May 4, 2009 - American Cakes

I'm in heaven this week -- a full week of cake! Last week, we baked chiffon cakes and tonight we worked on butter cakes. It hasn't taken me long to learn that butter = delicious, so just by name I knew these cakes would be good. Although I'm not a huge chocoholic, I decided to make the chocolate cake. My chiffon cake last week was a white cake, so I wanted to mix it up.


We started the evening with a presentation on cake frosting by the lovely Katie (our wonderful assistant teacher). I originally planned to do a full cake and prepared my cake pan, but while mixing my batter had a last minute urge to do cupcakes, so I switched. And good thing I did - we had all of the chocolate in our large non-convection ovens, and while the cupcakes set up perfectly, the cakes did not. Almost everyone who made a chocolate cake had to use a reserve chiffon for decorating. We had some leftover violas, so I sugared a few of those, arranged on the cupcakes, and then sprinkled the rest with chocolate shavings. They were springtime delights!

And I must say, my cupcakes looked lovely alongside Judy's beautiful spring cake (this spring thing is wishful thinking....after all, this is San Francisco, so it's raining in May). I love the look of the sugar flowers and can't wait to pick up some other edible flowers to play with at home.


As much as I loved my cupcakes, my two favorite cakes were non-chocolate....butter cakes frosted with white chocolate buttercream and filled with fruit. Nancy topped her cake with sliced almonds, which was a fantastic complement to the white chocolate buttercream.


We had a few other cupcakes as well - my favorite were the white pound cake, filled with raspberry whipped cream, frosted with chocolate buttercream, and topped with a raspberry.

The most interesting creation of the night came from Sasha. She had planned on using chocolate cake, but had to substitute chiffon (which I preferred...the chocolate would have been way too intense!). She made a praline filling, frosted with chocolate buttercream, and topped with caramelized hazelnuts.


We had a buttercream shortage, so I ended up with quite a few leftover cupcakes. I took them home and frosted them Tuesday evening with a chocolate buttercream. I was in chocolate overload -- they are cute, but they are SO rich! Fortunatelty, I work with a lot of chocolate loving women, so they weren't hard to pawn off this morning.

I don't have a recipe today, so I tried to overcompensate with lots of photos. Hope everyone enjoyed!

April 29, 2009 - Chiffon Cakes

Cake - my favorite food in the world. No, not my favorite dessert, my flat out favorite food. I am loving everything that I'm learning, but cake is the primary reason I am in pastry school, and I am so so so happy that cake making time has arrived!

We started with American cakes, specifically chiffon cakes. Butter cakes will follow next week. Later in the course, we will work on European cakes, and an advanced cake decorating section will come at the very end of the course (I CANNOT wait!).

Today, we made a bunch of chiffon cakes and multiple batches of buttercream to use in a basic decorating class next week. As a result, I don't have a lot of cake pictures quite yet. Before starting on my cakes, I grabbed my orange peels from the fridge and got them simmering in sugar syrup, where they remained throughout the class. Both chiffon cakes and buttercream require meringue (or at least whipped egg whites). As you may recall, the meringue class didn't rank among my favorites, and I went into this class a little nervous. This ended up being a great lesson in practice makes perfect -- meringues may have been a pain in the a$$ the first time around, but they were a breeze the second. I had absolutely no issues, since I knew exactly what to look for as I whipped my eggs. I finished my cakes and buttercream with tons of time to spare. We had a few students missing, so I whipped up an extra batch of chiffon and baked some cakes for them to decorate next week as well.

I still had some time to spare while everyone else finished up some candy projects from Monday (my oranges were still simmering). I learned to make sugar flowers using violas and meringue powder (you can also use an eggwash, but that carries a risk of salmonella, so the faint of heart should stick to the powder). Mix the meringue powder with water, paint onto the flower petals with a small brush, and then sprinkle with sugar. When dry, the flowers make a delicate garnish on any dessert. We stuck ours on some cupcakes that were baked with extra chiffon batter.

At the end of the night, I packed up my orange peels to take home and complete over the weekend. They needed to dry at least 8 hours after simmering, so I placed them on a cooling rack in my kitchen with a nice little note reading "Touch and you die" to let the roommates know they weren't quite ready for eating. Once dry, I tossed the peels in sugar and dipped a few of them in dark chocolate. So after nearly a week of preparation, I can report on the final product: delicious!!! These are definitely something I will make again (when time permits of course).

