Mostly Pictures

On Friday, we built our first layered cakes. The flavor I chose was Raspberry Lemon (a lemon-scented white cake with Lemon Buttercream and fresh raspberries and toasted almonds on the sides). I've also attached a picture of the cakes made by our class - I think they look great! We will be doing more tomorrow, so I will post some more pics then. On Friday afternoon, my management class took a field trip to Union Square Greenmarket. It started out a little rainy, but we didn't melt. Here are some photos of some of the farmers who drive from states away to sell their produce at the market.



Chef Rebecca doing a demo on how to ice a cake properly.



Our cakes from class



My cake (Lemon Raspberry)













Farmer's Market (Union Square)

Yes, Chewyness is really a word...

...but I think it's spelled "chewiness." Don't worry, my brain is expanding here, not shrinking. Today we made more pound cakes, this time using the CREAMING method of mixing. There is a big difference, as the creaming method starts by blending butter and sugar until soft and light. (Remember yesterday the High-Ratio method used butter to coat/protect the flour.) The eggs are then added, one by one, and finally the flour (usually alternating with liquid/milk if there is any). What this means is that you incorporate lots of air initially when creaming butter and sugar, but your final cake is not as tender/light because you do develop some gluten when you have to mix in your flour. Because it's not protected. The texture of the resulting cake is much different - more rise (b/c more air), but a little less tender. It is still a great pound cake - more like a traditional pound cake and probably what many of you are used to. My picture is attached. See what I mean about a lot of rise??? We also made some fluffy white cakes (to go with our chocolate cakes from Tuesday), which we're going to ice and decorate tomorrow), and some crumb cakes and muffins. Oh yeah, there is also a picture of my new Chef, Chef Rebecca (demonstrating the creaming method) as well as Flat Stanley on the subway. I'm helping a friend of mine with a school project and have been doing a little harmless sightseeing with Flat Stanley. It's nice because I can just fold him up in my pocket when I am done. :)

Pound Cakes...and a walk in the park

Today was Day 2 of cakes and it was REALLY tasty! We made pound cakes today, as well as Financiers, which are little individual French almond pastries that I'd heard of, but never knew what they were. Well, what they are is a little piece of heaven!!



Supposedly, the treats originated because the men working on Wall Street (the original "financiers") wanted a little something sweet that they could eat during/after their work day that wouldn't leave crumbs on their pin striped suits..........so the FINANCIER was born! We topped ours with blueberries and raspberries. Next, all of us made pound cakes and then our teams each also made a specialty pound cake (my partner Marie and I got Lemon Buttermilk). Here's a snapshot of the Lemon Buttermilk Pound Cake. Doesn't it look just SO MOIST and DELICIOUS?!?!



It's got a great sugary glaze on the top that gives it a nice, subtle little crunch on the teeth. The science behind what we're doing right now is awesome. For example, the cakes we made today were made with a very specific mixing method that is designed to limit the amount of gluten development so that the cake stays moist and soft, even though it has to be mixed for a long time on the mixer in order to incorporate air. Mixing flour with liquid for a long time USUALLY tends to develop a lot of gluten. For this, though, we call it the Two-Step (or High-Ratio) Mixing Method. The basics are: 1. Blend your dry ingredients. 2. Mix in your softened butter. (This is the "money" step, since doing this actually coats the flour so that it CANNOT absorb moisture. Since moisture is essential for gluten development, the flour is then unable to really absorb much moisture when the liquids are added in step 3.) And, no surprise here, 3. Add liquids, a little at a time, scraping down in between each addition. These really need to be mixed really well here in order to incorporate air. So, what you get is a nice moist cake with a good bit of rise and, guess what - no TOUGH CHEWYNESS. I bet you all wish you could have a piece, don't you?

After class, my original plan was to go home and go for a run, then work on my marketing plan, but I decided instead to go to lunch with my buddies from class. We went to Momofuku Ssam Bar, a little Korean burrito house from Chef/Restaurateur David Chang in the East Village. Because we were having SO MUCH FUN, Gabriela and I went afterwards to get pedicures.




