buttery snails anyone?

For all of you anxiously awaiting the results of Jaime vs. butter, the wait is over. And even though my butter put up a bit of a fight yesterday, I'm happy to say that I was victorious in the end. And there was "naan-thing" the butter could do about it.

We started our day making the Danish pastry dough for our practical exam. After we folded the butter into our dough and put it in the refrigerator to chill, Chef P demonstrated the snail shapes we had to perfect for the practical. We also made the dough for our delicious Naan (Indian bread) while we were waiting - more to come on that later. After lunch it was time to make some snails. There is a nervous energy in the classroom when our class is making something for a practical grade and you can feel the buzz in the atmosphere. We all set about rolling out our dough as thin as we could get it, spreading egg wash over the whole thing, sprinkling sugar and cinnamon over one half and folding it together. Then we cut 1/2 inch strips of dough off, twisted them up on the table and tied the strip in a knot around our fingers. Voila - a snail. Luckily we were able to whip up about twelve snails each and pick the best six to present for a grade. My snails were much larger than my partners (of course), but we baked them together and all turned out well. We then had to spread apricot glaze over the tops and had the option to frost them as well.

I'm proud to say that these babies earned me a 96 on my exam. And a lot of praise from my fiance and two lucky friends who were in town from Fort Wayne for a visit. Here they are right before their first tastes of glazed snail heaven -

Come back for more anytime, Kristy and Andrea! We also noshed on some delicious Naan last night. I told my partner that I was not leaving the kitchen yesterday until we got our Naan baked because I had promised some to my fiance the night before. For those of you who haven't had Indian food before (I was in that boat about a month ago), Naan is comparable to a flat bagel and has a soft doughy taste. We added butter and poppy seeds to the top of ours for some extra flavor. There is currently "naan" left, so it must have been delicious.

I will not be in class next week because of the Thanksgiving holiday, but there will be plenty of happy tastes all week long. I am truly thankful for each one of my faithful readers (aka family and friends) and I hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving. Here's an up-close-and-personal view of a snail danish to hold you over for a few weeks...mmmmm.