essays)

Felicidades a Alison!!!!!