Easy As Pie

After the last week from hell, I hoped entering class Monday morning would be the start of a new and happier week. Well, first thing I discovered when opening my bag is my water bottle opened up and poured all over my school stuff. Maybe next week. 

We were lectured for a long time on how to gelatinize pie fillings, thicken fillings and make bases for them, we threw our aprons on and proceeded to rapid fire make as many tarts a we could.

Mini- Blueberry Pie

with a streusel topping

Mini-Pecan Pie

with pecan filling  & brown sugar

Mini-Apple Pie ... Mmmm 

Raspberry Tourte

And finally ... 

Right from the beginning I was most excited for the final cake we were making. It was called a Mogador Cake. The sponge cake part of it is made with a Chocolate Almond Genoise, then topped with a chocolate mousse,  raspberry glaze and our own decorations. The cake above I decorated myself -- I hope to get better in the future but it was a fun first time piping chocolate. 

The only downside to this cake was I got a little excited while dunking the sponge cake into the raspberry puree and knocked the bowl over. I spilled red raspberry puree ALL over my already wet apron and white chefs jacket. I around and realize everyone else has colored spots of different food all over them. In any other setting it may be embarrassing to spill on yourself, but not in this kitchen. 

I have a rough week ahead moving in to my new apartment and figuring a lot of stuff out -- but I'm excited! And I get to eat delicious pastries while I'm stressed ... there's nothing wrong with that. 

Have Your Cake & Throw It Too

This weekend I was assigned by a family member to make a delicious coconut cake for dinner Saturday night. I spent all morning perfecting it because it served as the celebration cake for three occasions -- two birthdays and an anniversary. It has coconut flakes all on the outside of it, and I decorated with flags acknowledging the occasions and star candles. It looked perfect and I had a small bite which tasted amazing. I planned on taking a picture of it at dinner ... well let's just say that didn't happen.

I was running late for dinner because I was stuck in traffic for a half hour for what I learned was a WWE wrestling match (... really?!) I finally made it to the restaurant, but it took me another 10 minutes to park because I wasn't aggressive enough and someone very rudely stole an available spot I HAD MY BLINKER ON FOR! There is nothing else I hate in the world more than being late so I parked and was scurrying out of the car.

I noticed there was a puddle ahead on the sidewalk, so I went in a different direction to avoid stepping in it. As I walked around the snow bank, I completely wiped out and the cake got thrown about 20 feet in the air. The bottom half of the cake landed in the road while the top half was still in the container (even after I kicked the container into the snow bank out of frustration) By the time I had stood up, the cake in the road had already been ran over by a truck.

I was pretty calm while all this was happening ... until I saw a woman across the street with her hands covering her face and tears coming from her eyes because she watched my incident. And that may or may not have triggered a few tears of my own.

I threw the cake in the car and had a glass of wine waiting for me at the dinner table. I calmed down, ate a great dinner and had a wonderful night out with family. At the end of the night my family was walking out and we grabbed the cake remnants in the container in my car and ate some in the bar parking lot.

There are some very valuable lessons I learned from this experience:
1. Never be in a hurry with a cake in your hands
2. At the end of the day, it's just cake and my family still loves me
3. Maybe it didn't look pretty, but it still tasted damn good

Oh, and I hate professional wrestling

Sweet Tarts

Today in class lecture we learned the difference between pies and tarts ... but to me, who cares about the difference. They both are extremely sweet, pretty bad for you and DELICIOUS.

We focused on mass producing as many little tartlets we could in the short 8 hour class day. While pies traditionally have tops to them (think apple pie), tarts are left open faced which leaves plenty of room for a variety of different fillings. 

The most disappointing part of the day -- the Pear Chibouste. The whole class was looking forward to eating this because the ingredients were unreal. A chocolate almond cream filling with fresh pears we poached ourselves, topped with a Meringue Italienne (which I don't know how else to describe but heaven.) We were running around so much that someone put it in the oven and forgot about it. The worst part is, the oven was accidentally turned up to 500 degrees. When our instructor pulled the burnt dessert out of the oven, I felt like a little part of me died.

