Only Practice Makes Perfect

Not every week or every day can be full of success stories, and this was one humbling week! In this profession I have been told numerous times that once you gain confidence you will immediately be put back in your place. There is so much that can go wrong in a recipe including natural factors like humidity and weather. It really amazes me that the difference of a few seconds can make something turn out right or wrong. It started with a rather unappetizing creme caramel, shown above. It came out of the oven too soon so it was under baked, also the caramel was too light. The caramel is an example of how a few seconds can make the difference because sugar begins to caramelize very quickly and once it is removed from the oven it continues to darken. If it is removed a few seconds too early, it is too light, but if it is removed too late, it will be a sticky, smelly burned mess!

Although these Classic Nepolians were edible and quite tasty by several accounts (I didn't try it). The main issue with this one was my strategy in assembly--not a good one... The photo collage shows (clockwise) the puff pastry dough before going into the oven, assembling the layers, layers before glazing the top, finished and ready to eat! To make sure that this really was a humbling week I am going to share all of my mistakes! First, I layered the diplomat creme filling on the middle layer of puff pastry before I laminated it to the bottom. This made it impossible to pick up without breaking it into several pieces. Then, after all three layers were laminated together I realized that I hadn't glazed to top, which was supposed to be done first so it had sufficient time to set.

This week I made cheese filled crepes with blueberry coulis as a plated dessert. This was my first experience making crepes and I learned you have to work fast to get them to be thin. Although these were delicious and a good dessert there were not many options for plating. Two crepes were plenty for one serving, although I had originally planned on using three. Also, I had candied lime zest to use as the green garnish in place of the mint, but it lost its color and looked rather putrid! Although I don't like using mint as a generic garnish for color it does work in this instance so I bite my lip!

This is a cinnamon creme brulee with dried fruit compote. Here again I accept defeat--I should have infused the cream with more cinnamon. The flavor was quite bland since I omitted the vanilla bean and hoped that the cinnamon would take its place. Also, the top was not burned off very well and could have been much darker.

There are an amazing variety of things that can be made with pate a choux dough, typically used for eclairs and sometimes called eclair paste. Pictured above are paris breast (round), pate a choux swans and petite eclairs. I filled these all with the same moussaline filling, which is pastry cream with whipped cream folded into it. The fillings vary, but are typically either whipped cream, pastry cream or moussaline.

The word petit four translates to "little oven." I have to admit that that really doesn't make much sense to me, I would have named them little cakes has they asked, but they didn't! The petit fours above were three layers of a dobos sponge, which has almond paste in the recipe giving it a very fine crumb, important in such a small cake. The cake is layered with strawberry jam, the top is a fine layer of marzipan and then the entire cake is coated in boiled fondant, which I poured on. These little cakes are very sweet, but that's okay when it is only two bites!

Week Three of Pastry

This week I designed two different plated desserts. The first is an Apricot and Chantilly Cream Roulade with Meyer Lemon Ice Cream. It is garnished with candied Meyer lemon peel, vanilla anglaise and apricot sauces. The roulade was much too large of a portion and should have been half the size. I had originally wanted to cut a thicker slice so that it could be plated standing upright, but it was much too large to do so. I think this plating worked nicely as an alternative. The best aspect to this dessert was the flavor--it elements went together magnificently and the Meyer Lemon ice cream was fabulous!

This is the second dessert I plated this week. I got this recipe for Trio of Panna Cottas from a wonderful cookbook called Passion for Desserts by local pastry chef Emily Lucchetti. The trio included Vanilla, Cinnamon-Almond and Caramel Panna Cotta and was accompanied by a dried fruit compote (cherries, prunes and apricots in a brandy sauce). The garnish in the plating above was a vanilla tuile cookie, very thin and crisp.

This was my most successful plating of the trio because each panna cotta was garnished with something that reflected its flavor, yet it maintained its simplicity. Garnishes were vanilla: vanilla tuile, cinnamon-almond: toasted almond slivers, caramel: caramel sauce.

I also plated one larger Vanilla Panna Cotta which I thought turned out successfully because it looks naturally placed and is simple in presentation.

