How to be a Faker Baker!

Now that i have completed 12 weeks of baking, I've come up with a few tips and tricks for all you baking novice's and even experienced cooks. The thing is, most chefs don't like baking. Its hard, chefs (and most home cooks too) generally treat baking like some people treat math. Many people are love writing, reading, and English people like me, for example) and hate subject like math and science and vise versa (some loath language arts and thrive off numbers and theories). Chefs may be excellent chefs, but when it comes to pastries, they begin to loose their cool. Pastry chefs are a lot rarer than savory chefs, and not surprisingly, get paid sometimes double the salary. Rachel Ray (as annoyingly "cute" as she is) always says, "I don't bake!" and some chefs of "top chef" were booted for their pathetic attempt at dessert concoctions. I am probably not going to be a pastry chef, but I do think my skills have improved tremendously in the past 12 weeks and i completely understand why they included baking in the culinary arts program (because the Le Cordon Bleu also has a separate Baking and Patisserie program). So here they are, a few tips you should know when you do venture into baking to ensure better products and self-proclaim yourself as a baker (even if you fake it!).

-BOX MIXES: yes, my baking teacher did consider these box mixes and canned frosting (or what she referred to as the f-word)taboo but lets be honest, the average home cook does not have loads of different flours, extracts, and baking powders necessary to make cakes or cookies for those once in a blue moon events (with the exception of those that DO bake often and DO happen to have these item on hand). Its simply easier and cheaper for these occasions to resort to the mixes. so if you do choose the mix, to ensure a more "professional" or "home-made" touch, remember to sift your dry ingredients ALWAYS. Nothing pisses me off more than biting into a brownine with a dry lump of powdered cocoa. Sifting ensures a smooth lump-less batter. Often your asked to add eggs and oil to these mixes so make sure you do use your amounts correctly. If you think skipping the oil or only using egg white will yield a healthier product, you may be right, but if substitution is your thing, so it when you make the whole thing from scratch. These mixes already have some oils and other sorts of chemicals in them that can make it taste off when you substitute your own products. If healthier baking is your goal, just don't go with mixes.

-PAM: or otherwise known as cooking spray to prevent your desserts and breads from sticking. Its used in most pastry kitchens, but my chef told us that she personally tries to avoid them whenever she can, opting to use a non-stick silicone "silpat" baking sheet or lining pans with non-stick parchment. why? because besides oil, these sprays have a fair amount of alcohol in them that can produce this waxy film on your product. I've tried it and its totally true. silpats are a little pricey but definitely a great investment and they last forever.

- FRUIT: are you stumped as to what dessert to make? start with nature's sweetness. Think of a seasonal fruit and try to build your dessert around that. this was a good exercise in our "mystery box" exams. Say you want to use cherries, you can flambe them with rum for a "cherries jubilee", incorporate them into cake like a cherry clafoutti, or if you can, maybe even a cherry sorbet. Just like savory menus can often be built off protein, dessert menus can be built off fruits.

-SCALES: by all means throw away the bathroom scale (clothes are a much better way to measure whether your leaning out or expanding), but instead trade it in for a kitchen scale. I think chefs don't like baking because to bake correctly, measurements must be precise to a T, unlike cooking which is more "dash" there, "hand full" there, "eye ball" etc. And cups and tablespoons are actually not very accurate. weight is the best way to measure so invest in a small kitchen scale (i got a digital one for like 14 bucks at costco) and you're baking good will probably always turn out perfect.

-VANILLA BEANS: again a pricey ingredient that goes a long way. extracts are OK, but the vanilla bean itself will really pack a great flavor to ANYTHING. Ice cream bases, pie, cookies, custards, cake, pudding, even savory dishes get a great enhancement with some scraped fresh vanilla beans. You can buy a single bean in most markets (for about 4 bucks per pod) but i think the best deal is a wholesale pack which has about 100 pods and costs about 50 bucks. Its a lot of vanilla beans, but you'll probably never need vanilla beans again and they don't go bad (so maybe you can pass them on to your grandchildren if you don't use them all).

