My Week In Cookies....yummy!!!

Honestly I figured waiting out a four-day week to post wouldn't leave me that much catching up to do. Not quite. We made lots of cookies this week!!! I've said before that I have gone into this program disliking certain items, which we then make, and I come out realizing I've just been eating crappy versions of this or that. Such a revelation occurred again this week. We started the week off with shortbread cookies. This is a cookies I generally find to be too dry and quite boring...well I used to think of it like that:

From upper left to right we have Lemon Shortbread cookies (two kinds side-by-side), Spritz Rings (also a shortbread type cookie), then Pistachio Shortbread (in the bottom right corner)

Simply mixing the batter for the lemon shortbread cookies was heaven! As far as I could tell we used a pretty basic shortbread recipe and added the zest of one lemon to it. We coated them in sugar a couple of different ways, and who would've thought I actually prefer them being coated one way over another (I prefer the sides coated rather than the tops), first brushing them with cream. We did this with scones also and I know that sometimes people will do this with milk rather than cream when making something similar. I'm going to go ahead and recommend that you switch to using cream, the heavier the better. It makes such a difference! I promise.

Having previously stated my, prior opinion on shortbread, eating these was like lemon butter melting in my mouth. OMG!!! I had to consciously stop myself from eating each and every one. It's hard to pay attention when they're so small :( Not only was the cookies soft, which was great, that lemon was such a romantic touch. My sister took a huge bag of cookies to work with her and everyone gobbled them up, of course, and one woman requested a copy of the shortbread recipe. Apparently they were the biggest hit!!! I'm telling you...Y-U-M-M-Y...too bad they haven't figured out how to transmit taste over the Internet.

Anyone care for some Biscotti?:

Pistachio/Almond Biscotti

I was also not a fan of biscotti coming into class. Another cookie I generally find to be too tough and unappetizing. These, however, I didn't even try. I will say this though...tough they were not! It seems biscotti are generally as tough as they are because they are "twice-baked", or toasted would be another way to describe it. While these were dense, mine were so crumbly before toasting. This is commonly a good thing. After toasting, before coating them in chocolate, they were stable (none fell apart in the bowl of chocolate or anything) and the toasting seemed to add a crispness to them. Again I didn't try a single one. I'm not much of a fan of pistachios and Chef is so we make lots and lots of pistachio stuff, which I hardly ever try :( Rumor has it they are crumbly and tasty. I'm good with that.

Good morning Madeline!:

I was sooooooo excited to make Madelines. We prepared the batter at the end of class one day and allowed it to rest in the refrigerator overnight to let the flour absorb as much liquid as possible. The following morning the first thing we did was prepare our pans and bake up some madelines....ohhhh yummy! One kid in my class didn't even eat breakfast because he knew we'd be making these. They were quite scrumptious! Again the batter had lemon, which in my opinion could be added to almost anything and enhance the heck out of it! These were so dense and cakey and delicious.

As you can see mine are quite dark on one side. I think this is because we used dark coated madeline pans rather than the shiny, silvery ones. Chef said he knows nothing of one having any difference in cooking temps. but I'm going to call foul and go on record saying that "it does make a difference using dark pans vs. lighter, or glass, pans". Not a huge deal, while these are as gorgeous to look at as we're used to they were definitely fun to eat. Again, I had to consciously stop myself from picking up one after another after another.

The other thing I wanted to note was while we were standing back in the oven area I was mentioning to Chef that the ones we were baking had huge domes on the backs while Madeline's that you purchase at say Starbucks, have flat bottoms. He said that's because Starbucks doesn't know what they are doing. I love when the "French-righteousness" comes out in Chef!