The Delicious Recipe of the Day: Blums Chiffon Cake

(from Blums Restaurant)

• 11 oz cake flour
• 5 oz sugar (#1)
• 1 Tbsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 4 fl oz canola oil
• 6 egg yolks
• 6 fl oz water
• 1/2 Tbsp lemon zest (can increase for taste)
• 1/2 Tbsp vanilla
• 1 cup egg whites
• 5 oz sugar (#2)

Line 2-8 inch cake pans (or 1/2 sheet) with parchment. Whip the oil and egg yolks together just until combined. Stir in the water, vanilla and lemon zest.

Sift together the cake flour, sugar #1, baking powder and salt. Stir this into egg yolk mixture, mixing just until combined. do not overwork this portion of the batter, or your chiffon will be too spongy.

Whip the egg whites to a foam. Then gradually add sugar #2 and continue whipping until stiff, but not dry, peaks form. Carefully fold the meringue into the reserved batter. Divide the batter between the prepared pans.

Bake at 375 degrees for about 25 minutes or until cake springs back when pressed lightly in center.

Invert the pans on a parchment lined rack and allow cakes to cool in pans before unmolding.

April 27, 2009 - Confections

Candy!!! Who doesn't love candy? There is a candy out there for everyone, even those who claim they don't have a sweet tooth. I've never made candy before, so I didn't know quite what to expect. We had the choice to make one (hopefully more, time permitting) of the following: marshmallows, butterscotch caramels, candied orange peel, almond pistachio nougat, victorian toffee, bittersweet chocolate truffles, hazelnut truffles, almond dragees, pistachio brittle, or pates de fruits (fruit jellies).

In high school, I worked in a candy store one summer, and the chocolate covered orange peels were one of my favorite discoveries. Sure, everyone loves toffee and brittle, but a lot of people don't even know you can eat orange peel, let alone know just how delicious it is. For this reason, I chose the candied orange peel. Had I read through the entire recipe first, I probably would have made a different decision, but by the time I realized what a process it is, I was already committed.

I had to halve and juice 5 lbs of oranges, then boil and drain them THREE times. I ended up with quite a bit of delicious fresh squeezed orange juice, which provided the perfect recharge for all the hard workers in the back kitchen. Then I had to scrape out the membranes and cut the peels into strips. The next step involves simmering the strips in sugar syrup for 3 hours. Half the class time had already passed, so I had to pack up my peels and save the simmering for Wednesday.

I still had an hour left, so I decided to give the marshmallows a try. I don't particularly love, or even like marshmallows, but I've been interested in making them since I saw a special on home made marshmallows on the Food Network. The recipe includes two ingredients I had never worked with before: gelatin sheets and glucose. The gelatin sheets are pretty fun....they are clear thin plastic looking sheets that turn the consistency of seaweed when you place them in cold water. The glucose on the other hand, is just a gross sticky mess. I've never worked with anything so sticky, not even glue! The marshmallow mixture is poured onto a sheet plan, dusted with a powdered sugar/ cornstarch mixture, and then left to set.

Once set, you can cut the marshmallows into squares or fun shapes. We didn't have a ton of cookie cutters, so I made a cute little Valentine's marshmallow platter. This would be a fun recipe to make during the holidays, then use Christmas cookie cutters and give as gifts with a homemade hot cocoa mix in a jar (note to self: remember this!).

Our lovely teacher Christa brought each of us candy boxes so we could pack up some of these heavenly delights. As much as I wanted to be selfish, my tight pants told me that sharing might be a good idea, so I ended up as Ms. Popularity as work the next day.

With today being a rainy (May...WTH San Francisco!?) Saturday, I'll share the candied orange peel recipe, in case anyone is looking for a long indoor activity...

The Delicious Recipe of the Day: Candied Orange Peels

(Sunset Magazine, December 2007)

• 5 pounds oranges
• 8 cups sugar, divided

Halve and juice fruit; reserve juice for another use. Put peels in a large pot and cover with cold water. Bring to a boil and cook 3 minutes. Drain. Return peels to pot, cover with cold water, bring to a boil, cook 3 minutes, and drain. Repeat once more.

Spread peels on baking sheet and let sit until cool enough to handle, 20 minutes.

Using a spoon, scrape out the membranes and discard. Cut peels into strips and set aside.

In a large, heavy pot over high heat, bring cups of water and 6 cups sugar to a boil. Add peels, reduce heat to maintain a steady, gentle simmer, and cook, stirring occasionally, until peels are render, sweet and translucent, 3 hours. (Don't let sugar brown or caramelize).

Drain peels and spread on wire racks set over baking sheets. Let sit until dry, at least 8 hours.

Toss a handful of peels with remaining two cups sugar. Shake off excess sugar and put in an airtight containere. Repeat with remaining peels.