The results of the texture and flavor seemed to be good--I had never made or eaten panna cotta before this. I loved the cinnamon-almond and caramel, which both had wonderful flavor, however I found the vanilla a bit plain. The fruit compote was a wonderful, robust compliment to the light flavor and texture of the panna cottas.

Stay tuned for three more weeks of plated desserts!

Northern California Coast

When they talk about the Pacific Northwest, this is what they are talking about--beautiful bluffs that meet the ocean, foggy valleys and gigantic trees. During my spring break from culinary school Terry and I took a 3 day vacation up the northern California coast. We were completing our trip from the spring of 2005 when we started in Los Angeles and drove up Highway 1 to San Francisco (we were still living in Chicago then). In these three days we completed Highway 1, and saw some amazing scenery--camping along the way through some chilly nights!

This is the shoreline near the "hippie" town of Mendocino. There is very little beach, with jagged rocky shoreline and I thought it was interesting that forest didn't really start until 100-200 yards off of the shore, creating a vast grassy, windswept terrain near the shoreline.

This lighthouse stood on the coast near Mendocino and was restored in the 90's--it was in amazing condition. I loved the image of this standing along against the ocean.

Back in November we went to Muir Woods, which is a second growth Coastal Redwood forest located only a few miles outside of San Francisco. Second growth means that the trees have regrown or been replanted after being logged. The trees in we saw in northwest California were mostly first growth Coastal Redwoods, some several hundreds of years old and more than 10 feet in diameter. You can see a serious tree hugger above--amazing the size of the trees!

This is the road that travels through the "Avenue of Giants"--a scenic road through these incredible trees and a state park that is home to the largest and oldest trees in the area. An amazing part of our beautiful country. I give my vote to Highway 1 as one of the most beautiful parts of the US, and something everyone should see!

Creating a sweeter world

This was the second week of my plated desserts class. We started the week with a day of production, which usually is making stock items for the bakery such as lemon curd, dough crust, ganache and pastry cream. When all of that work is done or when nothing is needed, we make individual sized pastries such as cookies, tartlets and mini eclairs. Taking advantage of a fully stocked bake shop I made lime curd tartlets with a meringue hat!

I also made these chocolate cups by painting the insides of muffin papers. The chocolate cups were then filled with a Passion Fruit Bavarian Cream, the recipe from my new Tartine cookbook. The cream turned out really well, but I wasn't too happy with the chocolate cup, which was very hard to remove from the paper muffin paper without breaking. Also since the Bavarian cream has gelatin in it, it had to be poured directly into the cups in order to set up. This is a problem because when the chocolate is refrigerated, it starts to weep. It wasn't bad after the first day, but wouldn't last longer after that.

My first independent plated dessert was a dark chocolate pot de creme with mocha-almond biscotti. The day prior to plating the desserts, I made both items and held them, ready to serve for the next day. Both items are shown above prior to entering the oven.

This was the result - Dark Chocolate Pot de Creme with Vanilla Whipped Cream and White Chocolate dipped Mocha-Almond Biscotti. I opted for a minimalist approach to plating this dessert.

This plating was an attempt to use an additional garnish, yet still keeping it simple as well as using a different size plate. Here the additions are the chocolate cigarettes placed in the whipped cream. This worked for me because the cigarettes were placed in the whipped cream. I have a serious aesthetic problem with placing garnishes directly into a molded creme like this pot de creme, so the whipped cream worked as a platform where I could place the garnish. I have found that these molded creams, creme brulee included, are the most difficult to garnish and serve in a nice presentation.

These are several chocolate butterfly garnishes that I made as practice. They would look beautiful on top of a chocolate cake or smaller ones on individual desserts.

Back into the Kitchen!

I have entered the third kitchen class of the baking/pastry program, plated desserts. This class will encompass anything other than breads, items that can be served on a plate or on a buffet.

The first three days were spent watching our chef demo lots of new things. Everything made were items that we will be making throughout the course--creme brulee, pot de creme, chocolate and fruit mousses and many different garnishes to complete these desserts and make masterpieces suitable for photography.

The class operates in teams of two. Each day teams work at one of three stations.

1 production - preparing key ingredients needed by the entire class and making pastries that would be served on a buffet, such as cookies or petite fours.