Ahhhh...So nice. I took a few pictures of Gramercy Park as I walked by, it looked so pretty with all of the flowers in bloom.





It's rainy and gross outside now, so I'm gonna go to the gym, take a nap, make some dinner and watch some TV (not necessarily in that order). Don't forget TO MISS ME!!! (More cakes tomorrow.)

SPRING is here!

Well, Spring is finally here! This weekend (and Thursday and Friday) were fabulous!! On Thursday we finished up Module 2 - we made some amazing danishes and croissants. Then, Friday was our exam. For our exam, the first part is written and then the rest of it is practical - we had to make puff pastry and soft rolls ("dinner rolls"). Then, Friday afternoon in management we watched Fast Food Nation. It was OK - I hear the book is better. It was a nice break from lecture, though. I spent Friday evening here in the apartment - watched a movie and played around on the computer. Saturday was so nice - I went to the Union Square green market, bought some produce, etc. and then had a nice lunch. I spent the evening working on my marketing plan and my upcoming presentation. I was up late - I guess I was really "in the zone." Today was another great day! I had to do some laundry so I did some more work on my marketing plan while that was going on and then, early afternoon, went over to the west side (96th Street and West End Avenue) to meet my friend Anna for the 1st NYC street fair of the season. I didn't buy much (a pair of tweezers and some food), but it was great to walk around. We also went all the way through Central Park and now I'm getting home to do a little more schoolwork. Hopefully I can get a lot done so that I have tons of free time to spend with TD when he returns! Have a great week!

Mid-week...Is it SPRING yet?

Well, it's still cold, fairly miserable and has been very rainy this week and last weekend. Friday night, a group of us from class went to my friend Ron's house in Brooklyn for a party and Saturday I spent the entire day trailing at a fantastic restaurant that I'm pretty certain I want to do my externship at. Yay - it was very, very fun and what a rush! Sunday was mostly a lazy day - lots of TV watching (I watched "Deal or No Deal" for the first time) and couch lounging. Todd and I tried to go to Union Square on Sunday to go get brunch and we got totally washed out!! It was pouring!! Not even funny! Monday in class we made more stuff with our puff pastry - Napoleans and Fresh Fruit Strips - and today we made smaller puff pastry forms - Palmiers, cheese sticks and these wonderful little bistro apple tarts.

We finally got to use our puff pastry!

We used our classic puff pastry today to make Pitiviers (pronounced Pa-TEE-vee-yays) and Apple Bars (I shouldn't have to tell you how to pronounce that one)! It was great fun! The Apple Bar was described as "rustic elegance." It REALLY is, isn't it? This evening a group of us from management are headed to Brooklyn for a "passion party" at my friend Ron's house. It's my first time! :) :) Hee hee!

Hope everyone has a great weekend.

Pitivier


Apple Bar


Our group (the "timed" photo)

Classic Puff Pastry (and update on Tom)

First, an update on Tom. Turns out that his wound did culture up as MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staph Aureus, a fancy abbreviation for a bad infection). The good news is that the antibiotic sensitivity results showed that the antibiotic he IS on is very effective against it. So, he should be improving a lot very soon. (His day 12 picture is attached - again, graphic.)



In food news, we made classic puff pastry today, both by hand and another batch using the machines (20 qt Hobart mixer and the dough sheeter). The classic puff pastry by hand takes HOURS and is very, very intense. It's pretty much the hardest thing for pastry chefs to make, but it is rarely done by hand in the industry. It's just so labor intensive that it rarely is justified in terms of cost and manpower. But, I really enjoyed it. The exercise of making it makes me appreciate what is really happening with puff pastry - 867 layers of butter-dough-butter-dough. WOW! That's a flaky pastry. If made correctly, puff pastry can rise up to 8 times it original height when baked. Mine is about 1/4" thick right now, bundled up in the fridge at school, so it should get to 2" if I did everything right! A picture is attached of our dough going through the dough sheeter, and also a video of Chef Chad showing us how to make the beurrage (butter) to insert in the pastry. Imagine all 16 of us doing it at the same time - it sounded like a war zone!

