And I present you..... The Sweet Table

Today was our last day in Techniques and Safety and Sanitation.  I passed the state exam I took yesterday! :) Yippee!!

We also had our sweet table presentation today in techniques this morning.  I think our presentation was SPECTACULAR.  Unfortunately we got a little ahead of ourselves with the "creativity" and yes, we were docked many a point. Boo Hoo.  I didn't let that upset me though because honestly, everyone did a really awesome job. Check it out for yourselves :) That's me and my crazy hat! laughing... oh geeze...It's all in the name of sharing I guess ;)

I will leave you with the individual pic's of the table so you can give me your opinions.  :) I enjoyed the time in this class and we will be learning to make breads this next coming 6 weeks!  Hurray!  After "Spring Break" of course. I still cant believe I get a Spring Break! haha.. wow, its still surreal sometimes.  But,  I can not wait to make bread! Yummy..yummy, yummy! I am soo going to enjoy that class.

Thank you guys again, so very  much,  for reading and keeping up with me. I hope to see you all back here on April 4th!

Here are the pics:

 

And for the fun of it, here is a pic of me and the chef :) 

Enjoy your week everyone!



One day to go!

One more day and we will be done with our 6 week Basic Techniques course. I can't wait to get to the next class and take it up a level. We did learn a lot in this class. Every day we learned to create something new, something some of us didn't even know existed!  I learned that something as basic as a cookie ISN'T easy to make if you don't do it in the right order and using thte correct method.  Baking really is a science, a lot goes on behind the scenes. ;) Each ingredient has its intended use.  If you dont mix them correctly or in the right order, your results could be disastrous.

Today was a good day though. I nailed my little IceBox cookies. Those are really detail oriented cookies and I can not imagine anyone making these at a bakery every day.  But if you want to practice something that requires many a step, make these little guys!  Just have patience :-).  Mine expanded in the oven and I wasnt too crazy about that, but overall, they came out nice.  Thank goodness my buddy Rhett mentioned it to me before going into the oven so that I could separate the cookies even more.   All in all, everyone did an awesome job and tomorrow we have just a few finishing touches and decorations to do but we are ready to present our Sweet Table! Very exciting. 

We had our final in techniques today and I honestly have no clue how I did on it. I didnt know a bunch of the answers so I will just wait and see. I did pass my State Exam for our Safety and Sanitation class. I was mega nervous, it wasnt the easiest exam either. It just goes to show, you think you know something and then you take a test! laughing... but isnt that just life? I am happy I passed and I am now ready to turn in our Techniques Notebook!  Our last piece of the puzzle.

I will catch you back here tomorrow everyone! I hope you had a beautiful day.

Ta Ta for now..

Testing our limits

But OF COURSE both chef's scheduled our final exams on the same day, dangling Thursday out there like a little carrot. We wouldn't have it any other way ;).  So tonight is a study  night.  So fun! Yes, that's pure sarcasm.

Today was crazy for me. I am creating these wrapped, checkered Ice Box Cookies for our sweet table and they are driving me insane!!!! Thank goodness Mikal stepped in and helped me cut them because what I really wanted to do was throw them against the wall. (Big Smiles). Man, that would have felt so good. Instead, we did them correctly (wink).  Hey, we all have to have our moments don't we?  That being said, we are doing phenomenally. Our Eclairs and Cream Puffs came out looking beautiful. We are pretty  much prepped so that we can finish everything tomorrow and fill and decorate the fruit tarts Thursday morning. 

I'm sure my classmates are ready to give me the boot! ha.. but we all know this is such a big part of our grade.  We are all on pins and needles. Teetering from happy to grumpy to frustrated to insane! :) Love it!  Its fun though.. its great to work at your own pace and get help or give help. Its a camaraderie that I enjoy being a part of.  I took a quick picture of the classroom for those of you have not seen it...this is my table and Christine here is going to give me a look tomorrow since she made her debut on my site! laughing.. Oh boy! Cant wait to hear it. 



So I bid you adieu. I am off to study and make a list of the preparations for tomorrow. And then I am on the best countdown ever to a fun filled Spring Break with my sweetness!

Good night everyone and I will see you here tomorrow!

Tootles....

Prepping for our Sweet Table

Hi guys! I hope you had a nice weekend. It was beautiful out here in Florida. 90 degree's! It was a bit short, but aren't they always. 

Good news first :)  I got a 100 on my conversions test! Yeay, yippee :) :) After our quiz we went straight into prepping for our sweet table that is set for this Thursday.  We have quite a few things going on. Here is what needs to be done so that you guys can enjoy it all come 11:00 a.m  :) .

Sweet Table List

Eclairs
Cream Puffs
Butter Tea Cookies
Petit Fours
Baklava
Macaroons
Fruit Tarts
Ice Box Cookies
Chocolate Chip Cookies
Peanut Butter Cookies

Yummy :) I hope some of you can make it out.  We got quite a few things done today and a few things we need to re-make so they come out closer to perfect. :)  Consistency is the key and will be one of the biggest parts of our grade.  I think its all going to come out amazing and I look forward to the next couple of days.

