baked custards, molded cookies, and tortes

So this week was baked custards in Pastry Techniques and I was NOT excited about it.  On the list of recipes, the only thing I actually liked was cheesecake.  I have never been a custard person - I'm not big on things that taste like eggs, and I have a weird thing about textures.  Knowing I was going to have to taste quiche, flan, and creme brulee had me waaay less than excited.  And the quiche and flan were everything I thought they would be - yuck!  Ok, I'm sure they were great for people who like those types of things, but they just aren't for me.  But on the bright side, the flan made for some beautiful pictures! 

Creme caramel (flan)

Also, for the first time EVER, I loved the creme brulee!  I have never liked it before, but this one was way creamier, less firm, and I accidentally added too much salt and made it a "salted caramel" creme brulee.  That's what we call putting a spin on a mistake, people.  But no really, it was delicious!  If I make it again, I will add the extra salt on purpose.  I was a little nervous about using the torch (see previous mention of emotionally-scarring kitchen fire) but once I got going it wasn't so bad.  Maybe, just maybe, even a little fun.

We also used the torch again to finish our dessert using the strawberry semifreddo from last week.  This was my favorite part of the day.  We used the meringue nests from an earlier class, then put the frozen semifreddo inside.  Then we piped Swiss meringue all over the top and torched it.  And then ate it!  It was delicious. You can tell by my crazy eyes that I was pretty excited to get to eat this one.

We aren't tasting the cheesecakes until next week, but that's alright, I was pretty full from finishing the entire strawberry dessert.

Thursday in cookes we did molded cookies.  My group did the thumbprints (with raspberry and apricot jam, yum!).  Those and the stroopwafels (filled with caramel ganache, yum!) were my favorite flavors of the week.

In cakes class, we finished our Sacher Torte from last week.  This was a dense chocolate cake (Austrian), assembled in two layers with apricot jam in the middle.  Then we covered the outside in more apricot jam and glazed the whole thing with a dark chocolate glaze.  I liked the bites on the outside with the chocolate glaze, but the bites of just cake were dense and not that great.

We also made and assembled a Dobosh torte (Hungarian).  We made six layers of a thin sponge.  Then we used five of them for the cake, brushing each with simple syrup and then filling with chocolate buttercream.  We covered the whole cake in chocolate buttercream.  Then we used the sixth layer as the garnish.  We made a caramel, poured it on top, cut it into 8 slices, and used it to decorate the top of the cake (with buttercream rosettes as support) in the classic style.  I liked this cake just because I love the chocolate buttercream, but I think my favorite part was the caramelized piece from the top.

I also got to practice some of my piping skills this week.  I worked on shells, cornelli lace, and even tried some handwriting - I obviously ran out of room, the hole in my piping bag was too big.  But hey, that's what practice is for, right?

Oh yeah, one more thing.  Remember how I signed up for Contemporary Cakes for the summer semester?  Well I am sooo excited now, and can't wait to start taking that class.  This semester, that class finishes right before our Basic Cakes class and yesterday they had leftovers of this beauty - a mint chocolate entremet.  It was amazing!! 

baking up a storm!

Well we have had a CRAZY busy week!  It feels like we have been on the  move every day, and I think I have just about baked my hands off!  But it has been a wonderful week full of fun adventures with friends, sweet Valentines, visits from family, school, and a super fun cook-in (the rain forced our cookout indoors but it was fun nonetheless) with out of town friends. 

First, on Valentine's Day, I knew Trev was planning out our day, so I decided to make some muffins for breakfast since we never get to sleep late and eat breakfast together.  Well I guess I jinxed it because as soon as I had the mixer going, he got called into work.  Only a few hours though, so we still had a great day of walking around Leu Gardens in Orlando and lunch at the Ravenous Pig.  So I was left eating muffins alone, but they were still tasty! And I have no idea where the name comes from, it was a recipe I found online, but they were basically cinnamon-sugar muffins.

"French Breakfast" Muffins

 Trev really liked the salted soft caramels I made a couple weeks ago, so I tried to make them again, in heart shapes.  However, something went wrong, because the other ones (I only had one mold of hearts so I made the rest squares) completely melted back into each other the plate.  I'm thinking maybe I didn't cook them long enough.  These ones held their shape better but I did not foresee the combination of the caramel color and the heart shape making them look so much like butts.  Now I know! 