Our next cookie is a Baton Marechaux and is basically a sponge cookie:
Similar to how we would make a sponge cake; make a meringue and fold in dry ingredients and bake, we made these. We made a basic meringue and folded in almond powder and baked. I'm a complete and utter sucker for ANYTHING with meringue and so these just kept making their way into my mouth. We piped all these little rounds, baked them, then filled them with our freshly made berry jam and topped them of with a second cookie. They sort of look like mini-hamburgers to me, though taste nothing like it. Super sweet...between the meringue, the jam and the powdered sugar topping they are outrageously sweet! And small, which doesn't help my lack of ability to gauge how many I've actually consumed. I think cookies is going to be another 10 pounds on my body if I don't begin to check myself! (P.S. I am going hiking after this entry!!!)

Ok, we're almost caught up for the week...

On Tuesday, as we didn't have class Monday :), we made some inverted pastry puff (remember this is the pastry with the butter on the outside, making it much more delicious as classic puff pastry! With that pastry dough we made an "interesting" version of palmiers (if you recall these were my absolute favorite of our first journey into puff pastry), some "thing" called a William Tell, which I found not just difficult to make but also to eat (no pic) and bow ties. The bow ties were a bit more complicated than I would've guessed initially but I had a few come out right and they are quite cute:

Friday was filled with Oatmeal R....wait a minute...where is the pic of my Chocolate Chip cookies???? Hang on...

Ok, let's back track for just a moment. Chocolate Chip cookies:
I have two Forever Favorites when it comes to the pastry world. One is the brownie and while it is highly unlikely that we're ever going to make brownies in class we did make my second favorite which is chocolate chip cookies. I mean really, who doesn't like a chocolate chip cookie? Or two or even three of them!!! I really like the texture of these, they were soft and chewy! That's a very important part of the chocolate chip cookie to me. I know some of you like a tough and crispy cookie but you're crazy and there's probably some type of medication that you should be on. But that's just my opinion...a clinical one, don't forget my degree in psychology prior to this one ;) I did not like that the batter was very saturated with the flavor of baking soda...no good! I am going to make these again and either sift the dry ingredients two or three times total or see what happens if I lessen the amount of baking soda. I'm guessing the sifting won't make much difference seeing as how almost every bite was full of baking soda right on the tongue, but I'm willing to try! Also these weren't super sweet, which I liked. There was more to this cookie than just SWEET!!! And I like that in a cookie. We'll see how it goes next time...I have high hopes for this cookie.

As we were...Friday morning we made Oatmeal Raisin cookies and these were so yummy! We used these big ice cream scoops to measure out the cookie sizes and ended up with these gigantic cookies:
Lots of oats, again not too sweet, and chewy!!!! OMG! They are sitting on my dining room table as I write this and it's taking almost everything I've got to not devour a bunch and call it breakfast!!! The funny thing with these is after we pulled them out of the oven we had to deal with the fact that as they spread out the edges got all crispy (use double sheet pans when baking to avoid this problem) but Chef was curious why we didn't press them down and mark them with a criss cross for pattern. I explained to him that traditionally we only do that with peanut butter cookies, it wouldn't have occurred to us to do that with any other type of cookie. It made me think, what would someone think if they saw that criss cross pattern on a cookie in a display window...wouldn't you just think it's a peanut butter cookie with oatmeal in it? Huh.

Lastly we played with different types of coconut macaroons yesterday. These are a meringue based macaroon which actually was air dried out at room temp. before being baked, which I found to be an interesting technique, granted I've never made macaroons before.
Allow me to guide you through what you're looking at here. No they are not burnt! Some of us decided to put chocolate chips in our macaroons. To make these type we heated up some egg whites and sugar over a double boiler to 140 degrees, and then added all the dry ingredients. I was the first one to finish my egg whites and was quite "out of it" by this point in the day and my fellow students were helping me by reminding me to add ALL my dry ingredients, as I was leaving some out. Someone went to remind me about my chocolate chips and without thinking I dumped them all in to my 140 degree solution...NOT the smartest idea I've ever had! They quickly began melting all over the place and my batter began looking less and less appealing. Rest assured, while not pretty they are tasty!

Next is a Rocher Coco (more of a wet macaroon):
These are right up my alley. They are moist on the inside and oh so coconutty. They almost remind me of the coconut tarts we made a few weeks back. The recipe is similar but not exact. And the best part is how easy these are to make...too easy, and no fat (lots and lots and lots and lots of sugar...but no fat).