Today marks our 6th week in class, which means these will be my last few journals until April 4th! Thursday is also our last day of class.  I am excited for Spring Break because I get to spend time with my sweetheart.  :) I do look forward to starting our second 6 week course though. For now, I will be focusing on the sweet table and will let you know how much gets done tomorrow and what else is to be made on Wednesday. Wish us luck!

Enjoy your evening and I hope to see you back here tomorrow :) Thank you guys so much for reading and for taking this journey with me! Cant wait for the next 6 :)

A cookie kind of Friday.......

Happy Friday! I am so glad it is here and that I can hopefully sleep in tomorrow!! We had a free day today so we were able to create whatever we wanted. I attempted to make a new batch of chocolate chip cookies, but they did not come out the way I wanted them to.  They taste great but I don't like the way they look. :(

I cant even see the chocolate chips! ;) I was frustrated with these because I forgot to pat them down after I scooped them onto the cookie tray. Ugghh!! Trial and Error. Me No likey! ;) But I know I have to post the good and the bad, so well... there you have them!

I then made peanut butter cookies because we didn't get a chance to make these when we first started class.  I LOVE peanut butter so I was anxious.  Here they are, Ta da!

Another FAIL! laughing....These taste very good, but they are too big and too thin!! Wow, can you tell I was frustrated today? I can't bake when I am frustrated and bothered, so today was shot no matter what I tried to make.  I can prove it even further by letting you in on a little secret.  After I made the peanut butter cookies, I ATTEMPTED to practice my piping skills and crossed the line when i decided to create roses with icing .  Yea.. I don't even have words to tell you what they looked like. They definitely didn't look like roses is all I can tell you.  I think my brain just needs a break. :-) (yea, whatever makes me feel better, right?) ;) I will re-make both of these cookies again in the very near future and when they come out looking beautiful, I will shoot you the recipe's.  Consistency is the key and I really have to get that right no matter what. If they taste good and are all different shapes, it's not going to cut it. Maybe at the house it will, but for my future business it won't. So I will practice until perfect. I  know that saying wasn't made up for no reason.

BUT I did get a 96 on my test today! Yippeee... I will admit, I was totally bummed because I didn't get a 100%. And it was so silly too! I read the question wrong! When I re-read it, I knew the answer immediately so I was even more mad at myself.. but an  "A" is an "A" as my classmate Trish said, so i will stop complaining. I ended up missing 3 in my techniques test which is way better than what I thought I was going to get.. whew! Thank goodness!

I hope you enjoy your weekend.  I can't wait to check out the Winter Park Arts festival.  Tonight I am going to relax with some wine and cheese and listen to some live jazz and tomorrow I am going to check out all the art. If you are around, head on out, its going to be a beautiful day!  See you back here come Monday!

Take good care of yourselves!

Tea time and Petit Fours

Happy St. Patrick's Day everyone. Hopefully no one got pinched. Although, I must say, I never really understood the entire pinching thing. It's so NOT nice...I thought more people were going to wear Green at school, but that's a Negative.  Triple thumbs down.  We had Spirit week and no one at  LCB had any spirit! I include myself in this category. I had the want, but no execution :( Seriously! I didn't see one student wear a crazy hat on 'Crazy Hat Day'.. no one wore Crazy Pants on 'Crazy Pants Day'.. with the exception of some Chef's.. :) Anyhow, lets move on to more important matters....SWEETS!!

And SWEET they are! Wow... you need a gallon of water for every one of these. (wink) Way too sweet for my liking, and like I mentioned, sweet tooth used to be my middle name. These are a bit on the labor intensive side too! The recipe to make the almond cake is quite simple as well as putting them together.  On the other hand, getting the traditional fondant on these is a bit time consuming and requires patience for perfection. :) You want the glaze to fall just right, all the way down, and cover your one inch of yumminess.  It was cool though!! I got the hang of it and enjoyed the process. These are going to be part of our Sweet Table next week for the buffet so maybe I will volunteer to create these.   Oh!! If you want to come to LCB, the buffet is going to start at 11:00. If you want further details, please let me know :). I would LOVE to see you there.

Back to the tasty petit's. ( is that a word??) It is now! :) They are made of an almond cake and have a raspberry jam in the center. I know, raspberry AGAIN. I wanted to use a different flavor but I couldn't find any and when you have to cut and create these, you don't waste time looking for jam.  Well, I guess you could, but I didn't. Sorry tasters! More Raspberry for you. Woo Hoo!!  I happen to like it. It's not a super sweet jam and has a nice acidic taste to it.  Once created and cut, they are dipped into fondant and then left to dry on a grid rack so you can cool and decorate. Those are my "wanna-be" roses with some chocolate squiggles in the picture above. Again, when it comes to creativity, I NEED TO TAKE A CLASS. I sure hope that class comes sooner rather than later.