In Pastry Techniques on Wednesday, we were learning stirred custards.  We started by making Creme Anglaise, which we then turned into both a strawberry semifreddo and a creme anglaise buttercream for our yellow cake from week 1.  We broke our first creme anglaise, but then we learned how to repair it!  We remade it anyways, so now we have extra for later.

We were allowed to choose anything from the fridge for our filling, and my group used the master caramel sauce from a couple weeks ago.  Then we used the ladyfingers from meringue week to decorate the outside and made a white chocolate opera glaze to cover the top.  Then we got to try an awesome technique I had never seen before - painting on the top with colored cocoa butter.  That stuff is finicky, but I really want to try this again!  My group did the purple and blue flowers, but I included a picture of the sunshine cake because I helped another group cover up some drips with some freehand stars.  We didn't get to taste this cake because they are all going straight to the bake sale. 

We also made a banana cream pie - not my personal favorite, if you haven't noticed the trend, I am just not a banana lover.  I liked the custard, but could have completely skipped the bananas.  In fact, I might try it again and throw in some blueberries or raspberries instead.

Next we made a chocolate pot de creme, which was my favorite of the day.  It was pretty simple to make, but somehow we broke the custard again.  Luckily it was simple enough to repair with an immersion blender and it was DELICIOUS!  This was by far my favorite recipe of the day - so rich, so creamy, and the absolute solution for any chocolate craving. 

In Cookies class, we made bar cookies.  Each group made two kinds, a one-step and a two-step cookie, except my group - we finished early and made a third recipe.  The ones we made were the Linzer cookie bars, the pecan pie bars, and the peanut butter chocolate chip bars.  My favorites of the day were the raspberry almond bars, the Dutch apple pie bars, and the Linzers. 



Clockwise from top left - Raspberry almond, pecan pie, key lime with coconut crust, Dutch apple pie, summer berry crumble, and lemony almond



Top L->R:  Cafe au lait, fudgy peanut butter, and vintage butterscotch
Middle L->R:  Peanut brittle bars, Linzer cookie bars, Blondies
Top L->R:  Peanut butter chocolate chip, honey nut, and white chocolate cashew

 Then in Cakes class we used the chocolate chiffon cake from last week to assemble a classic Black Forest cake with a filling of Kirsch syrup, cherries, and Creme Chantilly, and a garnish of brandied cherries and chocolate shavings.  I loved the whole thing until I bit into the brandied cherry on top - sooo strong!  It about knocked me over. 

On Friday, we had planned a little cookout to visit with some out-of-town friends and show off our house.  We cooked buffalo and beef burgers, and I made a spinach-artichoke-bacon dip.  Yum! 

One of the best parts of living in Florida is the strawberries, and strawberry season is upon us.  In fact, the Strawberry Festival is in just a few weeks in Plant City.  I was feeling inspired and knew that some of our guests love strawberries as much as I do, but I needed a break from my standard go-to strawberry pie.

I was going to make strawberry pie cupcakes, but then I decided to make it into a cake instead so that I could practice my decorating skills as well as practice cutting the layers, stacking the layers and filling, etc.  I used a white cake, and then filled the layers with strawberry buttercream and my strawberry pie filling.  I had originally planned to ice the cake in the strawberry buttercream also, but I just couldn't get it to the right consistency (and to be completely honest, I had already thrown out the first attempt and just couldn't bring myself to do it a third time!), so I ended up just using Creme Chantilly.  It is so much easier for me to ice the cake with, and I think it ended up giving the cake a lightness it needed.  It might have been just too rich with so much strawberry buttercream. 

Alright, one last thing before my fingers fall off from typing - I registered for summer classes this week and I am so excited.  I think the classes get more exciting each semester.  This summer I am taking Chocolates and Confections, Contemporary Cakes and Desserts, and Food & Beverage Cost Control.  Ok, so maybe cost control isn't as exciting as the first two, but I have to get those boring classroom classes out of the way eventually, so the shorter summer semester is as good a time as any.

back in the swing of things...