And this all happened about ten minutes after our Master French Pastry Chef instructor was telling us a story about a shop he worked at in France where someone was late once, got a sheet pan thrown at the back of their head and was then paralyzed. Even though he's a nice guy and assured us that this would never happen to us, I'll never be late for class again. 

Our instructors are pretty amazing. They all come from different backgrounds and levels of experience. One shared an invention of his with us today -- brown butter filling. I guess one time, he burnt butter and in an attempt to save it, added some more ingredients and invented this tart filling that I didn't think I was going to like it. It doesn't look appealing while you're making it ... it looks like burnt butter. But with the right "saving" ingredients, it tasted amazing. I was totally licking the spoon on this one.

Tart Catalane (Apricot)

filled with the Brown Butter Filling and some apricots

Duo Tart with a streusel topping and of course,

a cherry on top

Chocolate Tart

... no description needed

(But it should be known we used 99% cocoa chocolate ... only for the truly brave)

Tart Beausejour

Filled with caramel apples and beausejour cream 

 (a mix of almond cream and whipped cream)

Our Failure

But a great attempt to save it,

we still added the Meringue Italienne, some fresh pear and torched the top

Still tasted pretty good to me!

"Stop Looking At Me Swan" - Billy Madison

Butter, water, flour and eggs are four simple ingredients -- yet when they are mixed together correctly they form the basic pastry dough we all know and love in Chocolate Eclairs. Pâte à Choux dough is super simple to make, and once made can form into a number of different pastries. Today in class we experimented with different types of shapes and fillings to dress up this simple dough. 

First we made Swans with Strawberry Whipped Cream Frosting.

I just saw the movie "Black Swan" last night and was a little freaked out still,

but these swans are MUCH nicer. 

The Chocolate Eclair

Stuffed with chocolate whipped cream frosting

and topped with chocolate fondant icing

The Class's Work Together

Tons of delicious whipped cream in different flavors like

Coffee, chocolate, strawberry and praline

St. Honoré Cake

With homemade caramel and whipped cream frosting

For dinner me and my three very enthusiastic friends Mere, Erica & Kayse (there's your shout out guys) made chicken breast stuffed with mozzarella cheese and roasted red peppers and accompanied it with some baked asparagus and rice pilaf. It was delicious and afterwards we finished off the night by watching The Bachelor and eating some of the delicious desserts I brought home from class.

All in all it was a great Monday night. 

Challah Back!

It's week three and I'm already starting to get sick of these ridiculous French names for everything. Today we made brioche which was complicated to learn. By the time we were done I saw it and thought "Ohh, it's a cinnamon roll!" But no, this definitely didn't taste like anything I've ever cracked out of a Pillsbury container. These were absolutely to die for.  There was just the right amount of sweetness in the bread without being overwhelming. Instead of the normal and boring cinnamon raisin flavoring, our group added candied cherries and candied oranges to ours.

The second item we baked was Savarin bread. A Savarin is a rich yeast cake which is always baked in a ring mold and soaked in either rum or Kirsch syrup. We of course chose rum. Once the cake is baked it takes on the consistency of a sponge and literally soaks up an extremely generous amount of the alcohol. We were convinced there was one shot per cake (...at least thats what we were aiming for). These tasted great with a light whipped cream frosting on top. 

Lastly we made Challah bread. While I've heard of it before, I've never actually tasted any. Throughout the entire prepping process it just seemed like any other bread and I didn't understand what was so special about it. The dough rose much quicker than most doughs so we put it in the proofer, then separated it into three equal parts. I braided the dough, and topped it off with a basic egg wash and some poppy seeds. When I finally got a chance to taste some, I couldn't believe how soft it was. It was literally melting in my mouth as I ate it. It was so tasty. If only for a moment, I debated converting religions.