My partner made our Madeleine's today because she really wasn't into the petit four creation with the chaos of having to share one little bowl of fondant for 4 people.  It was super sweet of her to make these. The Chef said they came out excellent and they sure did. Right out of the oven these tasted awesome. She put just the right amount of batter into the Madeleine molds and here is the result:

I'm off to study for my Food and Sanitation 14 chapter test! Wish me luck as today's test in technique's kind of threw me for a loop. I studied the methods, but not particularly the methods used in class, duh!!  So I will see what happens when we get those results tomorrow. I'm afraid!  She basically looked at us all at the end of class and shook her head no.  Hopefully we will get points for Creative Answers! Laughing...

Enjoy the rest of your St. Patty's day! Have fun but definitely don't drink and drive!! Call your designated driver. I cant help it, its the maternal part of me.  I want to see you back here tomorrow for Friday FUN-day too :) 

Good night to you..

The Ever Soo Scrumptious Black Forest Torte

Terrific Tuesday :) Corny, I know...but what is a girl to do if she's always in a jovial mood :)

This little German beauty was a production!!  I learned today that Black Forest Torte comes from Germany. So I hope I did the German's justice. :)  To create it, we used the Devil's Food Cake from the other day, we brushed it with Cherry syrup, filled it with Chantilly Cream and cherries and then topped it off with more cream and chocolate flakes on the side as decoration. We each had two to make and I was successful in finishing both while running out of time! Again!! If I haven't figured out yet that cakes are time consuming, then sheesh, bring on the third! It would sink right on in :)

Quick Tip:  To make Chantilly Cream for your cakes, simply take a quart of heavy cream and 4-5 oz of sugar and whip until ready! When using whipped cream like this, try to eat your creation within a day or two as it tends to not hold up as well and absorbs odors quickly.

We will be half way through the week come tomorrow. I don't want the week to end! Tomorrow we will be creating Petit Fours and my partner and I will be creating Madeleine cookies since time did not allow today. I am unfortunately going to cut the blog short tonight as I have some major studying to do! We have a quiz in Techniques tomorrow and then a 14 chapter test come Friday for our sanitation class. Lots and lots to cover, plus I must get a little work out in. All this cakes means EXTRA work outs :) I don't mind, I have two partners in crime that come along with me,  so it makes for an outing! Looove outings, especially if we get to wear cute outfits!

Good night everyone! Enjoy your evening. I leave you with my original creation :)

Chifon Cake with Swiss Buttercream and Raspberry filling :)

Tuesday already! Hi everyone. Hope you had an amazing day today.  We had a good o' time in class decorating our Chiffon cakes. We learned how to take the top off the cakes, cut them into thirds and fill them.  We were then asked to pipe.  Yea, lets talk about that for a second. I don't pipe. I don't know how to pipe. I have never taken a piping class. I have never piped.. I think you get the picture. ;) I just kept asking myself, how am I supposed to practice piping if I don't know how to pipe? Well, I didn't practice and the result of this is the picture above. I wish I would have decorated it nicer! We learn to pipe in our Cake Decorating Course but that's not for 12-24 weeks or so. :(  For now, this was all I could do.  We were supposed to create our Devil's Food Cake as well today but we ran out of time again! Boy, cakes sure are time consuming.  I started my second cake because I didn't want it sitting there naked next to the iced up beauty,  but I did not get to finish it. I filled it with a mix of the buttercream and raspberry.



The cakes are really good. Although I didn't think I liked the texture when it first came out, it tastes much better with the Swiss  Buttercream and raspberry filling.  I brought them home and my family liked it. :) Yippee!!  Some loved it in its entirety and some liked the cake but not the icing... It sure is hard to please the masses! ha ha.. but I love the feedback because I want to see which cakes and pastries are most enjoyed so I have an insight on what my future bakery will create. So thank you Noemi and Cindy for your input!

Here is what the cake looks like on the inside after cutting a slice :)

If you want to practice your piping skills, here is a Buttercream recipe to practice with:

Simple Buttercream Recipe:

Ingredients:

4 oz of butter

2 oz of shortening

10 oz of confectioners sugar

.75oz of egg whites

1) Cream the butter, shortening and sugar until its well blended in your mixer

2) Add the egg whites and mix at medium speed to start and then put it on high speed

Put a piece of wax paper out or whatever you have in the drawer, use your tips, fill your piping bag and try to make some fun creations! I will be doing the same! If I make anything worth showing, I will post it and let you know how to do it. I am going to start with making a rose.. Wish me luck!

See you tomorrow!

Nearing the end and running out of time!

Always grateful for another week.  I hope you had a nice weekend and Monday. It was a bit chilly this morning but then those rays came out to make it mighty beautiful. Very thankful =)

We had a pretty good day in class today. Not super stressed but we worked the entire day on the creation of the Devil's food cakes.  We each made two of them along with a big batch of Swiss Buttercream. We were going to use that to decorate, fill and take home our Chiffon cakes, but time did not allow. I give that a BIG thumbs down. Boo!! Actually, double boo since now I will have to carry around 4 cake containers tomorrow! Ay yayay.  4 cakes isn't a bad thing, it just means my peeps will be taking these to work. Cake tasting for everyone!  Yippeee! I remember the days of sitting at a desk for 8 hours with a computer screen in my face. All day EVERY day. Cake always made for a brighter afternoon. :) All I had to do was walk over to Epicure. Loved it!