See, you can make decent, gourmet desserts without being a pastry chef! and if all else fails, i am sure there's a lovely local bakery where you can get a cake and put it in you cake pan and call it your own. Don't worry, these cakes are generally not copyrighted.

See ya Baking II!

So baking II ended this Friday. For those wondering if Iam alive, i assure you i am, but just barely, hence my infrequent posts. A LOT went on since i wrote last, finals week, and i wish i could be more articulate to describe it, sucked! lets begin with my little mystery box fiasco. I did LOADS of research, i went to three bookstores to look for this particular fine dining dessert cookbook for ideas, I browsed online for ideas and plating designs. I had a concept, i wanted to have a chocolate devils food cake tart with a chocolate tart shell filled with thyme infused pastry cream with caramelized orange segments on top with a orange thyme creme anglise and orange apple cider gastrique (we needed two sauces). But everything that i tried to execute just didn't go! the ONE thing that went smoothly was the bake on my cake, but when i made the chocolate tart shells, they stuck to the molds and wouldn't come loose! so i covered the molds with plastic wrap, hoping i could just remove the plastic to help them move off. but it just broke off the set up, chocolate! At this point i had about ten minuets to plate up, clean, and fill in my mystery box form (explaining all the components of the dish and listing ingredients). my orange segment which i cooked with flambeed triple sec completely fell apart and didn't hold their crescent shape I'd hoped they would, they just looked like orange mush. It was awful, i didn't know what to do, so i just piled everything on the plate. I know I had to kill it with my final products that were to be due on Thursday. So Tuesday, from 6:00-9:30 we need to do what we could for Thursday where, as i mentioned previously, I needed to turn it a dobos torte, 12 tempered chocolate truffles, 12 petite fours, 12 biscotti cookies, creme brulee, and caramel sauce. We had Wednesday too, but the catch was, that we needed to turn in a hot souffle at a specific time on Wednesday. you see souffles need to be served "a minute", french for "at the moment" otherwise they deflate and i guess are no longer considered a souffle. So everyone really needed to time it perfectly, get them in the oven with enough time to rise and bring them with their given time. I was three minutes late, but at my time they really weren't puffed up enough and she mentioned that she'd prefer a late, puffed souffle as opposed to a flat ramekin on time. It wasn't even that puffed up, but i didn't was to be TOO late. SO i was super stressed for time, everything was made hastily and without careful attention, and hence done, and again excuse my in-articulate use of words, half-assed. Fat blooms (or streaking) surrounded my truffles, my petite four were not uniform and not all completely glazed, my biscotti was way too big (i forgot to half the recipe), and my sponge layers for my dobos torte were not "spongy" and hence super dry and hard. The one thing i think i nailed was the creme brulee. I say "think" because when i received my final grades, yesterday, i was so embarrassed from my performance during finals that i folded it over without looking and its in that same position in my car as we speak. a terrible habit of mine where i do into denial mode until i get in a better mood and then face it. Maybe I'll look at it next week, in the meantime i just need to focus forward, on whats next. Well actually we have a week break (thank the lord)and then i start a class called Garde Manger, french for "keeper of the food". Its basically all about preparing and presenting cold foods like canapes, cold cuts, terrines, sushi, sandwiches, salads, and stuff like that. Its also about making decorative centerpieces from ice sculptures to decorative cuts of fruits. The class works a bit differently from the others, you work in groups and you do a whole buffet spread each week. The final is a whole buffet spread you prepare by yourself, without your "group". I am nervous, i hated when we had to work in groups for our fried chicken day in my Intro II. Not to get snotty, but i really think some people are difficult to work with and um...i don't know i kinda am a bit of a control freak, i like doing things my way. I guess that makes me bossy, but i always avoid fights by not staying out of drama. anyhow, I have week to recharge. I'll be posting some recipes and other articles here throughout the week so check often, I'll try to get them in daily, thanks for the support guys!

