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..