So that's my week in cookies. We also made some savory petit fours, none of which I found to be great. We'll continue next week with more cookies and add in some sweet petit fours...oh goody!
Must leave you now and go for a hike...I'm about 15 pounds heavier than when I initially began class and the time has come to put my foot down. Besides I want to be able to enjoy what I'm making, not feel guilty and lazy for not figuring out how to make my life workable!

Peace and love to you!

Keep On Keepin' On

Cake finals are over!!! Whooo hoooo! Seriously who knew all the work that goes into one freakin' cake!!! For our final we made six cakes and six tarts over four days. I'm not even sure if that seems like a lot to you but it was absolutely INSANE!!!! Especially when you're doing every detail from scratch and by hand. One of my fellow students wasn't even able to complete all 12 items by the deadline and I was working almost right up to it. Most of the other students were done with a couple of hours to spare but no one had a good week...and I mean NO ONE!!! It was madness for the word "go"....

But it's over and I have a couple left over photos from the last part of our cake section to share. The week before finals Chef went on vacation and we had a substitute culinary chef. Now our sub-chef was a well trained chef with many, many years in the industry and does teach a pastry section in each of his classes. However he is not a pastry chef and as you may have noticed there is a difference, a huge difference. While Chef was on vacation we were to learn how to make an Opera cake ( a very famous French cake created by the even more famous French pastry chef Gaston Lenotre) and a Black Forest Cake (while a bit more common still a popular cake), a Vertigo cake (some pistachio delight) as well as practicing our frosting of a cake in 20 minutes and our piping skills. We had five days to accomplish this, and more, much more....though we didn't get anywhere near "more"...where do I even start????

The first cake we made with our substitute Chef was the Opera cake.

This cake is quite delicious well I would've said that a couple of weeks ago. Now I cannot stand this atrocious mess of a cake. There are a gazillion layers to this cake. You have a base of a jaconde cake (thin, sponge-like) drenched in coffee flavored syrup...and I use the term "drenched" with much intention. Trying to figure out how much was enough and how much was too much was an extremely thin line...extremely thin. There are a total of three layers of this sponge in the cake and each layer was coated differently than the others because gauging it was so difficult. Mind you that if you over drench it the cake will start to fall apart and as you add the layers to it it'll become so heavy that it'll collapse on itself. Then you've got a layer of chocolate ganache, cake (soaked, of course) a layer of coffee buttercream, cake, and then the tiniest layers of ganache and buttercream, then a glaze and decor.

In my life, even prior to pastry school, I've made lots of buttercream, never with a creme anglaise base, but lots of different kinds. It seems simple enough; make a creme anglaise (basically a custard) whip until cooled and add butter. Yea, not even close. The instructions are the same but the outcome was a freak of pastry nature! No one got a decent buttercream and I think we all used different techniques. So you have to figure that's eight of us doing it slightly different from one another and not a single one of us got a real and decent buttercream.

In the end this cake was so disastrous our sub-Chef had us remake it on our next class day. Ug! That was such an utter unsuccess that we had to make another one at the end of the week. And the reason we kept at it for so long was because it was part of our final to make this Opera cake. OMG for real!!!! For our final Chef allowed us to use a buttercream recipe we were all familiar with and my cake ended up turning out great, minus the fact that I under-drenched my cakes based on a previous disaster with another of my final cakes but that's another story entirely.