Yet another cry for help!

Man what a week! finals are on monday and work a little differently for this class. Monday is our written exam and right after is our "mystery box" practical. this isn't a mystery box like before this time its way more difficult, and thus the plea for help. this time i need to make a plated dessert using devil's food cake (the cake needs to be part of the dessert, the dessert itself cnt just be a slice of devil's food cake), pastry cream, orange, and thyme! God i hate this!!! everyone got a weird spice. i dont know why they did that because we never learned how to use savory herbs in desserts. I have a feeling my dish will taste pretty awful. Then on tuesday and wednsday we have all class to prep for thursday when I have to turn in: 12 round dark chocolate truffles, 12 petit four cakes, 12 orange anise flavored biscotti, and a whole dobos torte (remember the pic i took of mine a little while back?). I actually have to turn in a hot chocolate souffle on wednsday at 8:10 pm EXACTLY becasue those need to be served right away otherwise they'll deflate. i need to time it perfectly, i loose points if it early or late! Anyhow, i stumped about this mystery box, the only think i can think of is baking the cake on sheet pan (so its thin and flat) and rolling it with the orange/thyme pastry cream. But i dont really thing this cake will roll nicly because its so moist and not very sponge-y. anyhow ideas would be much appreciated :)

Advice? Anyone?

Hey, i just got back from my 8am saturday math class and feel like i am going to melt into my bed/sofa/or any surface. we finished our fondant celebration cakes (i will post the pic in the next post) but most importantly, we have a mystery box plated dessert quiz on monday and we each got to pick out of a hat three flavors and make a fine dining, balanced dessert using the ingredients. Mine are apple, cinnamon, and walnut. honestly, i was a bit disappointed because this pairing is very cliche. but i need to get creative so if you have ANY ideas, throw em at me! there are rules though: i cant do frozen desserts (no ice cream, sorbet, etc), no flambeed desserts, no custards like flan, creme brulee, etc, and no souffles. sure i could do a cobbler-esque type thing, but again, thats pretty cliche so if theres anything you guys can think of, let me know! i'll post the final end result on monday!

Mystery Box!

I appologize again for not posting daily this week. I've been so burnt out! Gah! but I have loads to dish about! First, lets go over what i did this week:

Tuesday: We made the base for ice cream and sorbet last week and we needed to present them on tuesday. We were given free reign over the flavors. So i made a hazlenut chocolate ice cream swirled in with almond butter. For the sorbet, i made an orange/pomogrante with some balsamic vinegar! We had to bake the approptiate "vessels" for each. For the ice cream we made a tuile cookie in any shape we wanted to contain our single scoop of ice cream. We also had to present two sauces so i made an almond creme anglaise and an almond gastrique (a reduction of sugar and vinegar, its kind of like syrup, its used in sweet and savory dishes). As far as presentation, we could have done whatever we wanted. I admit, my plate looked so so, but when the chef tastes my ice cream, she flipped. She was like, "Wow, this is so good, bring this to chef so and so next door, i want him to taste this!". I was so happy!!! Most of the class did fruit based ice creams, the know-it-all who works next to my station made a wasabi and seaweed one with soy sauce. It pissed me off because it smalled like a sushi resturant alley annd he was doing it for the sake of being "unconventional". Trust me, he's that type of guy.

