The ovens are full

Indeed the ovens are full and yielding lots of good, fresh bread! Above are baguettes baking in a rotating rack oven, which produces very even baking as it rotates the product as it bakes. We use these in baking most of our breads.

Two weeks ago I started the 6 week doughs segment of the baking and pastry program. In this class we work in six groups, each of which is assigned one of six production items. The six types of bread each use a different method of bread making and shown clockwise in photo above they are baguettes, ballons (soft rolls), pain au levain (like sourdough), danish, focaccia and butter braids. Each day of our first week of class we learned one or two of these six different methods. We also had to learn to work in a much more fast paced environment than we experienced in our cakes course and to manage and juggle time.

In the second week of doughs, along with making one production item each day, we were assigned a special project to complete. These special projects were one time recipes that help reinforce the six basic methods we use to make the six production items. The first project was Honey Whole Wheat bread (shown above) and we formed it in loaves. We also make Pain au Lait, which looked the same as Honey Whole Wheat, but was a white bread. They both made great toast and the Pain au Lait made awesome french toast this weekend

Another of the projects was Soft Pretzels, which were fun to make, but not my favorite as they were too chewy, likely a result of over-working the dough.

We also made bagels, which was really exciting because although I love bagels I have never made them before. I now know how to make my own and they are so much better than those doughy versions they sell at Einstein/Noah's!

Lastly, we made Maple Oat Rolls, which were a slightly sweet dinner roll. I didn't get a picture of them, and I am finding that the pace of the class is allowing a lot fewer opportunities for photo taking and observing. The pace of the class is very intense and much different from the cakes course. I like having the opportunity to make the same item several times, as we do with the production items because I felt that the biggest downfall to the cakes course was that we made everything once and were not able to learn from mistakes by doing it correctly the next time. I am feeling a bit over loaded on bread!

It takes the cake

As promised, I am sharing a cut picture of my practice wedding cake. I have to say that it did feel somewhat like a ceremonial moment, cutting my first wedding cake! I decided that after seeing what it does to all of the beautiful decorations, in future occasions where my creations are being cut open, I don't want to be the one that has to do it!

The outer most white layer is fondant, which I quickly learned is best if peeled away and thrown out--it can make a good cake terrible! The second layer is marzipan, and the cake is a very dense fruitcake. It was tasty and rich, however wouldn't be my wedding cake of choice, but this is how the English do it, and they invented the wedding cake!

Hard to believe that our cakes section is over and we are now in our 10th week of classes. January 8th we returned to make our last two cakes. We reviewed and taste tested our practice wedding cakes (shown above), make our final wedding cakes and making Opera cakes. Above is a photo of all of the wedding cakes from our class on display.

This is my final wedding cake. This wedding cake was assigned by our chef and I was told to do the exact same cake, working on making the flowers thinner and the drop string piping (the swags) more even. Although that was quite a challenge, I had hoped that I would be assigned to do something much different from what I had done in my practice. I had to come up with something that I was happy with at first and make it even better, and it ended up being a good challenge.Everyone was instructed to make a two tiered cake with one 9" and one 6" tier. They had to be poundcake made with shortening in place of the butter, so that they could be preserved into eternity. There was a crumb coat done with a shortening/powdered sugar icing combo and then the entire cake was coated with fondant. This is the type of cake that would be great served at your worst enemies wedding! The main focus here was the presentation and decoration.

The flowers on my cake were made of gum paste, and I brushed the inner part with gold shimmer dusting powder, which is edible. I added two leaves to each side of each flower, which I didn't have in the practice. The leaves were brushed with pearl shimmer dust, as was the snail trial piping detail at the base of each tier.

I wanted to do something on the top for this cake, but something simple. I made a slightly larger flower than I used on the sides and wired six together to create a bouquet. I was very happy with the result and the flowers. The most difficult part was the drop string, which I struggled to get even and smooth.

Our last cake was a pavee, which is a very thin cake (should be about 1" thick) with many layers. This pavee is called an Opera Cake and the layers consisted of nut joconde, mocha cake syrup, mocha French buttercream and ganache, which were all topped with a poured ganache and decorated with the word "Opera." It was very good, although ours turned out a bit thick and the poured ganache was way too thick, didn't coat well and had slight blooming--that's what happens when rushing too much! Regardless, a delicious cake to end with.

