Pastry Party!

The past three months have flown by....it's hard to believe we are already halfway done with pastry school. To celebrate our success thus far, we hosted a pastry party for friends and family at Tante Marie during our last Saturday class before a well-needed 2 week break. We spent the week preparing for the party, making what we could ahead of time and putting on finishing touches Saturday morning. Amazingly, Saturday turned out to be one the least stressful classes. Through some miracle of organization, we had everything set up and ready to go a full 20 minutes before guests were expected to arrive. Why doesn't every class go this smoothly?? We all had a blast and guests and students alike enjoyed the tasty treats. I've posted my favorite pictures below. (My apologies for the annoying underline on parts of the text...I am still trying to figure out why blogger does something completely random and unexpected every time I make a new post). 

Cookies! Simple, but delicious as any other dessert when done correctly. The cookies with the currants (far left) were a part of our very first class at Tante Marie. The poor soul who made them then mistook the salt for sugar, resulting in probably the nastiest cookie anyone has ever eaten. Today they were much much better!

A few weeks ago, a friend of mine visited Bouchon Bakery in Yountville (Napa area). I asked her to bring me back a variety of macarons, the TKO (Thomas Keller Oreo), and a surprise item (a chocolate almond croissant). The TKO ended up being not only my favorite of the bunch, but one of my favorite treats that I've ever eaten. I wanted to recreate the TKO and found the actual recipe online. The chocolate sable dough was incredibly easy to work with, and the white chocolate ganache takes all of 3 minutes to make. What and easy recipe for such a fantastic cookie! Pictured below with a meyer lemon sandwich cookie. 

No party is complete without one of my all time favorites -- (French macarons!!!)

Chocolate mint truffles. I love how these are rich and refreshing all at the same time. My only complaint is how they're nearly impossible to eat without getting cocoa powder all over your teeth and looking like a toothless pirate. 

Strawberry truffles with balsamic and black pepper, dipped in white chocolate and rolled in strawberry flakes.  Not your everyday truffle!

Pate de Fruit! I ate so many of these the first night we made them that my teeth went into sugar shock. I still get that omg I think I just gave myself 10 cavities feeling just looking at this picture. 

A tried and true classic -- fresh fruit tartlets. You can never go wrong with these, breakfast, snack, or dessert -- always a winner. 

Passionfruit meringue tartlets with poppyseeds sprinkled on the meringue to mimic the look of passionfruit seeds. 

Chocolate ganache tartlets. Sometimes the simplest things are the biggest crowd pleasers. 

Vanilla cupcakes with vanilla buttercream. I aboslutely love the sugared flowers on top. 

Hazelnut cupcakes with caramel buttercream and spun sugar garnish. Wow, these are good! And that's coming from someone who doesn't even like hazelnut!!

Lemon cupcakes with mango buttercream. I love the pieces of fruit in these cupcakes. At the size of just about two bites, the were perfectly fruity and refreshing. 

Chocolate cupcakes with blood orange ganache. These may have been my favorite of the day. We've been adding blood orange to a lot of things lately, and I haven't been a fan of them all, but this ganache cupcake combo was definitely spot on. 

Ok, I know I already said macarons were my favorite thing in the world....but I they are actually tied with Entremets. The colors of the mousse and gelee are absolutely gorgeous. 

I don't remember exactly what was in this coconut cake, but I do remember that biting into it made me feel like I was heading off on a tropical vacation. Pina Colada in cake form.

A mousse on a spoon....what a great idea! You pick it up, you slurp it up, and you are good to go! We had a rich chocolate mousse, a white orange mousse, and very tart and delicious passionfruit mousse. 

Pavlovas! Vanilla with a mango cream and blueberries and chocolate decorated with cherries. 

It was definitely one of our greatest displays yet!

 Congratulations Tante Marie Pastry Class of summer '09....3 months down, and 3 to go!!

Cupcake Fun!

In early May, I took a day off work to visit my friend Kendall's middle school ESL class for some cupcake decorating fun. It was a great opportunity for the students to practice their English skills asking me questions and for me to see how I might like teaching someday. Plus, we all got to eat cupcakes!!

The class is after school, and students have the choice between a few different classes. We had mostly girls sign up, but a few boys came in once they saw all the ladies head over to our classroom. They weren't totally sold on the cupcake idea initially....

But once they got started, they were just as into it as the rest of us!

We had two flavors of cupcakes --- yellow and chocolate. We then had chocolate buttercream and many different colors of vanilla buttercream as well. I brought a variety of toppings to play with too: sprinkles, chocolate chips, berries, marshmallows, and whatever else I pulled out of my pantry that afternoon. I gave them all the choice between spreading the frosting on or doing it the "professional" way with a piping bag. They caught on quickly with the piping, and that was definitely the method of choice. 

I brought in a couple of my aprons and my jackets from school. I thought I'd have to force them on the kids for a cute photo op, but it ended up being a race for who could get them on fastest!

One hour and whole lot of sugar later, we had a table of masterpieces:

All in all, it was a great success! I'm not sure whether the kids or Kendall and I had more fun.  I really loved teaching, and it got me thinking about classes and summer camps for kids who are interested in cooking and baking. Food for thought!

Catching Up

I've been lazy lately, but it's time to catch up to make room for some big time posts coming up in the nearish future.

Over the past month, my quarter life crisis officially kicked in. I was sitting at my desk at work the Thursday afternoon before Memorial Day weekend, and realized that I really couldn't waste any more of my life at this job that was so corporate and oh so lame. Never one to really act rashly, I used the long weekend to think it over and decided it was time to push this new chapter of my life into high gear. I looked at my calendar and remembered that we have a 2 week break from school at the end of June. I immediately knew that the timing was perfect, and started planning a 2 week Tour de Pastry to the one and only Paris!!

In effort to get all caught up, I'm just going to post my favorite pictures of what we've made the past month.  Besides, the pictures are always the best part of all my posts anyway.

First, we have a white cake with strawberry buttercream and bittersweet chocolate design.

Almond Lemon Poppyseed Cake with Berries and Mascarpone

Carrot Cake Cupcakes with Caramel and Cream Cheese Frosting

Chocolate Genoise with Berries and Creme Anglaise

Chocolate Souffle in the oven

Mini Banana Chocolate Chip Souffles

Grand Marnier Souffle

Chocolate Raspberry Roulade

Chocolate Rose Roulade

Madeleines

My favorite thing we've made so far -- Entremets. They are absolutely gorgeous, and the combinations of cake, mousse, and garnishes are endless.

Basket-weave Cake with Flowers

Princess Cake (far from perfect, but ok for a first try!)

This is what I call art!

Fresh made Bagels

English Muffins in process

Fresh Preserves!

Blueberry Shortcake with Thyme Biscuits

Warm Banana Tart with Ice Cream

Apricot Cherry Upside Down Cake:

Blueberry Tartlets Philippe

French macarons are one of my favorite things to eat - but they are kind of tricky to make. A very temperamental cookie, it's difficult to get consistent results. Below, Rose Macarons.

Passionfruit Macarons

We had some extra dough, and I had extra time, so I made some Fresh Fruit Tartlets.