My 2nd to last post :(

Hello everyone!

I hope your week got off to a great start!  Our plating class is over on Thursday. I guess all good things must come to an end!  :)  It was a fun class. We of course all wished we could have picked up more skills, but as I am learning, you take the good with the bad and then you make the best out of that whole entire ordeal! We had a big report that was due this Monday that I finally finished and turned in.  :)  It consisted of creating 3 desserts of our choice with two components each to accompany them.  It had to be in 3 different categories as well.  I chose Chocolate, Hot and Frozen as my three. We then had to cost it, design it, diagram it out, note out the ingredients, procedures, etc... Done! Done and Done!

Now for our test... we need to create 2 out of the 3 desserts. We had yesterday and today to prep and create them. We also have a few hours tomorrow for last minute creations but plating is due right at 1:30 and then this class will have come to an end!  I didn't think I was going to need the 2 prep days, but who was I kidding. With that many people and that many ingredients, I most definitely did. It got the creative juices going and God forbid something didnt come out right, it allowed for the opportunity to re-do it again! So anyhow, I didn't have to re-do anything! Yeay...

Here is what I came up with for my three desserts and their components:

Delectably Hot

Yummy Crepes dipped/covered with banana's foster accompanied by a thick and gooey Cayenne Caramel sauce, decorated with toasted pecans

Delectably Frozen

Kiwi Frozen Mousse with a Kirsch Strawberry-Kiwi Coulis sauce and a caramelized Palimer big enough to share!

Delectably Chocolate

Dark Fudge Brownie rounds - Raspberry-Ginger gellie rounds and Peanut Butter Swiss Butter Cream Sandwiched together and  dipped in Peanut Butter and Chocolate Ganache , rolled in toasted Peanuts.

For my practical I will be creating the Chocolate Brownie Sandwich and the Banana's Foster Crepe's . I pretty much got everything I needed done and have left what I have not created all prepped and ready to go!  I have a few things to do for tomorrow and will be ready to plate , right on time.  Wish me luck!!

Ang, I switched your recipe up just a tid bit :) :) But it made for a delicious idea and I am sure it is just as tasty!

I will post the pictures tomorrow of these last few creations I will make at Le Cordon Bleu and then it is off to intern at a Wedding Cake Shop for me... God willing once I am done there, I will be opening my own little biz. I look forward to doing it and I look forward to seeing you guys there!! Thank you to all of you have taken the time out to read every little bit of my craziness and to check out my creations. It means a lot to me.

We took our glory walk this week where all the students come out of the class and stand, waiting for you to come down the hall, as they clap and cheer you on and congratulate you for graduating.  I always get a little emotional for the people I used to clap for; wishing them the best of luck wherever they may go from here... and I did get a little emotional, and proud of ME, for completing this course after a year of what seemed like hell....a year of change...a year of growth.  This chapter comes to an end only to begin a new one.  So yes! Thank you!! To all of you who stood by me and cheered me on.. you were there in spirit.........

See you here tomorrow. Have a beautiful night....

Sugar Sugar and more Sugar

Hellooooo!  How are you? I hope well!  Here is a little sneak peak of what my classmates and I  WON'T be learning at Le Cordon Bleu ;) .......along with a many other things, but who's counting. :) :)

This is a rose made out of pulled sugar. Couldn't tell you what was used to make it though! Because I don't know!  Sooo yea, we had the opportunity to "walk into" a Sugars class here at Le Cordon Bleu. A class that we most definitely paid for but did not receive. 6 weeks... and we could have learned how to make this beautiful flower ... but nope, we wont get this skill... We also wont make you these beautiful ribbons either:

Thats the power of positivity! ha.. Anyhow.. here is what I did make. A Poached pear. Poached in Kirsch, Cinnamon and Vanilla Bean.  After the pear was done, we caramelized the juice and drizzled it on top. It was delicious.

To Poach a pear or fruit of your liking, Boil the liquid and spices that you would like to flavor your fruit in. For example, I filled the pan up 3/4 of the way with water, added sugar, a cinnamon stick, a vanilla bean and about 2 to 3 oz of  Kirsch. I filled it to the point where the fruit was covered. Simmer until your fruit is perfectly poached, remove from the fire and place on your plate. :)

And last but not least, let me share with you our latest impromptu project.  Recreating a plated dessert that the chef chose from one of her books. This, in the words of our Chef, was a disgrace! You gotta love it! We all figure it out on our own, and that's the reaction we got!  She did say that my and Andrea's plate was the best out of the bunch though, but she went off on our garnish ( of which she provided us with) and no sauce on our dried fruit... although I clearly read to drain completely and place the fruit on the plate and does anyone see sauce on this plate??? Here is what we had to recreate:  whatever!!

