I just completed my two week stint in Baking and Pastry and I have eaten enough sugar for the next 10 years. I came home everyday smelling like a cake (butter and sugar to be exact) which my hubby didn't appreciate :). It was SOOOOooooooo much fun and I miss it already!
Nuf about that - onto the picture show!
Breads galore!
Aerial view:
I had my doubts on whether I could create a successful bread product from scratch, as my attempts with homemade pizza dough have never been that great. But it was actually easier than I thought! A trick for the home breadmaker that my chef shared with us - a good way to proof your bread at home is to do it in the bathroom while/after taking a hot steamy shower :). I know, it sounds a little gross - just clean your bathroom beforehand man!
Next was fresh fruit tarts:
I've made fruit tarts before using pate sucree dough, but we used short dough in class which is a much softer dough that melts and breaks apart very quickly. So the key is to work really fast and have the dough thoroughly chilled before rolling it out. I did not realize that tart shells should be rolled out very, very thin and blind baked to keep the sides straight. The result is really beautiful and professional. If you don't blind bake the shell, it is more puffy and a little more rustic :).
The tart is filled with a luscious vanilla pastry cream (real vanilla bean) and topped with assorted fresh fruit brushed with a little apricot glaze. Merry ate A LOT of tart, right Mer :)?
Chocolate chiffon ganache with swiss meringue frosting!
A peek of the inside:
This was so much fun to make - we made a chocolate chiffon cake and split it into 3 layers. Each layer was drenched in simple syrup spiked with a little grand marnier and then filled with chocolate ganache. Then the entire cake was frosted with this light and not too sweet swiss meringue frosting (instead of just straight buttercream, the base of the frosting is a cooked and whipped meringue to which softened butter is slowly added). We even made the little chocolate decorations on top! We used piping chocolate to trace over design templates placed under parchment paper (no, I did not do these freehand :P). I had to make this for my final so I had 2 of these cakes, one of which I brought to youth group and shared with my girls. Thank goodness for hungry teenagers with awesome metabolisms!
All American Apple pie!
This was really simple to make. The flaky pie dough comes together very easily - all butter, no shortening - and the result is a tender yet flaky crust. Again the trick is to keep all your ingredients very cold, even the flour and the mixing bowl.
Carrot Cake!
I am not a huge fan of cream cheese frosting, but the carrot cake was exceedingly moist and flavorful. Aren't the little carrots cute? They were super fun to make. I must confess something about this cake - these pictures were taken almost 1 week after I made it, and if you look closely, you can see how the marzipan carrots are melting :) HA ha HA. Gross.
That's it for now! Hopefully I'll have some more exciting things to share as the holidays draw near and I'll be starting my tasting parties soon, so please stay tuned!