The funniest thing that happened today: As we were prepping our brioche we forgot to add water. We mixed our entire dough and quickly tried to recover from our mistake by throwing some water in and mixing again. Our teacher came over, stared at our finished dough and simple stated "In this classroom, it doesn't matter what religious affiliation you follow, but we all pray to the Pastry Gods here. And you better start praying." The Pastry Gods must really exist because our finished product was one of the best in the class.

Candied Cherry Brioche

Drizzled with Icing

Savarin Bread

Topped with whipped cream frosting and fresh fruit

Challah Bread

Sprinkled with Poppy Seeds

Garlic, Roasted Red Peps & Olive Oil

Today we got to use three of my all-time favorite ingredients in cooking. Garlic, roasted red pepper and of course olive oil. I never thought I would use any of these in pastry school, but we made some amazing breads today with them. The funnest part about making these breads were the different ways we cut and folded them for presentation. For our first bread my group chose a red pepper and olive bread. Ironically, I have much more of a love for eating Italian savory cuisine elements than anything sweet. I just love making sweets. This bread instantly tasted amazing. We shaped ours into a fougasse which is a flattened dough with elongated holes slit in them to make the appearance of tree limbs. The only problem is, ours didn't exactly look like they were supposed to. But, they were delicious. And I know the technique will come eventually. ... I hope !

Roasted Red Pepper & Olive Bread

Dipped in olive oil was HEAVEN!

Parsley & Garlic Bread 

(We even put cheese in some!)

The Class's Final Products

Notice theres some in the shape of a turtle! 

Feeling like Willy Wonka

I was running late to seminar because of the lack of parking spaces. And when I say running late -- I mean running. I sprinted about a half mile down Mass Ave to make it into class about 5 minutes late. I was out of breathe, freezing cold and about to pass out. Then I remembered what we were learning about today. I immediately knew this was going to be on of my favorite classes of the year ... and it was only the second day. Our topic was chocolate. And I've never paid so much attention in a class before.

I was ready to dive right in to some samples, but first we had to be filled in on the history of chocolate and the cocoa bean.

Some fun facts I never knew about chocolate before:
1. Cocoa beans only grow 50 miles north and south of the equator
2. There are three different types of cocoa beans. Criollo, Forestero and Trinitario
3. It is an $18 billion industry in America with premier chocolates only taking up about 8% of that

Then we got to taste some, and it was amazing. We tried one from some small chocolatiers fine work and it was so delicious and so rich. One was Almond & Sea Salt flavored, one had full Espresso Beans in it, and one was 99% cocoa bean -- which means it was like straight chocolate with no added flavorings. It actually reminded me of taking a shot. That's how strong it was.

ALSO our instructor told us about a chocolate factory (yes, they do really exist) and it's right in the town I'm moving to! It's all old fashioned bean to bar chocolate making. I am absolutely planning a trip to go as soon as I'm settled in.

As I drove back home to beat the huge snowstorm, I was hyped up on the caffeine from the chocolate and had no trouble keeping my eyes open.

It was a great class and really made me think of how I want to stop buying Hershey's and Mars chocolate bars and start supporting these amazing smaller chocolate makers.

Lean Breads is a Deceiving Name

On Day 2 we began talking about various lean breads and how to make them. The scariest part thing learning about breads is how much science is behind why they taste so good. Math & science were never and will never be my strong points. We spent hours learning how when you use different types of yeast bacteria (ew) and mix it with either wet or dry ingredients it forms strings of gluten and how baking soda and baking powder act as chemical leavening agents to all recipes. It was sort of exhausting hearing all the information but I could tell it was definitely something we needed to know. My group chose to make a Pullman Loaf first. I had never heard of this before, but when we were finished it pretty much looked like Wonder Bread. Second we made generic hand rolls, and third some baguettes.

The most difficult part of the day was kneading the dough. It took me 45 minutes straight and I have a horrible knot in my shoulder now. Let's just say I won't be making bread on my own anytime soon.

What we created:

The Pullman Loaf

Twisted dough baked in a rectangle pan

Hand Rolls

They tasted just as good as a restaurants

Some of the class's work combined

I'm so upset I forgot to bring Baguettes home!

