Git 'er Done

My mom's boyfriend has a son in the Olympics. He's the driver for the bobsled team. Word on the street says that he could get a gold. woo! The race is this Friday and Saturday so I'm sending the good vibes up to Vancouver where they all are right now. I wanted to go so bad, but it's super expensive. In the meantime I'm here playing referee to her cat and mine while they tear up the house. Go Steve!

Steve Holcomb

NBC Olympics

Classical Cakes

This class was when I really started enjoying myself. Not that I didn't before, but we were doing more complex stuff. It was essentially split up in two different categories: unfilled cakes, and filled cakes. However, I have yet to figure out why they were categorized that way exactly. They all seemed filled to me...

After each section we had a test. My first test (the unfilled category) I had my best test ever. We had to do a frangipane tart, line a tart pan and prebake it, and make tarte tatin. I was done a half hour early, I was really proud of my stuff, and I got a pretty decent grade. If only I could have held on to that with the next test. The last test in this class was the filled category. We had to do a black forest cake, make Italian buttercream and fill, frost, and decorate a cake, and make creme anglaise. Everything was ok except for my black forest cake... I went to transfer it to the cake board for grading and it basically collapsed from too much simple syrup. I can't believe I'm admitting my mistakes for everyone. It was my worst grade in school. boo.

Unfilled cakes below: left to right- puff pastry fruit tart, basque cake (which looks boring, but is actually one of my very favorite things-so good!), chocolate hazelnut cake, custard fruit tart, upside down poppy seed fruit cake, flourless chocolate cake, souffle cake, pear tart, frangipane tart, fruit tart, torte ricotta (really good too), and lemon semolina cake.



Filled cakes below: left to right- 3 cakes, raspberry yogurt cake, cognac cake, grand marnier cake, coating leaves in chocolate for the cognac cake, full cognac cake, buttercream cake, chocolate hazelnut cream cake, black forest cake (not the one I did in class-you can see that it's intact), profiteroles for Gateau St Honore (it was way too messy to bring a slice back and take a pic of it), charlotte, back of the charlotte (showing the polka dotted jaconde sponge-so fun to make), whole black forest cake, whole grand marnier cake, and whole raspberry yogurt cake.


By the way, Gateau St. Honore is a traditional dessert where puff pastry is baked and pate a choux puffs are dipped in caramelized sugar and placed on the outside of the puff pastry. It is filled with creme chibouste (pastry cream lightened with whipped cream) and topped with whipped cream. Traditionally it will have the whipped cream piped like what's shown in the picture. It looks like little sails. This is pretty much what ours looked like when we made it.

Happy Valentine's Day to my Valentine

I hope you find those bears...
I love you.

p tech

So. By the time I got to this class in culinary school, I thought I was getting the hang of it. And by "getting the hang of it", I mean the schedule, the chefs, what's required of you as a student... However, I was pretty far off. This was by far the hardest practical I took throughout the program. I always thought that was weird because it was only the 3rd kitchen class, but it really kicked me in the butt. For this test we had to make eclairs, Paris Brest, a lattice cherry pie, and two vanilla genoise cakes. The cakes didn't have to be filled or anything, but that is completely irrelevant because we had to do it in 3 hours. For our previous tests to that point we had 4. Let me break it down for you so you know how completely head-reeling that was:

For eclairs and paris brest, you have to make pate a choux, but, they each have two different fillings that require pastry cream. So first you make the pastry cream so it can set. Paris brest gets a praline paste filling, and eclairs get chocolate. Add to that that they each have a different element that goes on top. Eclairs get fondant, but you have to make that chocolate. And make sure it's shiny! No dull fondant allowed. Paris Brest get almond slivers and dusted powdered sugar. So, number of elements that go in to only two of the required parts of the test: about 7, but don't forget that there are several steps in between.

For lattice cherry pie, a pie crust needed to be made, then the pie filling. Don't forget though that in order to make a lattice and roll the dough out, it needs to be chilled first. It gets very soft and hard to work with. But, the filling needs to be made first so it can set enough to be put in the shell. This seems to be easy enough, but then you have to watch the oven so the filling doesn't bubble out on to the lattice. You don't want a messy pie.

For the genoise, this was the most daunting. It's main leavener (how it rises) is air. So, you have to warm the eggs and sugar and whip the crap out of it for like 15 minutes in order to get maximum air. But wait! Don't forget all the dry ingredients. Those get mixed in after all the air was incorporated so that means work fast and very efficiently so it doesn't lose it all when the flour gets mixed in. Isn't that awesome?

3 hours? It was so stressful. I got it all done and was only 10 minutes late or so. However my genoise didn't rise quite enough, my cherry filling bubbled out a little bit, my fondant wasn't quite shiny enough, and my pate a choux should have been dried out just a teeny bit more. I can't believe I still came out with a good enough score. At least I got to go to lunch with friends after.



Below: top left, macaroon elephant and sable cookies; top middle, coconut macaroons, almond macaroons, and a bar cookie I can't remember the name; top right, lemon bars, almond biscotti, and pineapple macaroons; bottom left, linzer bars, madeleines, and chocolate covered pretzels; bottom right is The Test-lattice cherry pie, chocolate eclairs, and Paris Brest. If you look closely you can probably see my mistakes :)

I decided after this class to stop stressing so much over practicals... it worked for me.

Also, a fun fact for you. Paris Brest were named from a bicycle race that occurs in France. People ride from the city of Paris, to the town of Brest, and back to Paris. It's the oldest bicycling event still run. The shape of the pastry is supposed to be like a bike wheel. That's why it's round.

Post Script

I was finally able to start organizing all my pictures from culinary school. I found these few that should have been in previous posts. Top left is Panetonne and Monkey Bread that should have been in the previous post; top right is the same with the addition of Gugelhopf; middle left is the cake topper that I made in this post. It's out of pastillage which is a cornstarch type mixture that you can shape and mold, but dries extremely fast. So if you aren't quick, your stuff will break ( did I explain that already?). The roses I made from marzipan. Bottom right is another sugar sculpture from this post. We were learning the pulled method. The tree trunk is cool because it has actual air pockets from using a certain pulling method, and that's why you see the variation in the brown color if you look closely. The bottom left is just a few quick breads: pumpkin raisin, zucchini, and Morning Glory, which is a yummy mixture of carrots, raisins, walnuts, pineapple, apple, and golden raisins. It's one of my favorites.

I've just gotta say

My friend Scott is f.a.m.o.u.s.

Ellen TV

Just look for the guy holding the sign in the airport.