So no cute pictures to portray today, sorry. Tomorrow I will hopefully photograph a few cakes for you. It's spirit week too!  We are allowed to wear a crazy hat tomorrow if we choose. I choose! :)  I have a few so hopefully I will remember to grab it on my way out. I don't enjoy the hats we wear now, I cant imagine enjoying a crazy one either. ;) but it will be nice to see a splash of color for a change.  Sheesh, cant they give a girl just a LITTLE bit of cute fashion in this outfit? Just a little, that's all I ask....( dreaming, wishing and crossing all my fingers and toes).

At the end of class, we received our instructions for the pastry buffet we will be putting out the end of next week. Its hard to believe we are 4 weeks into the program. We have learned a lot and all of those skills will be showcased next week. We are to work in groups of 5 which were randomly selected by the Chef.  It will be quite a challenge to create a dozen or more of 12 different pastries, plate them and pray that they come out delicious. Yes, things can and will go wrong but I am confident we will have an excellent table displayed. The Chef did mention that guests could come in for it. I will double check for ya to make sure and get back to you with a date and time! 

Ok darlings, off I go to study for yet another quiz. They are never ending. I hope to see you back here tomorrow! Have a nice relaxing night!

See you very soon,

Me :)

Baklava for the weekend...

I would normally say "Happy Friday everyone" but with the tragic occurrence in Japan today, its hard to be happy.  My thoughts and prayers are with them and hoping no further damages or casualties occur. :(

I don't want to cut the blog short so I will continue with the journey of the day. We made Chiffon cake today in class. We will decorate them on Monday. The cakes were ultra spongy. I tasted the chef's impeccable production but wasn't THAT crazy about the texture or taste. Others in the class LOVED it. Again, its all about preferences.  :)  I like moist cakes myself.  The cakes looked amazing and I look forward to filling them inside, icing and decorating it come Monday. I am very excited because we make Devil's Food Cake Monday from scratch! Deeeelicious! I saw a few of these cakes from other classes being baked and they smelled to-die-for.  I think she said that we get to make two! I am happy about that because I have a lot of chocolate lovers in my family so I need to make sure I can cut that baby up and share!

Ok, so the blog is about Baklava and not cake. :) We took this out of the cooler today after the syrup was sucked up by all the Baklava. I did taste it and something about the syrup is off but I just cant put my finger on it. I am not sure if it is the cloves or the lemon. Somewhere along the way the measurements must have been off. :( The baklava should definitely have some lemon flavor in it, normally the zest of a lemon.. but like I said, I can not pin point it and Im sure its our error. But you create one and judge yourself !  A few of you have asked me for the recipe. I  have checked others online and they are pretty much the same.

To make the Pastry:

Phyllo dough - 1 box

Walnuts that are chopped - 1 lb

Sugar - 2 oz

Cinnamon - 1 tsp

Cloves- 1/2 tsp

Melted Butter - 1 cup

For the Syrup:

Sugar - 1 1/2 cups

Water - 1 cup

Honey - 1/2 Cup

Zest of a lemon

Cinnamon Stick - 1

Oven should be set at 350 degrees F

Ok Angela darling, here is a step by step for you :)

Unfold your phyllo dough and cover it with a damp cloth

Combine your chopped nuts, sugar, cinnamon and cloves in a bowl

Butter the bottom and the sides of the pan you will be using to start building your Baklava

Separate the first sheet of your phyllo dough, butter it with your brush. (don't over saturate) just dab

** if your dough is too big, you can either cut the over-extended pieces off or just fold them into a square in your pan and dab with butter**

Lay your 2nd sheet and dab with butter. Do this 4 more times so that you have a nice base of 6 sheets that are buttered (layered)

Add enough of your walnut mixture on top of your 6th sheet, enough for it to cover the surface

Add 3 sheets of individually buttered phyllo

Add the mixture again as you did above

Add 3 additional sheets of individually buttered phyllo

Add your last layer of walnut mixture

Add 5 sheets of phyllo to the top, leaving the top buttered

Cut away any extra dough that may be falling over the pan  

Place your hand in water and shake the drops onto the top of the Baklava ( this is done so the sheets don't fly up in the oven when baking)

Chill your Baklava for 5 minutes or so

Cut the Baklava into squares, and then cut diagonally in each square to make triangles

Bake in the oven at 350 degrees F for about an hour...

While that bakes commence making the Syrup that will be poured over the Baklava

Bring all the syrup ingredients to a boil and then let it simmer for 5-10 minutes.

