Check out these chocolate chip scones. They are so amazingly large and in charge that I had to begin my blog this week with a picture of their grandness. In case you're wondering, yes, these were the largest scones made in class on Saturday. And while a handful of students were chattering about the grand size of my scones, Chef reminded me that no one else in the class knows more about baking than I do at this point, so I shouldn't worry about what anyone thinks unless it's him. Noted and appreciated, Chef.
The main reason I was able to make these plus-sized baked goods was because I was in a group by myself. That's right; my one remaining group mate for the term didn't show up. So I made everything just how I wanted it, but I also found myself looking around the room wondering if I was doing everything correctly. It really forced me to trust my instincts as a chef and believe that I was doing things right. It also made me work extra hard because not only did I have to scale all of the ingredients, make all of the dough, pan and bake the breads and watch the timer on the oven, but I also had to keep my area clean and wash every dish I used. Phew. Needless to say, it was an exhausting but very rewarding day.
Our final exam and practical is next week and we were able to whip up another round of practice biscuits this week. Here is my second (and better) attempt at this quick bread.
And now for the twist - not only do we have to make biscuits for our final grade, but we also have to make blueberry muffins. Luckily I had chosen these muffins to make from our long list of options. I made a batch using the muffin method, which is a much quicker/simpler method than the more common creaming method. It makes the muffins taste more like bread than cake, which is not desired by most consumers these days, but I thought they were pretty darn good.
I feel pretty confident that I can bake up a few good biscuits and muffins next week, but I might try to whip up a practice batch or two this week just to be sure. Wish me luck!
And just in case you're wondering exactly how grand my scones are...
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.
Hold on to your spatulas because next week things get even quicker - several types of muffins and scones are on the agenda!
I'm kind of embarrassed to report that I took the Thanksgiving holiday off from baking. That's right readers, I allowed my mother to bake her frozen Sara Lee pies instead of whipping one up from scratch for my family to enjoy. But hey, once they have the real thing do you think they'll ever settle for less again? No. So really, I am saving everyone a lot of taste bud therapy here. Don't worry, Mom - everyone loves Sara Lee (especially when she gets dropped on the floor right before we leave).
The only chef-related activity I engaged in during Thanksgiving break was watching the entire season of Top Chef: Just Desserts. And it was FABULOUS. I personally cannot ever imagine memorizing tons of recipes and working under that kind of pressure, but it sure is fun to be sucked into the television drama of pastry for several hours. And now I am refreshed and ready to get back into the kitchen this weekend. Bring on the bread!
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 officially halfway through my first term at school and I am starting to feel like a real chef. One who knows how many ounces are in a quart, how to use baker’s percentages in recipes, and how much flavor butter and other fats can add to plain dough. That's right; it was butter me up time in the kitchen again this week. After the slight mishap in class last week, our group was determined not to slip up again yesterday. The butter had other plans for us however.
Our assignment was to make Danish pastry dough, blitz puff pastry dough, an apple compote filling and chocolate icing. The chocolate icing was a piece of cake (and I wish I had cake to put it on). The apple compote was also quite simple, once we learned the quickest, safest way to dice up an apple. First you cut the apple into sheets, then sticks, then squares. And you get to keep all of your fingers. Genius. Best thing I learned all day. The blitz puff pastry dough was fun to make and very similar to pie dough except that you have to give it three folds and roll it out a few times to make sure the fat is evenly distributed. This helps the flaky layers magically appear after baking. When this dough was ready, I styled it into a few different designs from my baking book and squirted on some delicious blueberry filling.
These turned out better than I thought, although the dough was not quite as tasty as the Danish puff pastry dough. Once the Danish dough itself was ready and had cooled, along with a large hunk of butter, we spread the butter onto the dough and began the fold in process. The main concern here is trying to keep the dough and the butter the same temperature. If the butter is too soft or warm it will attempt to escape the dough and ooze out onto the table. Which ours did. Once my butter jumped so far out of the dough that it would have won first prize in the long jump competition at a high school track meet. And even after some extra time in the refrigerator, we were unable to get this dough thin enough to fold up like the fashionable pastries above. So we decided to throw some apple compote and cinnamon and sugar in the middle, roll it up like a log and cut it into cinnamon rolls. Anything with this much butter, cinnamon and sugar is bound to taste good, even if it's not the intended final product.
Here's hoping that in my final showdown with butter during next week's practical, I win. And now let's take one additional look at the most splendid pastry I've ever made...
It's a beautiful specimen of flaky goodness. And I'll be eating it tomorrow morning for breakfast. Here's to a tasty Monday morning filled with blueberry happiness!
Bonjour! It’s Saturday bake time and I am feeling slightly more French than I did last weekend. Why, you ask? Because I am now a fiancée of course. OUI. And this makes everything in life more exciting - including waking up at 6:30am every Saturday to run around a hot kitchen for eight hours. Maybe it will help my skills at mastering the flaky croissant as well...
Before I begin my recap of class this week, I'd like to fill you in on everything that I must drag to class with me every Saturday morning at 8am. Like a normal student, there are the books, notepads, pens and a calculator, but for a pastry student there is also the apron, hat, side towels, pastry kit (with approx 20 tools inside) and digital scale if you so choose to buy one. After the first few weeks of using an old-school balance scale, I promptly invested in a nice digital one this week and was eager to use it in class yesterday. So eager, in fact, that I managed to walk right out the door without my pastry kit. Luckily, my group allowed me to borrow their tools as needed, but how could I forget such an integral part of my "uniform?" Needless to say, my large stack of supplies will be waiting by the door for me next week. And the digital scale will definitely be included - it considerably reduced our time scaling ingredients.
Now let's move on to my week four recap. I wish I could say everything went smooth like butter; however, we had a few marginal mishaps. And tons of butter was involved. But before things got sticky, we made two delicious breads. We delved into the world of rich dough this week, and while yeast is still involved in a variety of these breads, the sweetness of the finished product makes it all worthwhile.
Our first bread was Kugelhopf, which I fondly nicknamed the Kug (pronounced Coug - short for Cougar). This bread reminds me of the Stollen that my grandma makes every year for Christmas morning. Mostly because my grandma makes Stollen more like Kug and uses only raisins instead of adding the candied fruit chunks - and I don't blame her one bit for this variation. Kug is pretty basic sweet bread with golden raisins added. It's baked in a tube pan, but you heavily butter the pan and line the bottom with sliced almonds, which makes for a nice decorative touch.
Obviously this is only half of the loaf, but I think this bread is worthy of two images. Just look at those almond beauties.
Next up was Brioche. This is very similar to the recipe for Kug, but tastes more like a croissant than anything else. It's interesting how breads can have the exact same ingredients and vary in flavor based on the quantity of ingredients used and preparation technique alone. I realize this tidbit may only be interesting to an aspiring chef... Anyways, back to Brioche. This bread is typically baked in tins of various sizes with dough that has been rolled out like a bowling pin. The smaller portion of dough is placed on top of the main roll like a tête. En Francis, tête means "head," and I was able to show off my French skills by shouting this out when Chef B asked if anyone knew what tête meant. Moi! Oui, oui!
I hope your weekend was as tasty as mine!