I am finally feeling like I am almost caught up on my school work and getting back into my routine.  This week was curds & financiers in Pastry Techniques.  Loved the curds, super unimpressed by the financiers.  I had only ever heard of this tiny cake on Top Chef and other shows, so I figured it was going to be some exciting new technique.  They were invented so that the people on the floor of the stock exchange could eat them without getting their fingers sticky - semi-interesting fact of the day!  The only one I liked was the carrot cake.  My group made the original recipe (see the super-pale ones with almonds on top), and something went wrong because they were not supposed to be albinos and they had no flavor or sweetness at all.  Bummer. 

But the other recipes were very exciting.  The first curd we made was a basic lemon curd cake filling, which we later used as the filling for the moist golden cake we made the first week of class.  Then we topped the cake with the French buttercream (the one I keep saying I don't like because it tastes like straight butter).  Turns out lemon curd is the antidote.  The combination of the three components was delicious!  I'm not even a big yellow cake fan, but this one was great, and the lemon really cut the richness of the buttercream.  We also made another lemon curd that we used to make lemon bars with the pâte sucrée dough, also from the first week.

The last recipe we made was homemade graham crackers.  I think this was my favorite recipe because it was just so cool to make something like this from scratch.  And I actually think I liked the homemade ones better than the storebought.  We made them round so we could use them to make moonpies with the marshmallow from last week, but I could just as easily make them the traditional rectangle shape. 

In cookies class, we cut out our sugar cookies and used our fondant toppers - so exciting!  These pictures are going to look pretty much the same as the ones of just the toppers, but oh well, I am proud of my art work :)  We even made one cookie into a cookie-pop. 

Then we made some more roll-out cookies.  My group used buttered rum dough and then we topped it with caramel ganache and non-pareils.  But we ran out of the caramel ganache before we ran out of cookies, so we also made some with dulce de leche instead.  Those were my favorite, the flavor went really well with the buttered rum.  I also liked the peanut butter sandwiches that another group made, they tasted almost like Girl Scout cookies. 

Finally, in Cakes class, we made a cream cheese icing (my favorite!) to assemble the carrot cake from last week.  Carrot cake is one of my favorites (if you remember, the top tier of our wedding cake was carrot cake, cream cheese icing, and lemon mousse), and it lived up to my expectations - delicious.  I piped about 6 of the carrots in the pictures (not too bad for my first try, but I will definitely need some practice!).  We also made a chocolate chiffon cake that we are going to use to make Black Forest cake next week.  Can't wait!

I also started looking into some outside cake-decorating classes today.  I had thought about signing up for the ones at Michael's, but when I decided to go to baking school, I thought I would learn all the techniques there.  Well, it turns out they don't really teach them in any of my classes, but they just kind of expect you to know how to do them.  I'm getting by, but I am way behind some of my classmates and I need extra practice, so I downloaded the Michael's schedule today and I think I am going to start the beginning classes in March - and hopefully I can talk a couple people into doing it with me!

playing catch up

Well the class I missed in pastry techniques was a doozy - one of the fundamentals I just can't continue without - cooking sugar.  And more importantly (to me), making caramel.  I love caramel, and I have always wanted to learn how to make it, but the idea of cooking sugar has always intimidated me.  If you don't know the story, I set the kitchen of my college apartment on fire trying to teach myself to fry chicken (we're talking full out, cautionary-video grease fire, burnt cabinets, melted microwave, and black ceiling until we moved out), and I have been nervous to try new, dangerous techniques ever since.  I didn't expect any flames, but the super high temperatures of cooking sugar combined with how easy it is to screw up kept me from experimenting at home.  I was holding out to learn how to do it the right way in school...alas, things happen and plans don't always work out. 

Cooling the creamy caramel sauce

But luckily I have some great friends at school, and an extra awesome one took time out of her Saturday to come help me repeat the recipes they did in class while I was gone.  It was surprisingly easy!  Well, I did have someone there to say, "yup, that's what its supposed to look like," etc. - otherwise I would have been lost.  And the caramel was delicious!




Salted Soft Caramels




Almond Nougatine




Caramel Cream Tart - Chocolate Short Dough Crust, layer of Whipped Caramel Cream, layer of Creamy Caramel Sauce, layer of Whipped Caramel Cream, and finally a drizzle of Master Ganache.... WOW!