So, that is the final blog on cakes! Next week I will be moving into doughs, so there will be lots of bread to come, but for now...let them eat cake!

Christmas in San Francisco

This was our first California Christmas, and I have to admit that I didn't miss the chilling winds or the snow--I can still think about a Chicago winter and and get that cold shivery feeling, so it doesn't feel all that far away yet. And with the scenes that they create in Union Square, in downtown San Francisco (pictured above) you would think you were in a winter wonderland!

This is a scene from one of the Tiffany's windows on Union Square. They were the best windows of all of the stores, however the wreaths in the windows of the Macy's building (above) were spectacular!


Here is our little tree on Christmas morning. I received lots of fun culinary tools and books that I am sure will lead to many new adventures in the kitchen! I am especially excited about the ice cream maker!

I thought we were doing Christmas dinner the easy way, with a Honeybaked Ham, but then built a menu full of sides to cook, but it was fun! Since we were doing ham I put a southern twist on the menu. The ham leftovers were wonderful for the week following, which we used in numerous sandwiches, omeletes and Terry made us HLT's (ham, lettuce, tomato), which were out of this world!

Our Christmas Dinner Menu:

Honeybaked Ham
Scalloped Potatoes
Macaroni and Cheese
Baby Brussels Sprouts with Buttered Pecans
Oven Roasted Carrots
Sweet Potato Biscuits

Dessert:

Saffron Eggnog
Apple-Raison Bread Pudding with Cinnamon and Pear Caramel Sauce

The brussels sprouts were my attempt to re-try a vegetable that I didn't like as a kid. I have seen so many great sounding sprout recipes lately that I was convinced I was missing out on something good. This dish did it for me! I am a convert! I first boiled the sprouts for a few minutes and just before everything else came out of the oven I popped them into the skillet with some butter and diced garlic until they where browned on the outside. Lastly, I tossed them with the toasted, buttered and salted pecans--yummo!

Of course I had to mention the bread pudding! It was really good and custard-y and the sauce (which I bought) was a really good match! I made them in 8oz ramekins, which ended up being too much for one person after a big Christmas dinner, but we enjoyed sharing in the name of the Christmas spirit!

A Traditional English Wedding Cake

This is my very first wedding cake, and it was so exciting to make. We were given the freedom to choose any type of cake, flavoring and style that we wanted for our wedding cake. I decided to make a traditional English wedding cake in order to become familiar with a classic style--I can always play around with variations, but knowing the classics is a good base to stand on.

A traditional English cake is a very dense fruitcake covered in a thick layer of marzipan (up to one inch thick) and then either covered in royal icing, or the more modern twist is to cover it in fondant. It sounds strange, even gross, but this is tradition folks! It isn't served in big slices like we Americans are accustomed to, rather in small 1-inch x 1-inch by cake-depth squares, really a small sampling, and appropriate considering how rich it would be.


To make the cake I made a fruitcake (recipe provided by my chef instructor) which had 10.5 pounds (that is not a type-o!) of fruit and nuts! It was crazy making this much cake all at once. I had to multiply the recipe in order to make a three tiered cake with a 10"x3" layer an 8"x3" layer and two 6"x1.5" layers (because there wasn't a 3" high pan) and there was and extra 6” to sample!

Baking the cakes and took 4 HOURS!!!! Can you believe that? I even had to stay an hour after class to wait for the cake to finish baking! The baking time was largely due to the density of the cake and 2-3 hours is normal for the recipe, but because it was so large it took an hour longer.

The following day, after baking the cakes, I soaked them with brandy (traditionally this done for three months prior to the wedding) and then coated each tier with a layer of marzipan, which was closer to 1/3" than the traditional 1-inch.

The marzipan aged overnight, which made it firmer and easier to work with. I then draped each tier in white fondant, rolled about 1/3" thick. This was the first time I have worked with fondant, and it was very difficult. It shows every little finger mark/dent and when it tears it has to be rolled out all over again. However, by the following day it had hardened significantly enough that it was much easier to work with.

