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Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Practice makes Perfect they say...

Another beautiful day in sunny Florida.  We should take our baking to the beach!

Practical went great today. I was still very nervous when creating those rosette's. I mean, I can do them, but I want to do them like the chef! laughing... I really do!  Practice makes perfect, I totally understand. You would think these were difficult but they REALLY are not. What will I do when we get into cake decorating?!? Oh my, I don't even want to think of it!  At any rate, I piped out 18 of the Butter Tea Cookies, wasn't happy with them so re-did about 15. At one point I just gave up and put them in the oven. Luckily the 12 I turned in came out the right size and with nice detailing. 50/50 was my grade, so I will take it and continue to practice! These tasted slightly better than the ones I made yesterday because I cooked them a little longer. Practice, practice and more practice.

I then went on to create my biscotti. This process requires a little more patience and extra arm strength. We were folding in all the ingredients instead of using the mixer.  We used the double broiler for the egg and sugar portion.  Lots of whipping while standing, waiting for that egg and sugar creation to get thick and ribbon like. I will have you know I am now ambidextrous!  Goodness that was a lot of whipping, but I got it and then moved on to folding in the dry ingredients. This took EXTRA arm strength since we used pastry flour and it got a lot harder to fold as more flour was added in.  I finished it off by adding the almonds, rolling the dough in sugar and placing it onto the sheet.  It kind of felt like play dough but much softer and much better smelling!  All in all it came out nice. I ended up not removing enough of my sugar from the tray and it slightly overcooked on the bottom. Boo!! Not happy about that. We will bake these for the second time tomorrow and then cut them up.  I will definitely post pics for you. Hopefully we can dip them into chocolate! Yuuummyyyy. Everything tastes better with chocolate. BIG SMILE :-) Cant wait to have these with some coffee.

After class we all grabbed a quick bite, I made a much needed phone call to my darling of a man and then I was off to take my Quiz!  I was super bummed because I missed 3 questions.  I wanted an "A"!! What happened? an 88% is UNacceptable. I beat myself up :) Well, it was our first quiz, so of course it was a little nerve wracking. I second guessed myself on a few of the questions and I should not have done that. My initial answer was correct and I had changed them.  :( Wont be doing that again! Better luck next time, right? 

I hope to have beautiful looking biscotti for you to see tomorrow! In the meantime, bake something up and let me know how it came out! Our first test in Techniques is coming up so I am off to do some studying.

7 comments:

  1. My beautiful ambidextrous perfectionist baker!! You are doing fantabulously!! Good gosh…it’s not about your grade (which is awesome by the way), it’s about learning to make delicious scrumptious goodies for me!! Duh!! Let’s focus for crying out loud!! ;) Amorcito, yes…practice makes perfect, however, mistakes are these glorious opportunities that are there to help us learn!!! Cherish those too!! So…bake on woman…bake on!! I’m hungry! Xoxo :)

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  2. Laughing, how I could I have forgotten! Im in school for YOU! Im throwing in the towel on test taking then ;). Im all about making mistakes and learning from them. :) xo

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  3. Hiiiii
    How long did you bake the butter tea cookies? What temperature? Nice tip about removing the excess sugar from the bottom of tray, never thought of that!!! WOW, I'm already learning toooooooo :) xxx

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  4. Hi darls ( so loving our nickname)... bake those babies at 375. They shouldnt be in there for more than 10 minutes. Once you see them browning slightly on the bottom, they will be done. They are VERY light in color.. if you can push them with your finger, they are done :)

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  5. Congrats, good score. Keep up the good work ;)

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  6. When does your bakery open? Where?? Any events coming up where we can taste these delights?

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  7. I hope the bakery will open soon after finishing school! As for where.. that is up in the air for now ;). Although I do not have events coming up I really look forward to starting a BAKE club or Book club where these treats will be "showcased" ;) Thanks for the GREAT questions Sal! <3

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