Just Do It

[ source: collectionsetc.com ]

 
Time moves so fast. You don’t realize it when you are actually in the day to day moments, it’s not until you sit and think about the passage of time that you see how quickly it goes. This time last year I was getting ready to leave for Europe, still on the fence about whether or not to go to culinary school. Needless to say, Europe was amazing, and essential to my decision to pursue what I enjoy the most. Seeing all these picturesque sights, hiking mountains, eating exotic foods for the first time, meeting incredible people, and literally getting lost in a strange but beautiful new place can have that kind of effect on you. A positive one, wherein you realize that the world is so much bigger than your little bubble, and you have to take life like a bull by the horns in order to really appreciate anything. For me, I knew once I came back from Europe that if I didn’t go the culinary school route, I might hate myself later. I’d never be satisfied with my life if I didn’t at least try to pursue it. And now here I am a whole year later, with this blog in tow and only a month or so left until I finish up school. It’s nuts! My road does not end there though, I then start my externship – which I have yet to decide upon. But the adventure will continue!

When I think about my class, it interests me how different we all are as people, though we are united in our love of baking. Some work super quickly, able to frost and decorate an entire cake in 10 minutes or less, as if the piping bag were an extension of their arm. Some are so bright and catch on quickly, they are able to accurately calculate measurement inversions and make bread baking seem like child’s play. Some are so creative, coming up with the craziest but most delicious flavor combinations and wonderful dessert presentations. A few of us work clean, others don’t – they work amidst such a cluttered work space and are still able to bang out the goods. Some of us are driven by the desire to succeed and will keep trying no matter how many times we burn our pate a choux or curdle our pastry cream. I feel bad for those that are so hard on themselves, sometimes myself included, who at the first sign of something going wrong give up altogether. Some of us are so nice and helpful, they can always be counted on for an extra set of hands once they’re done with their project or to lend you their spatula when you forget yours. Some are loud, funny, obnoxious. Some are natural leaders and take to being chef of the week easier than say me, who would rather go around helping clean up at the end of the night than standing around barking orders. Some really understand the concept of there’s no “i” in team while others, I guess, missed that Sesame Street episode and curiously disappear every night when it comes time to clean the floors. But the thing is to learn to work with everyone, because you’ll encounter similar personality types out in the food business. You don’t see how different we all are or get to know people like when working in a tight kitchen.

What I mean to say by all this is that my class is crazy, much like people in general. But also, time is like sand in the hourglass. You can either watch it slip away or fly along with it by pursuing your goals. It’s not easy and even a bit risky, but then again it wouldn’t be worth it if it wasn’t. So whatever it is you want to do, just do it.

Tonight we are testing out our individual cupcake recipes for this competition we have coming up June. Tomorrow we get judged by the school and whoever’s cupcakes win gets to represent the school in the competition! Wish me luck .

 
Love & Sweets,
Melissa

The Little Wedding Cake That Could

What is one of the most beautiful moments in a person’s life is also one of the most stressful, nerve-racking, and sleep-deprivating moments in their life – as well as for the person baking the glorious cake commemorating that day! Wedding cakes, as I have learned from this past week, albeit stunning and delicious, are a colossal amount of work right from the tiers to the tiniest of decorations. Sure, any cake you are producing for a customer has to be done well, but wedding cakes have that added pressure of being a non-negotiable and very necessary asset to an important affair. And I learned all this merely from having to design and create one in my class, imagine having to deal with a neurotic crazed bridezilla! (I’ll take a moment here to say much love to all past, current and future bridezillas, as I am sure if I were to ever get married, in my quest to make everything perfect I’d likely be one too .)

Wedding cake week went like this: four days, 12 different wedding cakes and 12 ambitious and tense chefs-to-be. Each of us had to pick out of a hat the type of cake and frosting we were to create, and design an entire 3-tiered confection. Some got chocolate cake with ganache, others were lucky enough to get a spongecake with fondant, I got yellow cake with white buttercream. Easy enough, except I cannot smooth the sides of a buttercreamed cake for the life of me. I had to work around that. After days of worrying about how the heck I was going to smooth the sides presentably enough, I decided to comb my cake. Solution acquired. Then I was able to focus on my design, which was a classic Japanese-themed cherry blossom cake, using fondant for the flowers and branches, as accents. Excited and eager, I went into the week assuming I would be able to finish by day 3, leaving day 4 for assembly and the finishing touches. Not exactly what happened.