Cool it down

When your pastry is brownish on top and done, pour the syrup over its entirety and let it stand overnight so it can soak up the syrup

I hope you enjoy making this Mediterranean beauty! It isn't difficult at all, you just need to have time to make it. This makes about 24 triangles or 12 squares.

PLEASE let me know if you make it and share your results of love or dislike.. I am intrigued!! AND if you have a favorite recipe that you would like to share, send it along! I will create it, taste it and blog about it!

Have a BEAUTIFUL weekend! 

I'll catch you back here on Monday...

Linda

Phyllo, Filo or Fillo, call it what ya want the result is Baklava!

Honestly, how can school not be fun when you make the most delicious desserts! I know not too many people like Baklava but I surely do.  Thank the Mediterraneans! I will admit, I stopped eating it for a while because it was so super sweet and somewhere along the way, I lost a bit of my sweet tooth. Booo :(  thumbs down all the way. I blame myself.  I used to ALWAYS say,  "I wish I didn't have such a sweet tooth." Well, I guess you have to watch what you wish for.

That doesn't mean I wont be digging my canines into this tomorrow. :) Now, now, I have to taste it FOR YOU so you can go and make it yourself! Wink. So I cant wait, cant wait, cant wait :) I will post way better pics for you tomorrow and tell ya what I think.  It's currently in the below container back in the cooler at LCB soaking up all that sugar-mixture-loveliness that we poured over it after it came out of the oven. I always thought this was difficult to make, I figured it had to be since I hardly saw it sold in bakeries. BUT, its just very time consuming.  Easy and fun to do.

Now, I know what you are saying.  This doesn't look like Baklava. I agree! My partner and I forgot to sprinkle it with a little water before baking it so our Phyllo lifted when it was baking. We all must make mistakes, right? Its part of the process.  But, I will have you know we were re-assured that it would not affect the flavor, so I was very happy after that. :) It doesn't take much, I know. My classmate Christine looked at me today and even said, "you are always happy...".  Hmm, maybe not always, but 98% of the time I am. :)

We wrapped this up and put it in the cooler and then with the extra phyllo we made the above pictured pastry triangles. One is filled with pepperoni and cheese and the other with cherry filling. I took a quick picture because I ate those for lunch! So sorry, no cute picture for you today. :)

Baklava, super easy to make:

Phyllo dough

Melted butter

chopped walnuts, cloves, cinnamon and sugar mixed

You create this in your pan in that order... 4 sheets or so of the phyllo that are buttered down, place your walnut mixture on top of those, add the next 4 sheets, butter down, etc. etc. Cool for a few minutes, then sprinkle with a little bit of water so your phyllo isnt going everywhere in the oven. They are very thin pieces of dough.  Bake and then pour your syrup mixture on top after it is completely baked.

Fresh, fun and easy. I prefer Baklava made with pistachio's but sheesh, those suckers are pricey.  You should totally make this at home. Makes for a great treat to have with tea :)

I will see you guys here tomorrow. Although its a little rainy, its still a beautiful evening so enjoy, enjoy!

Bake with  you soon!

Moi ( seeee I'm learning French!! ) Hope I spelled it right ;)

Pate Sucree & Linzer Fruit Tarts, Cookies and Pies

Hello Hello Everyone.  These beautiful days we are having are quite refreshing. It makes creating these tarts and pie's extra fun!  We had quite a lot to do today. We received a few demo's from the chef. She started off with rolling out the Pate Sucree and then placing it in our rectangle tart tray. I thought we were making little personal ones but we instead created one great big one. Bigger is Always better! There is more to go around. :)I did create a mini one, the one you see up above.  Its the baby of the bunch.  Here is the rectangular tart I made:

Aww isn't SHE cute :) I love berries so I made sure mine had a ton of them and the Kiwi made for an excellent splash of color.  We then watched the chef demo a Raspberry Linzer Tart.  I didn't make a big one, my partner did, but I made the little one that is next to my mini tart in the first picture. :)  I cant wait to taste it. It is filled with Raspberry cream.  With the leftover dough we all got to make cookies! Those were fun to create. We used our cookie cutters for the first time.  I made a batch of each and filled them up with the raspberry as well.  I cut out little stars and moons from the top so you can see the raspberry cream inside.  Let me know if you like how they look! And if you get to taste them, let me know what you think! Here is the sneak peak........

Tomorrow we will prep for apple strudel's and turnover's. I am itching to get into cakes soo bad! But I will be patient, it will come in its due time. :)

I'm cutting this a little short tonight. I don't have as much to read or study for so I am going to take a mini breaky break! Thank you all so much for tuning in and reading and letting me know your feedback! I love it!

Enjoy your evening and I will be back again tomorrow.

Good night everyone,

Linda

Crepes souffle Grand Marnier recipe from the Financial Times

Hello everyone!

It's an end to another beautiful day outside and the week is moving right along. 