2 mis en place - preparing the items that will be needed to make the dessert that you will plate the next day

3 service - where the dessert comes together on the plate with all of its components and garnishes

For the first go-round we were required to make one of the items that had been demonstrated earlier in the week. However after this rotation we are free to choose anything we like, pulling from a portfolio of recipes we develop, pulling from any sources we choose.

For our first project my partner and I made chocolate mousse. The photos above show the mousse after it is removed from the mold, placed on a hazelnut cookie (so that it can be moved and not squished!) and then covered in chocolate ganache. Below are three platings of the same dessert.

This is my first ever plated dessert! I was very happy with the results, a combination of random and intentional elements. This is the chocolate ganache covered chocolate mousse kissed with pistachio, garnished with a caramel paste basket, fresh raspberries, raspberry sauce and chocolate cigarettes. We made all of the garnish pieces as well as the dessert itself.

This variation used a different garnish, a striped chocolate cut out and the raspberry sauce was smeared rather than dropped onto the plate.

For the third plating the edge of the mousse was kissed with caramel crumbles. I used vanilla anglaise sauce to flood a large bowl and garnished that with chocolate sauce.

This class has been a lot of fun because it involves so much creativity, which is great with my architecture and design background. I am really excited to have the opportunity to make anything we like, as it will allow me to try things I have been timid to try before. There is lots of fun to come and the photos will be much more interesting than those six weeks of bread!

What three weeks in a classroom can do...

The past three weeks were spent in lecture learning the finer points of how bad the fat loaded confections we make are slowly deteriorating all of our lives. Seems like a fitting class to dish up to a bunch of baking and pastry students, no?

Apart from learning that our diets should contain less than 1% of the stuff I plan to spend the rest of my life making (demand doesn't look so good from this angle, trust me!), we developed a business plan, marketing strategy, menu etc. for a bakery. This was an excellent exercise in owning and operating a small business.

I chose to locate my bakery in Old Oakland, which is a small area in downtown Oakland that is seeing a lot of new development and has several new restaurants and shops. The name of my bakery was "a cakes." The 'a' being for Alison--I know it needs some work! Our menu had to be eight items and mine was as follows:

Brownie
Eclair
Chocolate Cupcake
Vanilla Cupcake
Fruit Tartlet
Chocolate Ganache Cake
Cherry-Apple Pie
New York Cheesecake

I won't go on about all of the boring details of the accounting figures, but with 1000 customers a day (that seems high to me) I was making a profit of about $60,000/year--as the owner that's my salary! So, not only did we learn a lot about small business, but also a lot about the livelihood of pastry chefs! Hey, thank goodness I'm not in it for the money or this would have been a rude awakening!

I will try to post the Power Point presentation summary of my bakery that I gave in class, stay tuned.

Final week of bread

The last week of class was packed full of many new products including making our own sourdough. We didn't have to do our production items this week, so we had much more time to squeeze in additional projects. Pictured above is Pumpernickel Bread that was made using a portion of my sourdough starter, which had rye flour added to it. It was deliciously rich and dense.

Currant Scones. These were okay, but you can see that they are rather flat, and didn't rise like other scone recipes I have made in the past (see cranberry scone post in November). Also, they were too sweet, almost more like cake than scones.

This was my first sourdough loaf using my own starter. To be technical, this was a "first-build starter sourdough," which means that it didn't come directly from my original sourdough starter, but from a starter I started from my original starter--confused??? Simply put, it is made from a baby of my mother starter. I love the marks made on the crust by the banneton baskets and the color of the crust turned out perfectly. The crumb was nice as well with a variety of small and large air pockets. I was very happy with the results, but best of all it tasted wonderful! It was a very mild tasting sourdough compared to many sourdoughs I have had where there is so much acid that it is almost hard to eat!

This was my second loaf of self-made-starter sourdough. It looks almost the same as the first, but it is a "second-build starter sourdough"--the mother starter's grandchild!

We were required to make 4 pie crust recipes so we could practice getting it right. Best note to take here is to not add too much water (add a little at a time to ensure this doesn't happen). Also, always work with cold ingredients and don't overwork. I have used the same recipe for years for my pie crusts, but after making this one (and learning the perfect method) I think I will switch! The product was a really crisp and flaky dough, but not too tough.