I made gumpaste in order to make the flowers (another method to make decorative flowers and traditional for wedding cakes), which I colored light peach. I was in a time crunch at this point and had to make the flowers just prior to needing to place them on the cake. I found out the hard way that really they should be made ahead of time so that they will harden and be much easier to work with. The swags and pearl border I piped on the cake with ivory colored royal icing.

I was very happy with the results, especially with the time given, about 12 hours of actual working time. We are scheduled to review our cakes after the Holiday Break and they are awaiting us wrapped and in the walk-in freezers at school. When we return we will be able to cut into the cakes and see what it is like to destroy our beautiful pieces of artwork!!! I will post pictures when that happens!

Patty Cake, Patty Cake, Princess Cake, Chocolate Cake

Sorry it has taken me this long to post! School along with working a retail job during the holidays got the best of me! I have been enjoying a small break from school since December 22nd and will return next Tuesday January 9th to the early mornings and life in the busy kitchen! In the mean time I am trying to get caught up on other things in life--like cleaning the toilet and scrubbing the floors! Come to think of it, I can't wait for school to start up again!

This post is from the 7th week of the Cakes class. We continued practicing our perfect layering and icing skills and this traditional Swedish Princess Cake was an exercise in draping a cake, rather than icing the outside. Here we used marzipan, which we colored (the traditional cake is a pastel green color) and the inside cake was genoise layered with Creme Mousseline (this is just a fancy term for pastry cream which is mixed with whipped cream) and Orange Jam (traditionally a raspberry jam is used). The crumb coat is whipped cream as is the dome on top, a characteristic of a traditional Princess Cake. Then the whole thing is draped with marzipan, which has been rolled to 1/4" thick and then the cake is decorated with marzipan roses and other decorations.

This was the result when the Princess Cake was cut. I have really improved on my layering--yeah! I love the look of the whipped cream dome. Also, this was one of the tastiest cakes yet thanks to the filling being something other than a heavy buttercream frosting and of course the marzipan--I swear I could eat a pound of the stuff! I have even earned the reputation of liking it so much that the class now piles all of their marzipan scraps at my work station!

This is our first chocolate cake, and wow it was so good! The offical name of this cake is Sacher Torte, which is a chocolate pound cake layered with a chocolate ganache buttercream. I have never tasted a better chocolate frosting and if you don't like chocolate frosting this one will convert you! The outside layer is a poured ganache with the inscription on a marzipan plaque.

There were several problems with this cake. First, the cake baked on an uneven sheetpan resulting in a very slanted cake. In order to layer the cake I had to trim the top to make it even which gave me a cake with 2 layers rather than 3. Secondly, I let the ganache cool too much and it coated too thick on top. However all of that is aesthetic and in terms of taste, it was awesome!

Also this week we practiced piping buttercream roses, a method where buttercream is piped onto a rose "nail" in the shape of the rose and then transferred to the cake. We practiced by making 100 roses--talk about hand cramps! I found this to be a very challenging way to make a nice looking rose, but my chef says after 500 more they will look great!

This is a rose made out of white modeling chocolate, which is white chocolate with some additives that make it pliable. I found it more difficult to work with than marzipan because it tears much easier, as can be seen at the edges. To this point we have learned three methods for making roses: marzipan, modeling chocolate and piped buttercream.

Dinner at Garibaldi's in Oakland

On my birthday Terry and I had our first official dinner out together since moving into our apartment (we have really become take-outers on the account that we never have the chance to relax at home). We went to a very nice restaurant in a great neighborhood in Oakland along College Avenue called Garibaldi's. Although the name sounds very Italian, they are light on the pasta dishes (after all I can make that at home) and the menu is more a mixture of Mediterranean and Northern Italian and they say also Californian, which I am trying to understand as many of the restaurants here claim the same!

We had a ho-hum salad that left me rather disappointed, and Terry had a "just-okay" risotto dish with butternut squash, but being the birthday girl and all, I lucked out and had the star dish of the evening (pictured above)--Maine Dayboat Scallops with Black rice, Beet tops and Yuzu sauce. The flesh as well as the skin of the rice was black and it was really tender and the yuzu sauce (anyone even heard of this before?) added a nice citrus flavor that made the dish. I'd love to go back and have those scallops any day!