We had a Pastry Cream Practical this morning which the Chef will grade tomorrow before we put it into our fruit tart creations :).  Yummy, I love anything with fruit!  We then prepped and made a Pate Sucree. (wink) I like saying that. I may want to take French when I am done with Baking and Pastry school, just so I can say these lovely names correctly! Oh wait, never mind, I have a very dear friend who is slowly becoming a French Pro and Im absolutely sure she will help me with the pronunciation! :)

So yea, back to baking. :)  Where was I? Pastry Cream Practical, creation of the Pate Scuree.... oh and we also made Linzer Dough.  What is this you may ask? I dont know! :) Just kidding. Linzer dough as well as Pate Sucree are going to serve as our tart dough's.  If you make too much of it, you can them make them into cookies. Who doesnt like a cookie!  So no pictures today because I do not have a finished product for you. BUT, I do have a recipe for ya that my pops gave me from the Financial Times. They always post the most interesting facts about food and wine and all kinds of fun stuff. I must share it cuz it sounds divine.

In the Food & Drink section of the March 5, 2011 Financial Times Newspaper, Chef Rowley Leigh writes of the 'pancake' not being as accesible in restaurants as it once use to be. (He is from the UK) :) I can agree with him that in todays fast-paced world, most lose that special touch of having something prepped nice and fresh for you.  So if you find yourself on a lazy Saturday morning, as I used to with my sweetness, :) Take the time to make this puppy. The directions seem like its a long process but I think it will be worth it! 

They have a slideshow for you if you want to check it out:  www.ft.com/leigh to help you walk through it.

Crepes Soufflees Grand Marnier ( Exact Recipe as given in the Financial Times)

Basic Pancake Batter

• 200g Plain Flour
• 2 Whole Eggs + 2 egg yolk
• 300ml of Milk
• 100ml of Water
• 1 tsp sugar
• grated zest of a lemon
• 3 tbs cooled melted butter

For the Souffle and carmelised oranges:

• 3 oranges
• 200ml milk
• 4 egg yolks
• 150g caster sugar
• 30g plain flour
• 1 tsp fecule (potato starch) or cornflour
• 6 egg whites
• 2 tbs Grand Marnier

1. Sift the flour and pinch of salt into a bowl and beat in the eggs, milk, and water. Continue beating until it forms a smooth batter, then add the sugar and grated zest of the lemon and slowly stir in the melted butter.Leave to rest for half an hour.
2. Heat a frying pan and add a tiny film of oil -any excess should be poured out- or brush with a little softened butter.  Pour a small quantity of the batter into the pan and tilt from side to side until the batter covers the surface. If the batter is slow to spread, dillute it with a little more milk or water. Let the pancake cook for a minute, until it is a good spotted gold and brown color and then loosen it at the edges with a palette knife before turning or tossing in the pan. After another half a minute, slide the pancake out of the pan. Make seven more pancakes, stacking one on top of the other.
3. Finely grate the zest of one of the oranges and add to the milk in a small saucepan and bring to a simmer. Whisk together the egg yolks and 50g of the sugar in a bowl and then add the flour and potato starch,sifted together.  Pour the mixture into the pan and bring back to the boil, whisking constantly. Continute to cook and whisk the mixture for a good couple of minutes more before pouring into a bowl.  Dust the surface with icing sugar and cover with a film of buttered paper or cling film and leave to cool.
4. Peel the zest of the two remaining oranges, trim away any pith and cut into very thin strips. Place in a small pan of cold water, bring to a boil, drain and refresh in cold water. Add another 50g of sugar to the pan with 100ml of cold water and bring to a simmer. Add the orange zest and poach gently until tender and candied in the liquor. Lift it out of the syrup to drain.
5. Remove the pith from the oranges to reveal the flesh and remove the segments from between the walls of the pith. Bring the syrup in which the zest was cooked to a rolling boil and reduce until it begins to carmelise. As it browns, drop in the orange segments and remove from the heat.
6. Put the egg whites into a large, preferabley metal bowl with a pinch of salt and whisk, slowly at first, building up momentum and adding half the remaining sugar in a slow stream until the egg whites are stiff and glossy.  Sitr in the rest of the sugar. In a separate large bowl, whisk togethe the thick souffle base and the Grand Marnier to make a smooth paste. Add about a fifth of the beaten egg whites and whisk vigorously. Add the remaining whites and very gently fold in to produce a light and airy mixture.
7. Place a large spoonful of the mixture on to a quadrant of each pancake.  Fold each in half, then fold again and place on a sheet of greaseproof paper on an oven tray. Bake theh crepes (the folded crepes will keep for up to an hour in the fridge before baking) in a meduim hot oven, 180 C, for 12-15 minutes until they are puffed up and feel reasonably firm in the middle. Dust with icing sugar and serve with orange segments in their caramel sauce, with a little candied zest as decoration.

Enjoy everyone! And i will see you back here tomorrow!

** Recipe from: the Food & Drink section of the March 5, 2011 Financial Times Newspaper**

Cheesecake Please with a CHERRY on top!

