...and I thought I knew a thing or two about baking

Whew, day two kicked my butt!!!  Class began with feeding our sourdough starter and from there it was non stop.  Today we made a cake; Gateaux Basque (either Spain or France, Chef was unsure).  It's a yellow, basic cake, two layers filled with pastry cream.  I have to say for someone who spends a lot of time around cakes I don't actually enjoy them that much, until I had this cake.  I learned today that over the years I've been severely over-beating my cake batter.  Once those dry ingredients go in its very little mixing after that point.  This cake was very light and even the crumbs were perfect!  It's topped with sliced almonds and sprinkled with snow decor (a powdered sugar that doesn't melt with heat like normal powder sugar does).

Gateaux Basque:

See where the border of the cake is torn?  I did this with my knife when I was separating it from the side of the cake pan.  Chef informed me that if I were to have put the pressure of the knife against the pan and not along the side of the cake it wouldn't have torn like this.  I don't think that would have ever occurred to me.  Merci!

The best part of this cake was the inside so here's a snapshot:

After the cake we made pound cake, to practice the creaming method.  

Here are the photos I took of creaming butter & sugar.  This is the point I usually stop creaming at:

This is where you should begin thinking about stopping:

Notice how much lighter it is?  

Even still my pound cake didn't rise as much as some others and Chef said it was because I could have creamed my butter for a bit longer.  Thank goodness we've got mixers to do all the hard work for us!!!

After Pound Cake we made Glory Morning Muffins (attempt number two on the muffin front). The muffins turned out great, not burnt, not running over, however they were not glorious in the least getting them prepared.  There were carrots to be grated, apples to be grated, pineapple to be drained (which is most annoying when draining crushed pineapple, guess whose task that was??), and walnuts to be crushed.  All wonderful pieces of the puzzle but I was not a fan even before we got started.  I guess I'm more of a three to five ingredients gal.

Pound Cake:

Glory Morning Muffins 

(BEWARE: They may taste as if they are lacking in love)

All in all it was a busy day, and tomorrow's schedule is even busier; scones, zucchini bread, carrot bread, marble pound cake, & something else I am unable to recall at this moment.  Right now I am going to grab some dinner, take a shower and head off to bed...whew!!!  Long, awesome day!

Finally!

This blog is a way for me to recap different things I've learned throughout my pastry program, as well as a way for my friends & family to stay updated on me and this new adventure. I recently, and I mean very recently, decided that I wanted to go to pastry school. I was on my way to graduate school with the full and complete intention of acquiring my degree in clinical psychology and I was diverted from that path by a strong, strong desire to express myself creatively. Just over a year ago I took a cake decorating class and I really found joy and fun with it. Over time I began exploring my baking thumb and realized there's lots of cool things I want to know more about in this area. As I further explored what's truly available to me I realized that I'd be much better off, in heart and mind, if I went where my passion and joy resided. Over a weekend I decided I wanted to pursue an education in the Pastry Arts and about six months later here I am.

Thus far I've sat through a couple of weeks of lectures regarding Professionalism, Safety & Sanitation, Introduction to Business Management, and other general stuff. All of these aspects are important...and I spent that entire time waiting to get into the kitchen. Then, the first two days in the kitchen were more introduction and lecture. Again, all important but today we baked!!! Hence the title of this particular entry...we FINALLY baked!!!

For me it was chaos. Everything was set up wonderfully and explained thoroughly however my nerves definitely got the best of me. I continuously felt like I was missing a step, even though nothing was wrong with my batter or ingredients, and I probably chose the hardest way to do every task. Everything was a mess after I used it. The key point is, I loved every second of it!!!

My class is only eight people and while we all have got along great up to this point, we gelled once we got mixing and baking. Everyone helped everyone else out, I overheard some students giving others words of encouragement, and when it was time for the dirty work of cleaning everyone stepped up to the plate 10-fold. It was great and I'm glad to be a part of this class.

Today we made Lemon Poppy Seed muffins. I learned all about why to not over mix the muffin batter (don't make gluten...no gluten) and also learned that I don't think I've ever creamed my butter and sugar long enough. At home I mix it until its well combined but today we kept mixing and mixing, for about five minutes, and it totally changed color from yellow to white. I should've taken a picture of that...next time. Tomorrow is a lesson in creaming while making a Pound Cake...Mmmm Mmmm Mmmm.

So our muffins had such great potential. I love muffins, I love lemon and I love that I'm finally baking. Look at how sweet they look just before going into the oven:

If you've ever made muffins before you probably wouldn't have filled the muffin wrapping so full, maybe you would've only filled it about 3/4 of the way. These are photos of my muffins before and below are photos of my muffins after (which I now call Lava Lemon Poppy Seed Muffins):

I remember in one of my first cake decorating classes I came to this realization that I was having more fun when I was messing up and not doing the decorations perfectly. At the time that went against everything I lived for. Something has shifted because these muffins look ridiculous and I loved making them and I love that they are so funky. I've eaten two and though it takes a little work to get into the heart of the muffin they are pretty tasty!!!

In class we also made Pastry Cream but I didn't take a pic...it looks like pastry cream; eggs, sugar, milk, vanilla, & cornstarch. I did learn cool tricks today like before heating milk in the pan if you rinse the pan out and dump out excess water, leaving a little to coat the bottom of the pan, then the milk won't scorch and burn (huh, that's awesome!!!) and I learned that you can use onions, potatoes, grapes and/or apples as "wild yeast" for a starter dough. Oh yea, we made a starter dough too for sourdough bread. Busy, busy day...awesome!!!