 So we figured out the hard part - but I guess I wasted all my brain power on the tough stuff, because by the time we were ready to do the easiest part (assemble tarts), I was a hot mess.  I can't even remember all the things I dropped, spilled, etc, but I do have a picture of one of the best moments.  I made sure to stock all the ingredients we needed, and get all of my tools ready, but I forgot one thing.  I didn't have any dry beans to blind-bake the tart crusts.  So we scoured my pantry and decided some dry pasta shells were our best bet (even though they are half of my favorite dish ever and it was painful to part with them).  Bad idea - pasta burns in the oven.  It also wasn't quite heavy enough.  And to make matters worse, some of it spilled out of the parchment into the tart, and I had the bright idea to turn the tart upside down to dump them out onto the counter.  Well, I forgot that tart pans aren't exactly designed that way - so I ended up with one tart completely ruined, upside down on the counter.  Luckily we still had one for each of us and Trev to taste! 

SPLAT.

All in all, it was a great learning experience.  Now I know how to make caramel from scratch and will be doing it often.  I will also invest in some beans for baking immediately.  And adventures in the kitchen are always more fun with a friend, thanks again Elle!

I also had to make up the icebox cookies I missed in cookies class - but no great hardship because they were super yummy and it was Super Bowl Sunday, so I had a good excuse to give them away.  This recipe had very few ingredients and was fairly easy, so if anybody is looking for an impressive and different cookie recipe, let me know!

Cinnamon bun cookies

I also tried out another cookie recipe that I found on Pinterest and was immediately intrigued by.  It had two ingredients - one box of angel food cake mix and 3/4 cup of strawberry jam.  Now I am absolutely not a box cake person, but I happened to have one box of angel food cake mix in the pantry that had been on a really good sale.  And in all honesty, now that I have made it from scratch, that might be the one recipe where I cheat and use a box - it is crazy easy, way cheaper, and the finished product is just as good. 

But I was shocked when I really didn't love these cookies all that much.  Sure they were tasty, but for some reason when I read the description, I thought they were going to be out-of-this-world.  Meh. 


Now I have to get started on all the homework I have been avoiding....

macaroons, cookies, and german chocolate

So I've been dealing with some personal stuff and missed a week of school, so I'm also behind on my blogging.  But for now I'm posting an update on this past week, and as I make up the recipes I missed, I'll catch up from the classes I missed.  This week was egg week in pastry techniques, which means egg foams and meringues.  We made Parisian macaroons, ladyfingers, marshmallows, meringue nests, French (Pâte à bombe based) buttercream, and Italian buttercream.  Everything but the macaroons and the French buttercream are being saved to use another week, so those were the only ones we got to taste.  By itself, this buttercream is waaay too buttery for me (we shared the mixer with two other groups and we used NINE POUNDS of butter total), but when we filled the macaroons with it, it was pretty tasty.  And each group made a different color of macaroons, which made for some very pretty pictures!

Then in Cookies class, we made biscotti and we practiced decorating cookies two different ways.  The first was using royal icing to make flow decorations - I obviously need some practice here, but this was my first time, so oh well.

Different kinds of biscotti - Italian, banana nut, chocolate coconut, creamy orange and white chocolate, peanut butter, snickerdoodle, and lemon almond.

The next method was with rolled buttercream fondant.  I had never done this either, and I had a lot of fun with it.  I got a little carried away with my South Carolina cookie cutter and my (almost) Clemson colors, which no one else in the class really got, but I loved the ones I made (top left picture).  Later we will cut out sugar cookies in the same shapes and bake them with these decorations on top.  We ran out of time, but we were allowed to take the extra home and practice making more if we wanted (bottom left picture).  Hubby even helped - see the beautiful paisley and the zombie apocalypse before-and-after man. 

And in Cakes class we made a delicious German chocolate cake using a high-ratio chocolate cake, German chocolate frosting, and a chocolate Pâte à bombe buttercream.  This was the same buttercream that I wasn't crazy about in Pastry class, but with the addition of some melted chocolate, it was AH-MAZING!  Best chocolate icing I have ever had, by a mile.  My cake decorating skills obviously need some work, but hey, that's what school is for, right?  I will admit it is a little intimidating to be in the station right across from the girl who decorates cakes for a living... oh well, maybe it will serve as motivation to get better.



I'm almost done making all the recipes I missed, so I should have another post ready soon...and it's fun stuff - cooking sugar and making caramel from scratch!