C...is for Cake!

I'm sorry it's been a while. I've been having some serious laptop issues with downloading pictures. Anyway, I have now completed Advanced Pastries and Showpieces! It was absolutely my favorite class I've taken and the one I was most looking forward to. I really like the artistic side of it and being able to create things with my own designs in mind. I also got to help out on some pretty cool outside projects.

In this class we spent one week each on three different stations: Cake, Sugar, and Chocolate. Not a bad combo right? I spent the first week on cake. That station also makes 2 desserts for the restaurant at school. I found two of my new favorite desserts and probably some of my favorite things we've made. #1 Individual Baked Alaskas made with homemade ice cream. Pretty perfect. And I also really loved Pear Tiviers. It's amazing I haven't put on 20 pounds. Such a sucker for sweets!

We also had three cake projects. And I will put the pictures below, but please be kind...These were my first attempt at any of this! But I was happy with the results and quite a few of my projects have been put in the schools permanent display!

This was my first cake...a birthday cake. It's just a simple one tier with decorators buttercream. The base has piped shells, the top piped scrolls, frosting roses/petals, and of course piped Happy Birthday. Sorry the pictures aren't very good quality.

This was my next cake..a wedding cake! Three tiers of the same cake/frosting. It has a basket weave bottom and top layer, and swiss dot center, shell borders, with yellow buttercream roses. The basket weave is a little tricky at first, but once you get the hang of it, it is super easy! Here is an upclose shot.

My last cake was a fondant covered cake. The flowers are handmade crysanthemum/water lilies that were a LOT of work! Each flower had 8 layers of petals! I hand painted the leaves to make them look more lifelike and coordinated the whole thing with brown ribbon that has topstitching in blue. Making flowers is so fun!! I love working on cakes. I like the small detail work and making everything just perfect.

A close up of one of the flowers.

C...is for Croissants and Conchas!

I know I've been absent from the blog for a while, but things have been busy. Lame, I know. Anyway, I wanted to catch up a little on what has been going on. I finished my baking class and I absolutely loved every minute. I set a new school record on highest score on the test ever. But here are the two things I am the most proud of...

My Croissants were beautiful. Chef said they were textbook, picture perfect. They are pretty tricky to make and use LOTS of butter, but there is nothing better than a homemade croissant fresh out of the oven. It's mostly a process of rolling dough and folding in butter to make all of the little layers, which eventually give it it's puff and flakiness. The little pockets you can see on there are how you know they are made properly. Someday if you are really special....or you give me something really awesome...maybe I'll make you homemade croissants.

The next fave is Conchas. Conchas are a Mexican bread that I have really come to love. They are little "shells" and have a design on the top that looks like a shell. Everytime we are in Mexico I always have to hunt down a panaderia and find some...I LOVE them. We even had a little place in Dallas where we could find them, but it closed. :( Anyway, I thought they would be such a fun thing to learn to make so I asked Chef to teach me. They turned out really well. I wish I had scored the topping (shortening, sugar, flour and food coloring = YUM!) more so it would've cracked more, but they really tasted wonderful. The dishwasher ladies LOVED them and they are both Mexican, so I felt like that was a big compliment.

Anyway, all good things must come to an end and baking did. Luckily Chef has asked me to help him on some outside projects so I will get to keep baking. I am helping make all the desserts/pastry for graduation and also doing a charity Gingerbread House event for the holidays. Should be fun!

C...is for Challah

So I know I am terrible about posting pictures on this blog. Frankly, we are just moving too fast in the kitchen. Some days I'm lucky if I even get time to taste everything I've made. But today I made sure and snapped up a picture of the Challah bread I made yesterday. It really turned out beautiful.

Challah (the C is silent) is a traditional, sacred Jewish bread. It is meant to symbolize the manna from Heaven that fell in double quantity before the sabbath and holidays. It has a place of ritual and is eaten at each of the Sabbath meals (Friday night, Saturday morning, and Saturday afternoon.) It is also served on sacred holidays. The ones I made would technically be considered a Turban Challah because of their ring shape. It would traditionally be served at Rosh Hashana (Jewish New Year) to symbolize the cycle of the new year. Challah is easily recognized by its braided appearance and golden color from the amount of eggs in the dough.

So that's probably way more than you ever wanted to know, but I thought it is really beautiful in appearance and significance and you might enjoy seeing something I actually made myself. :)

And Sorry it is a crappy picture, I snapped it real quick with my iPhone.

C...is for Chef

Because in 9 short months, that's what I'll be. Tomorrow a new chapter of my life unfolds as I attend my first day of Culinary School. But why culinary school you ask? Well, simple. I love food.
I know it may seem strange to go to culinary school when you have no intentions to open a restaurant or to ever work in one for a career, but I just love food. I want to be the world's best home cook. And I want to spend my time doing something I love. But mostly, I want a new challenge. And why not challenge yourself with the same thing that becomes the reward?
Am I nervous? You bet. Am I excited? Absolutely. Do I sometimes think maybe this was a crazy idea? Yup.
After being a stay-at-home-wife (no kids) for the past year, this is going to be a huge lifestyle change. And I might even be terrible at it. But I'm going to give it my best and hope that my enthusiasm for food makes up any gaps in skill.
So, this will be my diary of my adventures in cooking school and all things food. I'm sure there will be some horror stories (whole raw fish give me the absolute willies!), some triumphs (let's hope I get pictures of those), and maybe even a few meltdowns on the kitchen floor, but mostly of wonderful food!