Wednsday: pretty boring day, we made crepe batter and flourless chocolate cake for friday

Thurday: this was the Mystery Box plated dessert practical quiz. We could make ANY well blananced plated dessert that had ti have a financier cake (a basic french almond cake) somewhere in the main item and a seasonal fruit which since its winter, was either a pear or apple. Its actually not much of a mystery but there will be more of these types of quizes next week where it really WILL be a mystery fruit. It was so exciting but my creative mind was running a mile a minute and i had so many ideas and concepts that i kinda went a little haywire and couldn't decide on what to actually do. I ended up making a small cranberry ginger financier round with a ginger lemon poached pear (visit nutritious junk for the recipe. I had an almond sabayon and cranberry cooked fruit sauce as my two sauces (also a requirement), and i made some brittle which i added crystalized ginger and dried cranberries in for my "crunch" component. I got a great score for flavor, but it was overbaked so i got an 88. o well, now i am doing resereach to get inspired for new ideas to cook fruit desserts until next monday (btw, feel free to give me ideas!)

Friday: we had a super busy day, we made crepe suzzet, baked alaskas (yay for the blowtorch!), and 2 10 in sponge cakes which I hate to make beacause they state like scoth brite and involve separating 16 eggs!

anyhow this week we do chocolate truffles and sugar pulling. at the end of the week we are doing a themed fondant cake. my sister is having a baby show next week so i'll make it baby shower themed!

Creme Brulee!

i'll write more about this tomorrow morning, i just wanted to show you my brulees. One is covered in sugar in the raw and the other is regular granulated. can you tell which ones which? anyhow, my chef really liked it, and it was so much fun to crack it! just like Amelie's favorite past time (does anybody remember that from the movie?)

The Charlotte Royal, and is culinary school right for you?

Here's the Charlotte royal i made monday. When we present a cake, we need to slice it, put it on a platter, and pipe our names and the dish name in choclate around the rim (so long to my annonyminty, now you know my name!). To be honest, i didn't like it, not just the fact that a messed up the sponge but i just didn't like the taste. Its filled with Bavarian cream, and i am not big on creams. I dont know, this isn't exactly my kind of dessert, I like chocolate and nutty-ness to my desserts, this was kinda lacking although pistachios did encrust the bottom as you can see.
Anyhow, when i read over some of the responses to my interview over at workout mommy's blog,many people said how much they've always wanted to go to some sort of culinary school or program. I hear this a lot, i went to the grocery store a few times in my uniform (which i dont this i will do again because i get stopped all the time and people ask me "which is the best dressing?" or "can you choose my fish?". It was fun at first, kind of like being a celebrity, but like celebs, it gets annoying) and many clerks told me, "wow, your in culinary school?! You know I ;ve always wanted to go". Sure they want to go, but its a bit like working out, they seem to find some excuse from actually doing it and they dream about it, thinking its a far fetched idea and too drastic of a decision to actually put into action. So i thought I'd give a quick rundown about whether or not its a good decision for you. every one's different, of course, but this is simply how i come to see it since starting:

-You dont really want to be a chef. Well, neither do i, but its cool to know i could. Anyhow, i dont think culinary school is all about making young aspiring chefs. the knowledge you gain is invaluable in MANY fields and believe it or not, it is impressive even on a resume for a law firm. Why? well for one, i dont think theres a better way to really learn about team work, multi-tasking (especially when you only have an hour to make 7 cookie batters like i did on Tuesday!), leadership, and communication. Its more hands on than anything you'll get in a college or university. and there's loads of directions you can take the culinary educations that does not involve being a chef. you can be food writer, food critic, recipe developer, caterer, restaurateur, food stylist, personal chef, etc. Many people in my school are also older people that left their dead end jobs because they were so unhappy and just want to enhance their beloved hobby.

-You can't afford it. Most culinary school cost as much as a year in an ivy league college, but there are LOADS of scholarship opportunities and grants you can qualify for (like if you keep up good grades). Not to mention most school will offer financial aid. this didn't actually help my situation because my dad thankfully is paying for it and we're middle class, so he makes too much to get a substantial financial aid grant. Also, once you enroll many special event promoters (like for swanky parties and premieres) love to recruit culinary studeent for their events and they pay nicely (from 10-20$ an hour). you basically will never have to settle for minimum wage again, believe me, a culinary education will hellp you get better jobs in any food extablishment

-Its too drastic. well is it? many people think its crazy to do something they love so much, like WE SHOULD dread going to work/school. most culinary programs are about 1 year to 2 years so its not a lifelong commitment, and you can always drop out (and it not beauty school with matching "grease" remind you of it). Yes it will be a change, but if cooking is something you love you'll enjoy the drastic change.