We were required to make an apple pie and the above photo is a double-crusted Apple Pie, which I accented with dried cherries. It was awesome!

Our second pie could have any filling, but had to be made in a blind-baked crust--a crust that is partially baked without a filling. I made a Pecan pie, which was really good. I have made lots of pecan pies, and never blind-baked the crusts, but the end results were fairly similar.

Our final project was making puff pastry, a process which took two days worth of kneading, rolling, folding and fermenting. The dough had to be rolled out and turned (folded) 5 times, with an hour fermentation time in between each. The photos above show one turn. After the dough was ready it was divided into 18"x26" (full sheet pan size) sheets, one recipe made four sheets. At this point the puff pastry can be used for a huge variety of items depending on the fillings, additions and shape. Below are several items I made with puff pastry.

These are Palmiers, which are a piece of puff pastry rolled with sugar or cinnamon sugar that is then folded, sliced and baked so that the sugar caramelizes. An amazing cookie and my vote for the best use of puff pastry.

Apple turnovers. Prior to baking and then after being baked. Wow, these were good!

These were hollow shells that I filled with pastry cream and placed a blackberry on top. These would have been wonderful filled with something savory as well.

Cheese straws. These were really good and very addictive. I made them with parmesan, sesame and poppy seeds.

The bread/dough class has been a really great experience, however I am excited about moving on to pastry. The next three weeks will be "butt time" sitting in the classroom for three lecture classes--nutrition, cost control and human resources. I am looking forward to the project we have been assigned where we have to create our own bakery!

More Bread!

Amazing how much I have learned about bread, and amazing how much there is to learn about something categorized under one word--bread! In an attempt to get caught up on the last two weeks of my bread/dough class I am going to make this post short and carb-filled (that is rather than sweet!).

Our production item this week was Danish. This is a bread many of us are familiar with as a morning pastry. The dough is made in the same method as croissants are made, a laminated dough which is rolled out several times with butter, creating all of those flaky, buttery layers. The center is traditionally filled with a fruit filling or something sweet. We used strawberry and apricot fillings, which were both pre-made, but the best Danish were those with cheese and apple-cinnamon filling, both of which we made.

Caramelized Onion and Fresh Oregano bread. This was made with pate fermente, which is a pre-made batch of dough, which is set out overnight to ferment (called pre-ferment). This is used to give a deep, developed flavor to the bread.

Cibatta. One of the best breads yet! This was a very strange dough to make, as it was very light and sticky and couldn't take much handling, but the product is worth it! There are huge air pockets in the crumb, which is very tender.

The cibatta made wonderful grilled sandwiches. This one was steak and blue cheese--I am nostalgic just remembering how good it was.

Our last production item of the class was making baguettes. Above is a photo of several prior to baking. Nothing beats a good baguette with a chewy crust and tender crumb!

Pane di Como, a white bread that was made with biga, a pre-ferment from Italy.

Pane Pugliese, these were great little guys for sandwiches. A rustic looking bread with a crusty and flour dusted outside and a tender crumb inside.

One week to go with bread making! Next week will be filled with sourdough made from our own sourdough starters which we have been nursing for over a week. Just like a baby, the starter has to be fed and changed everyday! Half of the mixture is discarded (so that it doesn't grow out of control) and then water and flour is added. Can't wait to taste the results!

I'm a Carb-a-holic!

I live and breathe bread! For the past 4 weeks I have been making and/or eating bread 16 hours a day, and for the other eight hours I am dreaming of eating or making bread! My apartment counters are covered with loaves of 1/4 eaten loaves and neighbors and co-workers are begging that I stop giving them the leftovers (it seems that Mr. Atkins has really given bread a bad name).

This week started off with three days of making Butter Braids--simply a butter rich dough that is formed into braids. We did 3, 4, 5 and 6 strand braids (I could handle up to 4 and then my brain shut down!). I also made a star braid, which used a 4-braid (in photo above). It was fun making these shapes, although I didn't care for the density and texture, which was almost cake-like and the flavor of the product.

As for special projects, this week we made many varities of rich doughs. Rich doughs are doughs that contain more than 10% butter. First we made Brioche, both as individual "a tete" forms, meaning that they have a "head" (shown above before baking) and in loafs (no photo).

