Indianapolis received a taste of the NFL this past week while hosting its first Super Bowl. There were the standard football players, celebrities, traffic, crowds and beer drinking on the streets that you would see at any Super Bowl, but what I enjoyed most was the great vibrancy in the city that made me proud to live here and soak in the fun. I volunteered at the NFL Experience a few days and will continue to wear my super scarf proudly for years to come; however, the event I'm most proud of participating in is the "Taste of the NFL" charity event this weekend at Gleaner's Food Bank. It was the first time the $600 ticket event has been held on site at the benefiting food bank and I think it helped make even more of an impact on all of the chefs volunteering their time and the many cocktail attire attendees. I was in The Chef's Academy pastry booth with my Chefs from school and we had one of the favorite displays of the night. Let me show you why. First, there was the pastillage centerpiece with chocolate abstract Lombardi trophy on top.
Then there was the second chocolate display complete with an edible football.
But it was really the desserts themselves that stole all of the attention.
We lined up rows and rows of petit fours on a large mirror at our booth. There were four delicious varieties including (in lament terms): a New York style cheesecake with chocolate mousse, a strawberry shortcake flavored cake, a sachertorte complete with raspberry jam, and my favorite: a white chocolate mousse hazelnut crunch variety with real gold leaf on top and a short dough crust on the bottom. It was definitely the fan favorite of the night as well. One of the Colts Alumni players at our booth had four pieces.
While I didn't make the beautiful cakes, I did help plate and serve them to approximately 3,000 guests. We eventually had to serve pieces from the mirror display and actually turn guests away at the end of the night when service was supposed to stop and we were trying to clear the table. The evening flew by and it was a ton of fun, plus I got to work with my favorite chefs. Here I am with the fabulously French Chef Pierre.
I know what you're thinking. You want to see pictures of celebrities. While there were plenty of chefs, celebrities, and football players I didn't know in attendance, I did see a few famous foodie folks that you may know. Ted Allen from "Chopped" was the host of the event and he seemed very friendly and down to earth. Also, two stars from the "Cake Boss" were on site and made a special cake for the event. I didn't see the boss men themselves, but I did snap a photo of their cake while it was being stored in the large freezer room.
That is all edible. It was crazy to see up close - the jerseys looked so real that I almost stomped on the Brady one, but I managed to hold it together and backed away from the cake.
Greg and I also saw several celebrities downtown during the week. We spotted Jimmy Fallon doing an interview with Al Roker from the Today Show. There were several hosts of various ESPN shows and countless football players. I did snap a photo of a local sports icon who was on hand for the Super 46 sandwich contest rally in Super Bowl Village. Blue II - the Butler Bulldog mascot with taste buds of slobber!
I was also lucky enough to get a picture with the winner of the Super 46 sandwich contest, Fritz from the Schnitzelbank Restaurant in Jasper, IN. Here he is ready to squirt mustard on a brat-covered soft pretzel.
And what better to wash down the sandwich with than a special Super Bowl edition Bud Light? You may question this decision, but this souvenir gave us the experience of walking around the streets of Indy with a beer in our hands and no one to stop us. And it's all about the experience right? Yeah, in this case it was because the beer tasted like water.
To make up for this bad judgment call, I ended the weekend with my new favorite winter treat - Rumchata.
For more celebrity sightings, I recommend browsing a gossip site. For more delicious baked goods, I recommend coming here next week. I'll be back in the kitchen with new tastes soon.
This blog post may seem like a exact replica of last week's blog post due to the same featured projects: ice cream and pastillage. I apologize for the repetitiveness and assure you that this post contains more caffeine and creativity than last week.
Exhibit A: caffeine
Hazelnut coffee beans are a great choice for homemade coffee ice cream. If you don't like coffee, you probably won't like this ice cream. I have been a fan of coffee ice cream since I was a kid - and way too young to drink coffee on a regular basis. On my family's weekly trip to Atz's, I would always order a chocolate chip mint ice cream cone and then manage to convince my grandpa to trade me for his coffee ice cream cone. Apparently, I didn't feel adult enough to just order one myself. Lucky for me, he seemed to like chocolate chip mint ice cream.