On Monday most of us baked off our cakes and started on either our frostings or fondant decorations, if using. Unfortunately, some of us, myself included, only made one batch of our recipes, so instead of moving onto something else on Tuesday, we had to bake another batch of cake so that we had enough for our tiers. A minor setback. Still cool as a cucumber, I continued to work on my flowers and painted most of them. Wednesday came and the first thing I had to do was make my buttercream, which I made twice, thinking it should be enough. Wrong. As I torted and crumb-coated (a light layer of frosting to coat) my cakes, I realized by the middle tier that I was not going to have enough. I began to panic a little, by this time Chef G had changed the deadline on Thursday to 8PM instead of 9PM, which left little time for anything on the last day. I still had to finish filling and crumb-coating my top tier, and frost another clean layer of buttercream on all 3 tiers! Rushing to make 2 more batches of buttercream, I finished with just enough time to frost my bottom tier, which was huge by the way. That meant that the next day, the last day, I had to frost my top two tiers, comb the sides, stack the cakes, finish painting my flowers, make my branches that I did not start, and any other last minute touches in an hour and a half. At this point about half the class had already stacked their cakes and were just working on their decorations, so I left with a feeling of dread and lump in my stomach that I was not going to finish on time.

Judgment day came, and I, lump still in stomach, arrived at school ready for the worst. As soon as we were able to get into our kitchen, the class made a mad dash for all their supplies, each of us rushing to finish by the required time. I have never heard the kitchen so silent or seen everyone so concentrated in their work as on that last day, and I don’t think I’ve ever worked faster. Within a half hour I was all finished frosting – much less than the time it took me in the first place! Ready to comb my cake, I called Chef G over to help me do so and as she began to comb the bottom tier, it was too hard to. Realizing I had left my bottom tier in the freezer when I shouldn’t have if I wanted to comb the sides – I began to panic. Practically cry. I had no time left to play around. Working quickly, I slabbed on another layer of fresh frosting so I could actually comb it, but it still would not come out right because it was so frozen underneath. If it were not for my Chef, I don’t know what I would do, because she kept me calm and showed me a few different combing techniques, until we decided to simply comb the cake vertically. With a half hour left, I combed all the tiers and stacked my cakes. Then we made my fondant branches and finished up my flowers with the help of a classmate who was done with hers. Most of us were still working on our cakes by 8, so Chef extended the deadline to 8:30 – giving me enough time to complete the cake and add finishing touches. Once 8:30 hit, I lugged my behemoth of a 20 pound cake (it weighed so much!) to the doughboy, whereupon Chef had us each take a picture with our respective cakes. I then dragged my giant masterpiece to the dining tables, set it down, and collapsed on a nearby chair. Tired but pleased, I took pictures and watched as the rest of the school came in groups to vote on which cake they liked best. We will find out the winner this week.

Things I learned: planning is key! Plan every day down to the last minute. Another thing, if you think you might not have enough, you are probably right. Go with your gut and double or triple your recipes – after all, it’s better to have too much than not enough and then have to waste more time making another batch. Lastly, stay calm! Easier said than done, especially when there’s a deadline, but if you cloud your mind with worry, you won’t be able to clearly think of solutions. Things happen, like me putting my bottom tier in the freezer because there was no more room in the fridge, it didn’t even occur to me that it would make it quite difficult to comb through a frozen cake. But I worked my way around it, with help, of course . All in all I survived to tell the tale, and am looking forward to my next grandiose project!

 
Love & Sweets,
Melissa

Make Way for Cake

 
We have finally made it to cakes in class and my oh my has it ever been a humbling experience. In general, I’m a humble person, but even so, trying to level out a cake and smooth on icing and make perfect little decorations? Not my forte. At least that is what I am learning as we are going through this unit. Mind you, I’ve decorated a few cakes over the years, and I thought they always came out rather nice – but some of the people in my class are geniuses with piping bags and have such steady hands, the decorations they come up with are beautiful. It doesn’t come as easy to me, but I am good with covering up any little mistakes I make.

 
Half devoured carrot cake, not the prettiest picture but still delicious and look at the layers!

 
As our Chef says, the key to succeeding in this industry is knowing that you are not the best – that there will always be people out there better than you. Know your strengths, and let this push you to work harder to improve in the areas you need to. (And I definitely could use cake decorating practice!)

 
We started small with cupcakes. Check out my not so perfect fondant flower, my first time making them.

 
Cakes are so versatile, which I think is what makes them so popular. You can produce tons of different kinds of cake with just your basic butter cake recipe. Using different extracts, fillings, frostings, the possibilities really are endless – and all using the same standard base. Fortunately for me, I can bake a cake with no problem, it’s when it comes time to tier the cakes and decorate where I run into bumps in the pastry road.

 
Something totally unrelated: it was my good friend’s birthday this week and I had to share the cute gift box of treats I made for him. Left mysteriously on his doorstep – who doesn’t love surprises?