And here is ours:

Not at the same angle, sorry, I didn't have too much time to take the picture.. but at any rate.. there you have it! I think it was lovely!!! The project was for points. Whoever made the dessert closest to the picture won 5 points.  Andrea and I got our 5 points :).  Here are the other plates!

Ok my darlings.. I'm off to rest. I have a huge report that I have to do for this class and since we decided to speak up today about how much we HAVE NOT LEARNED in this school, in defense to that DISGRACE comment, we now get a chance to tell her what we do want to learn before we leave this place in less than two weeks.. so, you know I have a list!

Good night! Sweet dreams....

Flambe Away. Crepe Suzette's, Cherries Jubilee and Banana Foster. Yummy!

Hello, Hello. Long time no see.  May I present to you my creations:  Crepes Suzette on your left, Banana's Foster on top and Cherries Jubilee Crepes on the bottom.

Oooook!! So my story is this:  I had a crepe once and it did not taste good.. It was very disappointing. Everyone always told me how great tasting they were, like a pancake, blah, blah, blah. I can enjoy a good pancake so I figured this was a shoe in. Absolutely not!  You know what that meant, right?  I never had another crepe again.  Exactly, mega epic mistake!  These were soo yummy.  We created the Crepe's first before flambeing.  :)   Go ahead and create them with me: 

Crepe Recipe:

Bread Flour  4 oz
Cake Flour  4 oz
Sugar  2 oz
Salt  .25 oz
Eggs  6 oz
Milk  16 oz
Oil  2.5 oz

Procedure:  put all your dry ingredients into a bowl.  Add in the eggs and some of the milk to form a paste. Mix until it is smooth. Gradually add in the milk and the oil, mix to get all the lump outs and set aside for at least 30 minutes.  ( The longer the better).  Once ready, place a small amount of batter onto your crepe pan, let it bubble, flip over, cook the other side and flip that baby cake onto your plate, folding in half and then folding into quarters.

You can obviously have Crepe's with anything you would like. We ate them just off the pan with some cream cheese. Big smile!!

After munching on those, we then did Mis En Place for the 3 different Flambe desserts.  We first tried the Crepe Suzette's. These were delicious. Its a mixture of sugar and butter, lime and orange juice, their zest, orange liqueur, (FLAMBE that liqueur ) and then the ever-so-delicious tasting, Cognac. Once the Cognac is in, you tilt the pan onto the fire and watch that baby fire up! Shaking the pan while on the stove, let the flame go out on its own and you are ready to pour this onto the crepes!  OR, as my classmate mentioned to me, once your crepes are done, you can cook them in the sauce, then take them out and serve. Delicious. Its all about what you want. If you like them drenched in sauce, do so. If you like your crepes with sauce to your liking, just drizzle that baby on as much as you'd like. I dipped :), but that's just because I like to watch those calories. :) :)

We did the same with the Cherries Jubilee and the Banana's Foster. :) Fun, fun day. We had a really great time doing this. We were forewarned that if we set off the sprinkler system with the fire that we would totally be failing for the day and staying after for the 4 hour clean up. Thankfully none of us set it off, we just had a good time laughing with flames. Gotta love that fire!!  This was actually the first real demo we have had in this entire class so we really appreciated it.

Here is a video of us making Cherries Jubilee. Funny...

Anyhow, I hope you enjoy! Have a great night and weekend! I will see you back here soon.

Deconstructed Lemon Meringue Pie

Happy Happy Friday!



I hope everyone had a nice week. We kept so busy, that I was glad not to see this week fly by!  Up above we have my deconstructed Lemon Meringue Pie. I LOVEY Lemon.. everyone already knows, so when it came down to picking a pie that we needed to present in non-pie form, this is the only one that popped into mind.  We could have done this any way we wanted, as long as we didn't turn in anything that looked like pie crust or pie filling. At first we were all perplexed, but then it got easier. You could create a Napoleon or ice-cream, or custard..whatever you wanted, as long as the pie flavors were presented other than traditional. :)

Here is what I came up with

Lemon Mousse and Lemon Curd Parfait as the filling.  Lemon Wafers as the crust and your Meringue that has been bruleed and presented to you in a Lemon cup.

Fun! A friend of mine, unbeknown to me, was also creating Lemon Meringue but they were totally different. Here are a few other creations from the class:

I hope everyone has a fun-filled weekend. I want to relax a little BUT, I finally got my mixer. Yes, I bought it.. FINALLY!! Took me forever, I know.  So I plan on making the fam French Baguettes. They have been waiting for me to make them bread since I took the class. I hope I can remember! As my friend Cindy told me.. if I don't remember, all I have to do is look at my blog! ;)  Good tip! Thanks!

Happy Weekend....