Blitz Puff Pastry and Pyllo

We made some savory treats today using the blitz puff pastry that we made yesterday. ("Blitz" simply refers to the fact that this dough is MUCH quicker and easier to make than classic puff pastry - the butter is cut into chunks, instead of rolled into a sheet, and worked into the dough roughly, then goes through 3 book turns to incorporate it. It's not nearly as labor-intensive as what we'll do tomorrow!!) My partner and I made Prosciutto and Mozzarella Empanadas and Spanikopita. Other people in our class made Baklava, Parmesan Puffs and Salmon Mille Fuille. All were great!

My Nephew Alex

Here is a video of Alex playing at the lake. Isn't he ADORABLE?

Tartlets on Monday and Strudel Today

My flight in from Charlotte didn't get me home until after midnight, and even after getting home I had a couple of hours of homework to do, so 5 am came really quickly on Monday. I was in class until noon and then had a trail (mutual "test" for checking out possibl places for my externship) at a dessert restaurant here. I didn't get home again until midnight, with more work to do, so I am exhausted! I finished class at 5 today and came straight home. My sweet husband had dinner made for me and I've spent most of the evening relaxing at the computer, catching up on phone calls, doing a little "light" homework. I gotta get better at managing my time! Anyway, here are pictures from Monday's lesson on tartlettes and Breton and today's on strudel. (Strudel requires you to slam the dough down on the table 100 times in order to shock the gluten. Once it's rested for an hour, you work in teams of 4 people to shape it out into a rectangle the size of the table and the transparency of a piece of paper!)

Easter in Charlotte

I flew out to Charlotte on a Friday morning (noonish) flight and spent most of the day at home catching up with my dad and Tina. I got the grand tour of the yard improvements and all of the planting Tina has done. It all looks fantastic and made me miss having a yard and a deck. We had a great dinner out - went to Fishbones in Fort Mill. On Saturday, I spent a lot of the day doing school work, but eventually made it out to the mall for about an hour then went to pick up my brother. Tom's been under the weather lately with a very disgusting wound of some sort; He thinks it was a Brown Recluse that bit him, but the docs are thinking it might be MRSA. Photo attached below- warning, it is graphic. Either way, he is under a doctor's care and Nicole is taking pretty good care of him otherwise. Tina cooked up a great dinner on Saturday and we spent the evening watching The Sound of Music (one of my favorite things to do EVER). Sunday morning we all went to Easter service at the church and then directly over to Grandma and Grandpa's house for Easter brunch. My grandfather is doing great! He recently had to have one of his legs amputated due to diabetes and I was so worried about him earlier in the year. He looks, though, better than I've seen him in a long time and is getting around like a champ! The biggest surprise of the day was the arrival of David, Brooke and AJ around 3 pm. What a great treat that was! I'm so proud of David and all he is accomplishing right now and AJ just gets more adorable by the day. It was sad to go, but I really missed Todd. Back to the Big Apple!

Linzer Tart

Today we cut into our apple pie ("the beast") and each took some of it home. It weighed a ton! We also learned how to make Linzer Tart, one of the oldest desserts. It originates in Vienna, where people used ground nuts as a starch because they really didn't have much (if any) wheat flour. It's absolutely a joy! I loved making it and WOW what a taste. This tart is "all about the dough" (per Chef Chad). That's him, by the way, doing a demo of the Linzer Tart. And, lastly, my finished Linzer. Headed home to Charlotte tomorrow morning, after a sleepover tonight at our apartment with Lauren and Emily.

Galettes and Pies

Today we made 2 new doughs - galette dough, which is kind of like pate sucree, but with a lot less sugar, and sour cream dough, a great dough for pie making. My partners and I made roasted pear and fig galettes (a rustic-edged tart) and pecan and apple pies. Our apple pie was so huge that it's still cooling at school. The weather here is crummy today, so we didn't get to go to the zoo. I'm working on my menu, then probably hit the gym and hopefully will have the evening free with Todd, Brian, Lorie, Lauren and Emily. Check out my new sweater - hand knit by my aunt Mary!