The other haunting experience I had with our sub-Chef was the Black Forest cake...and again it's related to how to best soak a cake...oh there is definitely a theme here!!! So our sub-Chef keeps going on and on about how to best soak a cake and emphasizing drenching it beyond its own saturation point. So I did that with my Black Forest cake...wanna see what happened to it???
I couldn't even frost it because it was falling apart every time my spatula touched it. I think this was the very same day my friend Zeke had checked out my previous blog entry and commented how good and professional my cakes have been looking...so of course I sent him this pic right away. No no, wouldn't want my ego to get too carried away now would we???? ;)

At the end of the day our sub-Chef had up present our works and while I refused to decorate this mess I had to at least clean it up so this is what it looked like for presentation:
Not too bad, considering what it looked like a couple of hours prior to it's clean up and stint in the freezer. We also had to remake this cake later that week and while I don't have a picture my cake turned out beautifully. My edges were nearly perfect and my frosting job was nearly immaculate so I completely redeemed myself....as I always do.

I was definitely not born with the bakers gene but I am really good at saving my own ass and this is never anything I had to do when studying psychology. That was a world that made so much sense to me automatically, without even thinking about it. This world is so foreign. I knew exactly what I was asking for when I asked to be involved more with my creative side, however my creative side has been suffocating for so long that sometimes it feels like chaos trying to pull off a piece of wonder like we do in class. I adore being there, though I don't think I've ever worked as hard as class demands of me, and I have a sense of pride in a completed cake or bread or whatever we're making. That isn't something I ever got working in psychology. So much of that world is about planting seeds and knowing that they will blossom when the time is right for the other person and that you are most likely not going to witness that, which was all well and good with me, though the instantaneous-ness of this world is sort of freaking me out a bit. I move slow and it drives Chef mad but it isn't out of laziness (which is what I think he thinks it is) its out of having no familiar bearings. Not only do I know very little about the pastry world, I know very little about what it is to feed any creative drive or desire in myself. Tangent over...who wants a Petite Basset?:
The main aspect of this cake, obviously, is the nougatine on top. The inside is an almond daquios cake (has a very meringue-like consistency & a slight crunch) and probably some mousse (I do not have the recipe in front of me, sorry). To make nougatine you would use something similar to fondant to achieve that chewy, marshmallowy texture. We tried that and didn't get what we wanted to instead we made almond brittle...not anything like nougatine but hey it looks good, right? The best part here was the sugar work. I really enjoy working with sugar. You bring it to this insane high temperature, throw some almonds in then hurry your ass off in order to lay it out, shape it, cut it, and slice it all before it hardens...all while it remains at this insane high temperature. Not sure what the rush is for me here but I just go crazy with job when we get to melt sugar and play with it.

Then we made a Vertigo cake, nothing too different with this cake but we did have to spray it with the spray gun to give it that outer coloring of green:
Granted mine isn't too green and was definitely less green that others in my class. I was totally excited about using the spray gun in class and then I stepped up to use it and it was so completely not fun. All we used was an electric spray paint gun you'd buy at Home Depot (which Chef calls a Pastry Chefs Playground) and fill it with melted white chocolate and green food coloring. Not sure why I didn't enjoy it but I hurried up as much as I could to get done and that's why my cake is green-ish instead of green.

Very popular cake though, here's the inside cut:
We have a fruit jelly on top, covered in pistachio mousse, a sponge cake underneath, more mousse (of course) and an hazelnut daquiose on the bottom.

For our final I presented my tarts first and Chef ripped me a new one. My doughs weren't fully cooked, my fillings, almost all, came out weird or just plain wrong, and I was absolutely miserable. The following day I presented cakes and reached complete redemption!!!!! This is definitely a niche for me. My redemption came in two ways....while I did not present six perfect cakes to him they were each put together well (except for my Mocha cake which was over drenched and began falling apart just like my Black Forest cake) and really well made cakes. I truly hope I've emphasized how difficult these cakes have been to actually make because it has not been easy in the slightest. So Chef explained the things that could've been better about them, all small bits of detail work, and was pleased to know that I get the technique of cake making and that I execute it well. Whew! That's a huge compliment. Also...mousses. Have you ever actually made a mousse? I hadn't until class and it is quite a specific process...especially as you add additional ingredient to it which immediately change the consistency of it. Each one of my cakes had "really good" mousses....YES!!!!! Huge deal to me!

Breads: DONE
Cakes: DONE
Cookies & Petit Fours: NEXT