Here is a photo of the individual "a tete" Brioche after baking.

Chocolate Croissants are a laminated dough, which means that butter is rolled into the dough in several "turns" or separate rolls. First the dough is made and a "butter block" is made, which is creating an even layer of butter the width of the dough so that it can be folded together with the dough. Both dough and butter are chilled and then the butter is added on top of the dough and the rolling begins! Between "turns" there is an hour chill period in the fridge, then the dough is pulled out again, rolled again and so on. The whole process takes quite a long time, but is very rewarding in the end! Above are the chocolate croissants produced from this process. I also made plain and almond croissants (no photos). I now have the official right of passage into the pastry world after having made croissants from my own dough!

On of the most decadent projects were our sticky buns! A rich buttery dough filled with sugar, cinnamon, raisins and pecans! Really sweet, but as a carb-a-holic I couldn't stop eating them! In the past I have always made them in individual muffin tins, but I liked baking them all together in a cake pan so that they pulled apart from each other and shared the sugary glaze.

Lastly, we made a Babka Coffeecake (no photo), which is a traditional Eastern European coffeecake made much like the sticky buns, but instead of cutting the log of rolled dough, it is coiled onto itself in a cake pan and baked whole and topped with streusel.. This coffeecake had a perfect texture, not too moist or dry and was not too sweet. Some of the more devout Seinfeld watchers may even recall an episode in which Elaine states "you can't beat a Babka" and, yes, she is referring to this most delightful coffeecake!

That's it for now. I continue to eat my way through loads of bread, croissants, sticky buns and coffeecake, just as would be expected of a carb-a-holic!

Week Three of Bread Making

Our bread/doughs class works on a rotation of 6 stations, which I outlined in a previous post, where each student works on each station for three days straight. This is a great way to learn each method of bread making and work through the challenges of each. My first assignment this week was focaccia. Each day we experimented with different flavors. Above shows two of the most popular flavors--focaccia pizza with mozzarella and pepperoni and the other was fig, walnut and goat cheese (this was my favorite).


These are fresh mozzarella, tomato with fresh basil (back) and apple with blue cheese and walnuts, another delicious combination!

Along with the focaccia our special projects included Rye bread (not pictured, but looked same as above photo), as well as an Onion Rye (pictured above). I was interested to learn that in using different types of flours in bread, a portion still must be white bread flour because the bread will not hold up with many of the other flours. This is why we don't see 100% whole wheat or other whole grain breads often. The gluten in the bread flour is very important to create a desirable texture.


Another project was Jalapeno cheddar rolls, which were filled with jalapenos, red bell peppers and cheddar cheese. They had a beautiful color, but the texture was gummy (maybe not baked long enough) and the flavor was not my favorite.



This is Pane Siciliano, a bread made with semolina. Of course this comes from Sicily, an Italian town that knows semolina well because of all of the pasta they make! This bread has a wonderful crumb and texture.

The last project of the week was pizza! Our chef instructor called it "student appreciation day" as we all made 2-3 pizzas and ate them for lunch! Considering the quality of the cafeteria food we are served (terrible!) we were really excited about today's lunch! Above are two pieces of my cheese pizza. We were required to make one with cheese only and the other pizzas could be topped as we liked. I am typically not a huge fan of cheese only, but the quality of the dough and sauce were so good that no other toppings were needed!

The end of the week we moved to the Levain production station. Levain is a bread that uses a natural leavener in the place of yeast. The natural leavener is a starter, which was initially made by Peter Reinhart, the author of The Bread Baker's Apprentice, 14 years ago while he was a chef instructor at CCA. Each day the starter has to be fed (flour and water) and changed, just like a baby!!!

Levain is a great bread made with a little whole wheat flour, but overall it has a slight sour taste. The interior is soft and chewy and the crust is hard--a perfect combination of textures. The dough is formed in a banneton, which is a reed basket that makes the beautiful lines on the bread. It is then baked directly on the deck of the oven making a thick, dark, semolina coated bottom. In one batch we added raisins and walnuts to the dough and the result was delicious and beautiful purple colored bread due to the reaction of the dough with the walnuts.