Oh its so lovely. I don't even want to cut into it. But of course, my friend Cindy got to my house before I did. When you are me, and you hear her DAILY asking when Cheesecake day is, you just go straight in and cut the cheesecake into pieces, just like the chef taught you. :)  You don't wait, you don't pass go, and you don't even get to collect the 200.  Honestly! Where is the prize in all of this? ;) The prize is most definitely the end result! It tastes so very good, super silky and smooth.  We had a choice of making Graham cracker or Oreo crusts and they both turned out lovely.  I chose Graham Cracker because I love Classics!  Since the Cheesecake was dedicated to Cindy, I made it a Cherry topping cake vs a Chocolate topping. You can pretty much put any topping you'd like or decoration. A few people in the class did some cute designs with their chocolate. Very innovative. I love Cherry Cheesecake myself so it was a win win situation.

Quick Tip of the day: A cheesecake is ready once you see it souffle up!  Let it cool in the fridge and decorate to your liking.

Catch you guys tomorrow! Ohhh and I passed my test with a 98 :-) Wooo Hoooo getting closer to that 100%!! Crossing all fingers.

A custard kind of ending..

Hello Friday and Hello Weekend :)

Today was the day for Crème's and Custards. We have chocolate Pots de Crème , gelatin loveliness called Panna Cotta ( this one does not require egg), caramel flowing flan and then the one and only, Crème brûlée.  :)  I wont lie, I was afraid of the torch in the beginning but once I got the hang of it, oh boy, I got a little torch crazy. This is what happens when you buy your own torch. Timid in class, Crazy at home.

This is my Crème brûlée:

Quick Tip for ya:  Any liquid that is thickened by the coagulation of egg is a custard my friends. You would be heating your liquids and then tempering them into your egg and sugar mix. I am a Vanilla lover so I throw in a little extra into my mix.  Of course, as you all now know, I can not take down anything white in custard form, so the vanilla helps a bit :)

Here is the Chocolate Pots De Crème. Chef made hers with a coffee flavoring that was AMAZING, I wish I would have done that. Mine is chocolate, but delicious nonetheless.

Below is the Panna Cotta. We got to use the Gelatin sheets for this creation.  You place them into a bowl of cold water and they expand and get jelly :). They are then added to your warmed milk creation. Once the mixture cools, you get something that looks like this:

I added some Cherry flavoring to it for color and extra taste.. again, the WHITE!  I still cant take it down. :( But the vanilla flavor is yummy.

And last but definitely not least is the Flan. The caramel is my favorite part as it flows down the flan when you mold it onto a plate. Check it out for yourselves:

I hope you guys have an amazing weekend. I really am super duper happy every day that I am in class. I have the best classmates. We all work together and it really is a team effort. I think I got really lucky. I was glad to find out that I will be with them from beginning to end. Everyone adds their own flavor to things, so its really fun.

I will catch you guys on Monday! I will have an amazing Cheesecake to show you. Super easy to make and I will let you know how!

Be Safe Out There!

Crazy for Custards

Egg, egg and more egg! Oh, and lets not forget the heavy cream and carmelized sugar.. Mmmmm , no one said it was nutritious. :-)

We made Flan today, as well as Pots de Creme and Panna Cotta. I don't  have finished product pictures for you today  because we are yet to finish up our Creme Brulee from the other day.  Tomorrow will be a Creamy kind of day. LOVE!  Many pics to come Friday, I promise.

Since we prepped the flan today I put a few images of that for you. You start by creating your caramel which will sit on the bottoms of your ramekins. To make, just add an ounce of water to your sugar, let it boil and turn brown in color.. make sure you don't keep it on too long as burnt caramel does not taste good and will ruin the flavor in your custard.  We then created the flan which again is egg, sugar, little salt, milk and vanilla to taste. Once you have created that, you will strain your liquid and fill your ramekins. We used tin since we are taking these home, but the ramekins come in awesome shapes and designs. Love Crate and Barrel! You can get them there for a relatively good price for a set of 6.

Pots of Creme is made similarly, tempering the hot milk into the eggs. We mixed it with some milk chocolate.. YUMM... It uses heavy cream instead of milk.  I can not wait to taste this. A friend of mine tasted hers today and she said it was awesome!

Panna Cotta was INTERESTING. It uses gelatin. Do we all know where gelatin comes from? I found out today and would like to spare myself the constant reminder because I love gummy bears!! Anyhow, sorry about that..Panna Cotta is white in color, which I am going to have a huge issue with.. yup, another fact about Linda.. NO to taking down anything white in this type of consistency! I don't know if I will be able to taste this one! Crazy right?  But I'm totally serious.. that's not happening. 

We are 3 weeks in. I can not believe that 3 more weeks and these two courses will be done and we will move on.  I don't want it to end! We will be learning so much that retaining and understanding is becoming critical. We do so many things in one day, that our notebook ( that I am dreading creating) is going to be the key to remembering!

I am off to watch the Magic play the Heat. Go Miami!! Whooo Hooo!! Oh and yes, Go Magic!  Impossible to choose. Miami was my home town and Orlando is my families home town... May the best team win ;)

Good night! Until tomorrow....