Anyways, this ice cream gets its divine coffee flavor from steeping coffee beans in milk for at least an hour before making the ice cream custard base.
Exhibit B: beans-a-steeping
As a finishing touch to this ice cream, I recommend adding some chocolate covered espresso beans to the bowl. Come on - everyone's doing it.
I will be taking a short vacation from ice cream making, but will continue heating up the oven. I made a batch of Andes mint cookies and key lime pound cake last week. Gone and gone.
In class on Saturday, the artful design of pastillage continued. I had all of the pieces cut out and a blank slate to work with for my pastillage centerpiece.
Exhibit C: the blank slate
My initial image of the final centerpiece became modified as I began painting pieces and putting them together. Everything was glued together with royal icing, which still amazes me, and I'm happy to say that my finished product made it home in one piece.
The flowers are made from gum paste, which is very similiar to pastillage, and were really fun to make. The flowers and leaves are my favorite part of the piece.
Is this something I would want to do every day? No. But these centerpieces can be kept for years and this one will remain in my house until it meets an untimely break.
Exhibit D: one proud, creative chef
There is no class this weekend due to Super Bowl activities, however, I will be assisting with the high caliber Taste of the NFL event on Saturday night. I'll report back on celebrity sightings and chef encounters. There will be a chef at the event from every NFL city and I plan on rubbing spatulas with as many of them as I can.
Exhibit 46: The Super Bowl arrives in Indianapolis
Say hello to a perfectly lazy Sunday morning treat. These sticky buns are easy to make and drool worthy delicious. Greg and I enjoyed a batch of them over the holidays in Raleigh, and luckily my Mom-in-Law passed along the recipe before we left.
This is what brown sugar and cinnamon rolled up in a sheet of puff pastry coated with melted butter looks like. Add these to a muffin tin filled with more butter and brown sugar, plus a handful of nuts, and the drooling begins.
Bake them, flip them over and let your taste buds enjoy. For those of you with a guilty scale conscience, remember this happiness tip: stick to your buns.
I'm sticking to my ice cream making buns, I mean guns, as well. Last week I made Mint Cookies and Cream ice cream, with some help from my favorite sous chef. These cookies were no match against Greg and a meat tenderizer.
Our reward for hard work turned out to be some of the best ice cream we've ever tasted. Said ice cream is modeled here in one of our new beautiful tea cups from Grandmother.
Can you see the cookies in there? If not, put on your glasses. Or check this next shot out.
It's the best way for a cookie to crumble.
And now, to the moment you've all been waiting for... Did my plate au pastillage avec cocoa painting turn into a masterpiece of art? Well, that might be overstating it a bit. But in staying with the theme of this post, I will say that I am proud of the work I put into this project and the end result. Orange frame and all.
And this little chef bird is familiar to me for some reason...
I bet he's much tastier in chocolate than permanent marker though. Isn't everything better with chocolate?
Welcome to 2012. This is the year that I will graduate from pastry school and my desserts will graduate into a store front window. A girl can dream, right? Until then, welcome to my store front window.
A shiny new toy that has been getting a lot of attention lately is my ice cream maker. I started out by making a plain vanilla, just to make sure I remembered the important details.
The makings of a protein shake? No. These are needed for a batch of creamy ice cream. Along with a lot of heavy cream and whole milk. This is not a treat for calorie counters. After making the custard and letting it sit overnight in the fridge, it's time to turn on the magic machine.
And this magic machine fits right onto my handy Kitchen Aid mixer. Around 20 minutes later, you have a quart of ice cream to enjoy. With chocolate sauce and sprinkles, of course.
The difference between this smooth delight and your $4 half gallon ice cream from the grocery store is unbelievable. This is ice cream worth the work and the calories. Especially when David Lebovitz's ultimate chocolate ice cream recipe goes in for a spin.
