pumpkins and biscuits and burgers - oh my!

Yesterday in class I more than made up for my lack of participation in the kitchen on Thanksgiving. It was a day filled with various pumpkin desserts, bread pudding and biscuits. It was also a day of snowfall. We were dismissed from class at noon because of the snow, yet we still managed to complete everything on our list. We have officially made the transition to quick breads and I could not be happier. Au revoir to yeast and waiting forever for our breads to rise! Bonjour to biscuits, muffins and scones - my comfort zone! But first, a journey through the pumpkin patch.

I must confess that I'm not a big pumpkin pie fan, although I always have a polite slice on Thanksgiving. So I wasn't extremely excited to see two pumpkin desserts on our to-do list yesterday. However, the pumpkin pave' we made first is one of the best pumpkin desserts I've ever had. Pumpkin pave' is basically a pumpkin cheesecake with streusel crust and topping. Much creamier than pumpkin pie and not quite as strong. I have two of these babies at home and not enough family and friends in Indy to share them both with...

While the pave' was in the oven, we began mixing up the ingredients for our pumpkin bread. I have a recipe at home for pumpkin cranberry bread that makes a pretty delicious bread and this one wasn't quite up to par in my opinion. It came out of the oven looking like a brick, but my very kind fiance tells me that it was delish.

Bread pudding was up next. Much to the dismay of my male classmates, we didn't have bourbon in stock to make the sauce. I'm not sure there would have been any bourbon left to make the sauce after they got a hold of it anyways, but that's beside the point. Bread pudding was easier to make than I thought it would be, but I probably won't be making it again in the near future. Who likes soggy bread with raisins? Perhaps this is why it's normally served with a warm bourbon sauce. Ours came out of the oven nicely browned with a uniform jiggle and earned praise from Chef.

Next stop - quickbreads! After a short biscuits demonstration from Chef, we all prepared a small batch of biscuits to practice for our final practical in two weeks. The nice thing about this practical is that I can actually practice at home if I want because the recipe is considerably less complicated and time-consuming than the others. It's all about texture, flakiness and rise with biscuits. Here's a side view of my first attempt.

Even with all of these scrumptious desserts and breads leaving the kitchen with me yesterday, the work that I'm most proud of this weekend is the dinner that I made later that evening. Feast your eyes on this gorgonzola and sage hamburger (recipe courtesy of Rachel Ray) complimented by sweet potato fries. This was seriously one of the best burgers I've ever had. Judge for yourself - with your eyes only of course. For the record, Greg's taste buds agreed with mine.


Hold on to your spatulas because next week things get even quicker - several types of muffins and scones are on the agenda!