Quick Beginnings in Quickbreads

On the first day of class, I didn't really get nervous until I was pulling up to the door. I had some unattractive yet extremely comfortable black and white checkered pants on, a white school t-shirt and of course the black chef's clogs. My hair was pulled back & dreading the ugly chefs hat. In fact, I was dreading the hat so much I didn't even take it out of the package. 

I had about 100lbs of chef's supplies on my shoulder (varying from knives to pastry circles to wine openers to giant spatulas) and a 3" folder in my embroidered school bag. I forgot to listen at Orientation what we should and should not bring on the first day so ... I brought everything. 

At first we lectured for two hours and went over the student handbook, then next thing you know we were told to stand up, put our aprons on & start baking. Turns out, the chefs hat is not so bad AND it even fits my huge head. It's not one of those huge tall hats, its more like the small little caps the guy who makes sushi wears. 

High Points of Day 1

- I felt comfortable & pretty confident in the kitchen

- My group's muffins & scones turned out awesome

Low Points of Day 1

- Our cake sunk in on top & didn't look appetizing but we flipped it over & decorated the pretty side

- While mixing various ingredients I wasn't looking and turned the mixer on too high resulting in a POOF noise with my entire body covered in flour and everyone laughing at me.

Whatever ... it tasted good. 

Check out what we made:

 Chocolate Pistachio Cake

A regular & chocolate swirled batter and an outer coating of apricot glaze & crushed pistachios

 Sour Cream Pecan Muffins

With a powdered sugar sprinkle

Raisin Scones (my friend's favorite!) 

The Class's Final Product

Made all pretty for photography purposes of course

Spontaneity

I graduated from college, lived home for eight months (to "save money," though that never happened) and while doing so discovered some pretty important things:

Important Thing #1: I absolutely CANNOT sit still

I kept myself so busy in college I figured moving home would be nice and relaxing. Don't get me wrong, I love everything about my home, family & friends but I just couldn't stand the dormant stage my life was at. Working only a few days a week and sleeping in late sounds like everyones dream, but trust me it gets old quick. I can't believe I ever considered a career which required sitting in an office all day.

Important Thing #2: It's really difficult to get a "big girl job"

In the summer months, I spent most of my time doing what every recent graduate does -- Googling stuff and bitching about how tough it is to get a job. I applied for many jobs, did everything I was supposed to do and guess how many actual interviews I got? Zero. I was at such a point of desperation that when I received a personal e-mail rejection back instead of a generic one I thought "Wow, they must really like me."

And don't get me wrong, I didn't change career paths because I'm a quitter or because I didn't think I was good enough. I actually think I'm pretty kickass and every company who didn't hire me is stupid. It's just ... some things just aren't meant to be ;)

The real reason I changed career paths is because of

Important Thing #3: I'm pretty good at baking & decorating

Like many other millions of Americans out there, I'm addicted to television. In the past year or so I've found myself shifting my viewing interests. I used to only watch ABC Family reruns of early 90s sitcoms but now all I watched was food television. Then one day while watching an episode of Cake Boss I thought "Hmm, baking would be something fun to do while I'm home." I went out and bought a box cake mix (cheating, I know). I didn't have the proper cake pan so I grabbed a cupcake pan. That'll do. And that was how I started decorating my first cupcakes. Even though it took me about 3 hours to do 12 cupcakes, I was hooked. This hobby soon turned into an obsession with not just cupcakes, but all things dessert. Then ... the lightbulb went off! I should try doing this for a living. It allows me to be constantly running around, I can be creative and innovative AND I can talk a lot.

I'm usually not a very spontaneous person yet I applied, two weeks later was accepted and one week after that found myself at the local Work N' Gear buying $90 Chef's Clogs.

So here I am now, about to move two hours away from home and attend a pastry program to become a professional chef.

Follow my sweet journey through this new and exciting adventure.

Or don't -- I'll never know.