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!