April 25, 2009 - Pie

It's been a hectic 2 weeks, so today is catch-up day. Saturday April 25 just so happened to be the day after my birthday, and I just so happened to have to get up at 6 am for school. I sacrificed a late night birthday celebration to be well-rested and fully functioning for Saturday's class. This truly is a labor of love.....well maybe sacrificed is a strong word, I actually just postponed it to Saturday night. So I woke up at 6 am, got ready, and walked one hour to school to be there at 8 (with all the butter I'm eating, I take any exercise I can get!).

After my experiences with pate sucree and tarts, I was a little weary of rolling out pie dough. Lucky for me, pate brisee is a lot easier to work with and the rolling was a breeze. In pretty much no time, I had a perfect pie crust ready to be filled with my tart apple blackberry mixture. I wanted to make a lattice, but was worried about ruining what so far was a flawless pie. Fortunately, my girl scout weaving skills came back to me and the end result was a beautiful, all American apple pie!

The pies brought us right up to lunch time. We had a delicious wild mushroom lasagna with a vegetable soup and fresh salad. After lunch, my pastry partners in crime (Liz and Becky) joined me for a walk along the Embarcadero. It wasn't until about 10 minutes into our walk that we realized we looked semi ridiculous strolling around as a group in our chef uniforms.

Nourished with lunch, and refreshed by our walk, it was was time to get back to work. I used my extra pie dough to make some mini crostatas filled with strawberries and blueberries.

When I was out of dough, I poured the remaining berries into a baking dish and topped with an almond crumble to make a fruit crisp.

Pie has never been my favorite dessert, so I was surprised at how much I enjoyed making it. There is something very satisfying about the pie-making process from start to finish, and it is far from the near-impossible task many make it out to be.

The Delicious Recipe of the Day: Strawberry, Rhubarb & Ginger Pie with Almond Crumble Topping

(from The Art and Soul of Baking by Cindy Mushet)

1 recipe Pate Brisee, placed into pie pan and chilled

For the topping:

• 4 oz unsalted butter, softened
• 1 3/4 oz sugar
• 1/4 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/4 tsp almond extract
• 1/8 tsp salt
• 5 oz AP flour
• 1 oz almond meal

For the filling:

• 1 1/4 # (lbs) rhubarb, ends trimmed and cut into 1/2 " pieces (about 5 cups)
• 1 pint strawberries, hulled and quartered
• 7 oz sugar
• 3 Tbsp corn syrup
• 2 Tbsp crystalized ginger, finely chopped
• Zest of 1 large orange
• 3/4 oz raw sliced almonds
• 1 Tbsp turbinado sugar

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Place butter and sugar in bowl of stand mixer and beat on medium speed until very light, 5 minutes. Add extracts and salt and blend well. Add flour and almond meal all at once and turn speed to low, mixing 15-20 seconds, just until mixture forms small clumps the size of peas. Chill.

Combine fruit with sugar, cornstarch, ginger and zest. Toss gently to coat. Place filling into chilled pie shell. Scatter topping evenly over top. Sprinkle slived almonds over topping, then turbinado sugar. Bake 10 minutes, then turn oven down to 375 degrees and bake an additional 30-40 minutes, until pie shell is golden and fruit juices are bubbling.

Cool 40 minutes so some of the juices are reabsorbed.

April 20 and April 22, 2009 -Tarts

It's been a crazy week, so I'm combining two posts into one. On Monday, we had pizza for dinner. The margherita was definitely my favorite, but there were some interesting combinations. Last night's dinner was by far the best yet: Halibut, mussels, oysters, potatoes, asparagus, and Caesar salad. Delicious and refreshing!





We were scheduled to work on tarts on Monday of this week and then bake pies, but an unexpected San Francisco heat wave shook things up a bit. Tarts can be made with a few different crusts, and the one we were primarily working with -- the sucree -- needs to be kept cold at all times. It was 90 degrees outside and even hotter in the kitchen with the ovens on, so working with and rolling out the dough was incredibly difficult. We kept having to stick dough in the freezer to cool it down every few minutes and it was softening so quickly. While most people ended up with at least one crust baked by the end of the night, only 5 out of 14 had a tart on the display table by 10 (not even our usual presentation time of 9:30). I had two mini chocolate tarts out of the oven, but they were too hot to serve, so all I ended up with was an empty crust to taste.