Look, I was sitting in a 300 person lecture hall learning about the Yanomamo tribe in Bali when I THOUGHT i would be learning about acting and drama which was my major in college. I was unhappy, and just trying to get throught each day, hoping it would be over soon. I felt so unproductive, like i was running on a tredmill (and a bad, squeaky one at that, you know the kind that make all the noise and people stare at you funny in the gym because of it becuase its distracting). I still love acting, but i love cooking too and I love learning about something i care about. I look forward to the next day! I love that I get to make creme brulee on monday (puts manic monday to shame!). I think we too often supress our aspirations because we think its bad to do something you love SOOOOO much. But i have yet to meet someone that went to culinary school and regreted it. again, its like working out, you never workout and say "hmm, i really am sorry i did that".

Plated Dessert!

this was my first plated dessert i did on Monday. Its a banded chocolate mousse cake i was talking about. Its made out of the layered cut out devils food cake with chocolate mousse, I froze it and then made a band of chocolate (with, as you can see, very girly designs). We had to present it with two sauces a creme angalise (which is the white one, made with milk, cream, vanilla sugar, and egg yolks) and a cooked fruit sauce of our choice. I like that theres not real recipe for the other sauce because it really gave me creative control. I could have gone a little nuts and made like a ginger orange or infused it with cinnamon. but it was my first plated dessert and our chef said less is more. plus i wanted a nice, not too overpowering flavor to go with the chocolate cake, which is really rhe focal point of the dish, not the sauce. The creme anglaise it sweet and vanilla-y, so i went with a raspberry cooked fruit sauce with a little lemon as my acid. I have a quiz on Monday on the components of a fine dining plated desserts and as you may be able to tell from this plate what they are:

1)Main item (the mousse cake)
2) chocolate (pretty obvious)
3)cream (the creme anglaise)
4) Crunch (the banded chocolate and the chocolate garnish)
5) sauce (the creme anglaise and the raspberry)

for a well BALANCED dessert, i need to know these 5 components:
1) flavor (sweet, tart, nutty, etc you want them to complement, sweet on sweet is a bit of an over kill)
2) texture (like the creaminess of the sauces, the airiness of the mousse, the crunch of the chocolate, etc)
3) color (i wanted the band color to match my sauce, i could have used an orange decoration with a orange type sauce)
4) design (you want to design your plate nicely, make portions small because our chef said "this isn't sizzler or claim jumper" and you don't want people to share because it means everyone can order their own which = more $, also you want to create a height and a real "wow" factor. Haven't you ever been to a restaurant and a server walks by with someones tray and your like "WOW! I WANT THAT!", that what your going for, but you also want to keep it simple. Luckily, she told me mine was good in that it was still dramatic but not too busy, simplicity is always good).
5) temp (like the hot souffle I made last night which is served hot from the oven immediately or it will deflate, but its served with a cute small pitch of the creme anglaise which is cold, you poke a hole in the middle of the souffle and the coolness of the cream and the hot chocolate souffle make a great balance!)

so there you have it, a semi-brief 101 on fine dining desserts. I really suggest you indulge in them every once in a while. Don't spend a fortune at at the four seasons for a fillet minion (although if you have the spare $, by all means). go to a really nice fine dining establishment and just order one other their desserts. Yes its not super healthy, but potions are sensible, prices are not crazy because its not like lamb or caviar, and you'll get a really fabulous taste adventure, you'll look at oreos and think, "hmm....thats kinda pathetic...".