As promised, chocolate eclair and cream puffs

And here we are.. Wednesday Weakness. I HAD to have a few of these.  Really, its not hard, especially if they are nice and cold.  They taste SO good.  On my way home I was telling my friend that I really wasn't an eclair fan because I don't like the taste of the dough.. BUT COLD!!?? oh yea, enough said ;)

It was fun filling these up and having them expand in your hand but even funner ( yes, 'funner' is a word in my vocabulary) to put that chocolate glacage on the top. These are filled with a pastry cream which is what an eclair typically is filled with. The Chef made a Creme Chantilly that looked awesome! I didn't get the chance to taste it but heavy cream with confectioners sugar and vanilla... something tells me its delicious! You can have a lot of fun decorating the cream puffs and eclairs if you cut them in half and fill. Try it out, be creative :)

The first part of our day was creating our Creme Brulee. Baking = Patience people :).  The Creme Brulee is created, strained and filled and then placed in the oven in a water bath. We Brulee these tomorrow and I'm really looking forward to finishing those.  I hope we get to use the torch! Tee hee...We move on to flan and cheesecake this week as well. Still working with different types of creams. I know a special someone who keeps asking me when the Cheesecake is coming.. Cindy!! Its coming, its coming and I hope to make ya proud.  Cream Cheese makes everything better. I will get back to you on Friday!

Quick Tip of the day: when you create a sugar and egg mix, the sugar pulls the moisture out of the egg. This is the key to Creme's!

I hope you are enjoying the blog! Please tell me what else you would like to see on here. I will try to give you tips as I learn them so you can in turn use them on your creations.  I hope this site is helpful to you!

I will cut today's a little short. I am happy to inform that I Aced both my quizzes.  whew! Really happy about that, but still wishing I had done better! ha...

Write to ya soon!

XO

Deliciousness in a Puff Ball :)

Hi everyone!

How was your Tuesday?  Mine was Terrific.  We set up to make Mini Eclairs and Cream puffs today.  With the left over dough we made these pictured beauties.   The chef was gracious enough to bring in some cheese and cracked pepper.  Right out of the oven they were scrumptious.  :)  I really enjoyed today because I have ALWAYS wondered how an eclair was made, how that hollowness is created.  Today WE got the answer.  EGG, and a whole lot of it! Who would have thunk it ;)

To make the dough all you need is Egg, Flour, Shortening and Water.  Yup, that's it. Shocking, I know, since they happen to be the same ingredients you need for everything else. ;) BUT, therein likes the art of baking.  The SCIENCE, to be more specific.  If your lovely heart desires you can pinch in some salt and add some sugar to add flavor.  Not so cute to add sugar if you are making a cheese puff though.  So plan out what you are making before you set up your ingredients. 

We made our own batch of mini eclairs and puff balls and put them away until tomorrow.  We are going to fill them in with cream and maybe even dip them into chocolate.  Huge round of applause for the chocolate!  I'm kinda hoping tomorrow gets here sooner rather than later.  For baking that is, because the second half of my day is going to be a quiz on Pathogens! Yes, isn't that lovely? 19 of them, 19 which I cant even pronounce! ha... I'm passing! I promise... (butterflies in stomach)

I myself have never been a BIG fan of eclairs ( but that doesn't mean I don't chow them down).   Now that I know how to make them, I can create the dough my way and also make the cream to my liking. I think at that point I may become a HUGE eclair fan because I like the texture mixed in with the filling.

Quick tip of the day: Steam is created in the pastry through the eggs.  As soon as it heats up, that baby expands to create these nice puffy, tunneled pastries. I am definitely going to mess with this recipe at the house.  Come to think of it, I have not shared one in a while.. this one is not so tough to make and easy to do, so lets "pop" out a recipe! 

***The art of baking is in your hands... its the attention that you pay to the procedures that will result in an amazing product.  Take your time and do it right.*** I can throw recipe's out all day long.  We each will do them differently and bake them differently.  One slight wrong move and it can go awry.

To make the pastry:

16 oz of water

8 oz of shortening

.2 oz of salt

12 oz of bread flour

1lb 4 oz of eggs

Boil the water, shortening and salt

remove pan from heat and add the flour all at once

mix it quickly!

Put the pan back on a lower heat and stir until the dough becomes a ball

Place the mixture into a bowl or your mixer and mix.

after it has cooled off some with mixing, SLOWLY add in your eggs, mix.. Slowly add more egg, mix..etc.

Once all the egg is in, your dough is one!

Pipe out your eclairs or puffs onto your cookie sheet

Bake at 425 until they are golden ( DO  NOT OPEN OVEN UNTIL THEN)

Fill with your favorite filling... butter cream, jellies.. etc.

Enjoy and let me know how they turn out!  Tomorrow I will be back to show you mine and to tell you how they taste! We are also making Creme Brulee..HURRAY!  Yes, that was corny cuz it rhymed.. but I'm corny!

Good night everyone!!