The crusts were tasty, and the completed tarts were both beautiful and delcious, but most of us left the kitchen exhausted and frustrated. Determined that everyone should have a chance to make a beautiful tart, our teacher Christa extended the lesson to Wednesday and put pies on hold. Fortunately, we were blessed with tart-compliant moderate San Francisco weather. Not only was working with the sucree in the heat torture, but working in the full chef uniform in the heat was pretty hellish too.

Some people had dough or pre-baked crusts left over from Monday night. The only thing I had saved was some chocolate filling, so I had to start over on the sucree. Even in cooler weather, the dough has to be chilled regularly. Making it, chilling it, rolling it, messing it up, re-chilling it, re-rolling it, chilling it again, then baking it took up a lot of my time. I have to admit, I'm still a little irritated with sucree. Though I did end up with one large chocolate tart and two small exotic fruit tarts made with Frangipane. Both were delicious and the crust came out perfectly flakey, so was well worth the time taken (I'm learning lessons in patience here).

So will I be making tarts again? Absolutely! I think tarts are one of the most gorgeous pastries out there...and I love the use of fresh fruit in desserts. It's fun to arrange, and adds so much color and flavor. The simple fresh fruit tart was my favorite, so please enjoy!

The Delicious Recipe of the Day: Fresh Fruit Tart
(Mary Risley)


For the pastry

• 1 2/3 cups flour
• 1 Tbsp sugar
• 1/8 tsp salt
• 7 Tbsp cold butter
• 2 Tbsp vegetable shortening
• Cold Water

For the filling

• 6 egg yolks
• 1 cup sugar
• 4 Tbsp flour
• 4 Tbsp cornstarch
• 2 cups scalded milk
• 1 Tbsp butter
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 2 Tbsp Kirsch or Cognac

For the glaze

• 1 cup red currant jelly or apricot preserves
• 1 Tbsp sugar
• 2 Tbsp Kirsch or Cognac
• Fruit

To make the pastry, in a bowl put the flour, the 1 Tbsp sugar, and salt. Cut in the cold fat. Add 3 to 5 Tbsp cold water. Bring together with the fingers of one hand and fraisage gently on a wooden board. Chill 1/2 hour covered in wax paper. Roll out and bake with a filling of parchment with pie weights in a 375 oven, 15 to 18 minutes. Remove the beans, prick with a fork and bake another 10-12 minutes until fully cooked. Cool on rack.


Make the custard filling: in a bowl beat the egg yolks until sticky, gradually add the sugar and beat until thick. Beat in the flours then gradually pour in the scalded milk, beating. Pour this mixture into a saucepan and bring to boil over moderate heat, stirring with whisk. When boiling, cook 2-3 minutes more over low heat. Remove Cognac. Dot with butter and and cool.


To make glaze: heat the jelly or preserves with the sugar and Kirsch or Cognac. Brush a thinn layer of this on the cooled shell. Spread over half and inch of pastry cream, cover with fruit, and paint with glaze. The fruits can be strawberries, grapes, bananas, raspberries, or poached peaches, apricots, plums, or pears.

April 15, 2009 - Meringues and buttercream

I must confess, I did not love the dinner this evening...I guess you win some, you lose some. We had a Grande Aiole and a Caesar Salad. It wasn't really filling enough and the shrimp tasted extra fishy. More room for baked goods!!


Meringues...I wasn't sure how I felt about them before, and I'm still not really sure. I've never loved meringue, the texture and over the top sweetness just leave the feeling of instant cavity in my mouth. However, I do now have a greater appreciation for them after experimenting with a few different recipes. A lot of the issues I had with texture before didn't bother me so much when accompanied by other textures such as fresh fruit or whipped cream. The combination of flavors and textures in the Raspberry Almond Dacquoise was pretty amazing, and that's the one I'll share today.


Making meringue requires a lot of whipping, and a lot of patience. The eggs must be whipped to the correct stiffness, then sugar is added in very slowly. Add the sugar too quickly, and your meringue won't turn out right. Different kinds of meringue have different levels of stability, and are therefore used in different recipes and can be kept for varying levels of time.



My assignment of the evening was: Pavalovas with poached strawberries and a honey lavendar whipped cream. We ended up using fresh berries rather than the poached strawberries because 1. they were not ready and 2. poaching drained quite a bit of the beautifl strawberry red color. I'm not a big fan of warm soft fruit, so I was much happier with the fresh raw version. The honey lavendar whipped cream was interesting...we ground up lavendar in the spice grinder and it was strong. On its own, it actually tasted kind of gross. But when combined with the meringue and the berries, it was quite nice.


While I'm still not a huge fan of meringue itself, it can be used as a base for buttercream frosting, which, of course, I absolutely love. I must say that it really is quite shocking just how much butter goes into a butter cream. It is borderline sickening, but oh my gosh it just tastes so good!! Add some chocolate or fruit puree and it only gets better.