A quick taste test almost resulted in Greg and I drinking the whole bowl before it graduated to ice cream status. But since I was making it for my dad's birthday party (and let's not forget, he was Santa), we decided to save it to serve with my grandma's German chocolate cake after all.
The results: a chocolate dream. It was all gone before they left.
On a savory note, I mixed up a batch of herb buttermilk biscuits this week. The meal was very carb heavy and hearty, but let's not forget we're in Indiana and the temperature outside is now below freezing on a regular basis. No judgment.
In the spirit of staying warm, I also turned on the oven for some baked goods. First up was a batch of my peanut butter banana cupcakes. I almost have the recipe memorized.
And most recently I expanded my cookie horizon to a thin and crunchy variety. I saw a recipe for super thin chocolate chip cookies in a new recipe book that Greg gave me for Christmas and it caught my attention. These cookies are very easy to make and are especially nice for folks who like to forget they have the oven on. I, on the other hand, had to sit on my hands so I wouldn't pull the pans out of the oven before the cookies turned brown and crisp. It was worth the effort though, as what started out looking like this...
turned into this
caramel brown, crunchy goodness. Perfect for dipping into your morning coffee. Or ice cream.
Enough about what I've been baking at home, let's talk about class. I'm back in the school kitchen, but so far the ovens have not been turned on very much. Instead I'm in the midst of art and design and creativity. For a girl who likes to follow the recipes and rules, this is not the easiest term, but I have had fun so far. I'd like to be more creative and this is helping me to expand my horizons.
Our first assignment was to bake a cake and apply a cake transfer to the top of it. Greg helped me with a transfer design, which I then traced onto parchment paper with tuile batter and baked before applying it to my cake. Here it is before baking:
And after a quick bake and flip:
It's Emma's debut on a cake! There are even three bones for her. Every dog should be so lucky. And the cake inside was divine.
Our next two projects involve pastillage. This is basically edible plaster, but it's not worth breaking a tooth over. You can mold and paint on the pastillage and then glue it together when it dries to make beautiful centerpieces and sculptures. We'll be working on the centerpieces next week, but first we have to draw a cocoa painting on a plate. Here is my blank slate.
Stay tuned to see what a little sandpaper and paint can do. Who knows, maybe you'll see it in a bakery store front window someday....
Before we jump into a new year of freshly baked goods, first I'd like to recap some of the more memorable food events during the last week of 2011. After Christmas in Fort Wayne, Greg and I hopped on a plane to Raleigh to visit his family. There was a lot of fun and food awaiting us. To give you an idea of just how much food, here is a shot of the refrigerator.
Inside, we found 16 boxes of cream cheese. Don't believe me? Count them for yourself.
Don't worry - four of them are low fat. We indulged in many great meals and I took a few snapshots to share. One night we rolled out a bunch of pizza dough and had a pizza party with several delicious toppings.
And we visited a wonderful bakery that had Stollen in the display case for the holidays! I almost filled out a job application on the spot. Instead I ordered a breakfast sandwich AND took an almond croissant to go. Which I ate pretty much right after we got back to the house.
Upon returning from our travels, Greg and I decided that spending New Year's Eve at home sounded like a great idea, so that's what we did. For dinner, we had Brie and crackers, along with some Upland Winter Warmer. And Scrabble of course.
We had to ring in the New Year with dessert as well, and I decided to make the chocolate molten lava cakes that I had just received a recipe for from my Mom-in-Law. This choice also allowed me to use the new ramekins I received for Christmas (so cute!).
This may look like a simple mini-cake...
But when chocolate oozes out after a bite or two, it becomes something much more. To quote Greg: "All I want to do for the rest of my life is eat this." We decided it was more practical just to eat them until 2012 arrived, and they were the perfect way to end the year. Along with a bottle of champagne and an interesting performance from Lady Gaga with a caged head and Dick Clark counting down the ball drop in NYC.
Happy New Year!