For those of you who are interested in playing with meringue, I give you....


The Delicious Recipe of the Day: Raspberry Almond Dacquoise (Mary Risley)

• 3/4 cup sugar (for almond mixture)
  
• 4 oz almonds
• 6 egg whites
• pinch cream of tartar
• 3/4 cups sugar (for meringue)
  
• 1 cup cream
• 1 cup fresh raspberries
• mint leaves

Preheat oven to 250 degress. Draw 8-4 inch circles on a piece of parchment, turn over, and line a baking sheet with it. Process sugar with almonds in food processor until fine. Put egg whites and cream of tartar in bowl of stand mixer and beat with whip until stif peak. Beat in 3/4 cup sugar, one tablespoon at a time. Fold in almond mixture. Pipe mixture onto parchment circles, about 3/4" thick. Bake for about 60 minutes, or until dry.


Whip cream. Pipe cream on one meringue round, arrange raspberries around edges, then fill in middle. Place another meringue round on top. Decorate with additional cream, berries, and mint. Repeat with remaining meringues.

April 13, 2009 - Custards (stirred and baked) and caramel

Week 3! It's amazing how quickly time is passing by. Tonight's dinner was by far the best yet. For the first time, we ventured away from the standard green salad and had two salads -- Nicoise and Pear, Walnut and Gorgonzola, followed by Fettuccine Alfredo and Spaghetti with Sauce Basquaise. It was all so delicious I had to force myself to stop eating to save room for all the custard we would be making. 

For those of you who are curious, all custards are made with:

1. whole eggs and/or egg yolks
2. milk and/or cream
3. sugar

The texture and richness of the custard is determined by the use of eggs vs yolks and milk vs. cream. The scale of richness goes from Creme Caramel (flan) on the lighter side, to Pot de Creme in the middle, to Creme Brulee on the very rich end. We began by making Creme Anglaise, which is both a sauce and the base for ice cream. We poured all of our vanilla Anglaise into one bucket, which was cooled, and then churned into ice cream today for us to use tomorrow. Anyone who has had home made ice cream before knows that this is pretty exciting, and I'll have a full report on the deliciousness.

I was assigned the flan -- not my favorite dish but interesting to make. First, a caramel is prepared and poured into the warm baking dish, then the custard is prepared and poured over the caramel. When removed from the dish, the caramel creates the golden topping and sauce on top of the custard. Others made vanilla, chocolate, and coffee pot de creme and creme brulee. Fortunately, there were enough creme brulees prepared for everyone to have a chance carmelizing the tops with the torch...power tools + baked goods = too much fun. A torch for my home usage is now the number 1 item on my shopping list and you bet I'll be torching everything for months to come.

While waiting for our custards to bake, we made some more caramel and played around with it making shapes. Mine pretty much looked like a 3rd grader made them, but there were some natural caramel masters in the class! We learned how to make caramel nests, pulled caramel, spirals, squiggles, swirls, zig zags, etc etc. I'm also planning to practice this a lot at home....so anyone I bake for can expect some sort of torched aspect and a caramel garnish until I've mastered both. 

I'm not a coffee drinker, but I love coffee flavored things, and the pot de creme did not disappoint, so enjoy!

The Delicious Recipe of the Day: Pots De Creme Javannaise

(from Mary Risley)

• 1/2 cup sugar
• 2 Tbsp water
• 1 2/3 cups light cream (half and half)
• 1 oz semisweet chocolate
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 5 egg yolks, plus one whole egg
• 2 Tbsp instant espresso
• 1/3 cup heavy cream
• 6 candy coffee beans
• salt

In a small saucepan, dissolve 1/4 cup sugar is 2 Tbsp water over low heat. Increase the heat to moderately high and cook the sugar until it is a light caramel. Add the light cream, heated, the rest of the sugar, the semisweet chocolate cut in bits, the espresso and the vanilla. Bring the mixture to a boil, stirring until it is combined. 

In a bowl, beat the egg yolks and the whole egg lightly with a whisk, pour in the cream mixture in a stream. Add a few grains of salt. Pour this through  a fine sieve into six one-third cup pots de creme of ramekins and skim off any remaining froth. Cover with lids or foil, put in a small baking pan, carefully fill the pan with enough hot water to come halfway up the sides. Bake in a preheated 325 degree oven for 25-30 minutes or until they are just set. Remove from water, let cool uncovered, then chill covered. Serve decorated with rosettes of whipped cream and candy coffee beans.