 
In class, what we do is bake a cake a few days in advance and refrigerate or freeze it, making it a lot easier when it comes time to cut into it and frost. At the beginning I was not even able to make an even layer, but with practice I have become better at it. We’ve practiced different borders like shell borders, the basket weave, and this week we started on flowers (my favorite).

 
High Ratio Cake with a buttercream basket weave sides, chocolate ganache on top, and buttercream flowers. Still not 100% satisfied but I am progressing.

 
We have another competition coming up in June, but it’s more like an iron chef competition. That’s nerve-racking! All of us are pretty excited, except we all have to battle it out to see which one is actually representing our school and going to the competition. The contest is on cupcakes, so I am scheming up a few different recipes because I really want to win . Cross your fingers for me!

 
Love & Sweets,
Melissa

Bake it Yourself: Citrus Carrot Cupcakes

Hope everyone had a wonderful Easter yesterday! And a merry April Fool’s day for those of you pranksters that celebrate! I know I know, another carrot cupcake recipe? But these are delicious with the orange juice I add in them and they are what I made yesterday as an obvious Easter staple. Quick and easy, no mixer needed (except if you’re making the frosting) – a perfect addition to the cupcake family.

Citrus Carrot Cupcakes
Yield: 12 cupcakes

Ingredients
1 1/3 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp salt
2 large eggs
2/3 cup brown sugar
2/3 cup vegetable or canola oil
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 cup fresh orange juice
1 1/3 cup finely grated carrots
1 tsp orange zest

Frosting Ingredients
2 1/4 cups sifted confectioners sugar
1/2 cup cream cheese
1/4 cup unsalted butter
1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Method
Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F. Line a cupcake pan with paper liners and spray top of pan with nonstick cooking spray.

 
Grate your carrots and orange. One large orange should suffice for the juice and zest in this recipe. Also, I like using a zester for the carrots instead of a grater because I don’t like big chunks of carrot in my cupcakes.

 
In a medium sized bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt. Set aside.

 
In a large bowl, whisk the two large eggs together. Add the sugar, oil, vanilla extract, orange juice, and mix well.

 
Add your carrots and orange zest to the wet ingredients and combine.

 
Fold your dry ingredients into your wet until fully incorporated.

 
Using an ice cream scooper, because it’s easiest, fill your cupcake pan about 2/3 of the way up. Make sure you fill them all the same so they bake evenly. Bake for 20-25 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.

 
While you’re waiting for those to bake you can make the frosting. In a large bowl mix the butter and cream cheese together well. Then add vanilla extract and gradually mix in the sifted confectioners sugar. You don’t want to add the sugar in all at once unless you want an explosion of confectioners sugar dust to hit you in the face! Cover and set aside or refrigerate if you’d like, but if you make it far ahead in advance, make sure you let it sit and come to room temperature for easier application.

 
Once the cupcakes are done, let them cool down in the pan for 5-10 minutes. Then de-pan the cupcakes and let them completely cool off before frosting. Spread or pipe frosting on cupcakes and decorate with the crushed walnuts if desired.

 
And enjoy! Take a bite of the cake without the frosting first, I’m telling you the orange adds just a nice bit of acidity that really make these ol’ carrot cupcakes pop!

 
Love & Sweets,
Melissa

Another Year Older

No pictures for you today – sorry guys, but between school, work, my side jobs, and that annoyingly necessary thing called sleep, it gets hard to find time to properly update! But I always feel bad when I can’t keep a steady schedule of blogging and am so amazed at some of you bloggers out there who are able to post almost every single day. How do you do it? I try to at least once a week and sometimes I can’t even do that! I’ll be honest, at least, that this weekend was spent mostly celebrating my day of birth (which is today ) recklessly and vehemently, as a young-but-feelin’-old, closer-to-30-now, 26 year-old should. So, cheers to me!

In baking news, we are finally done with the bread module at school, HALLELUJAH! I am so happy that I no longer have to dissolve yeast and wait for dough to rise. And my now protruding gluten belly is even happier. Bread is definitely the harder of things to master in baking, because of the precision of it all and temperatures and waiting. Lots of waiting. But I’m glad I have a good handle on it. We took our practical this past week and had to make challah bread, italian bread, cinnamon raisin bread, and blueberry muffins and I HIT IT OUT OF THE PARK. Aces all around, although I did wind up having to make my challah bread twice because it didn’t proof the first time for some reason. Our merciful instructor, Chef Gina, thankfully pushed the written final exam up a week so we have more time to study and prepare because it is a lot of information. Tomorrow evening we start cakes and I’m excited to get my decorating skills spruced up!

In even more possibly exciting news (if all works out well), I am researching and trying to obtain an externship abroad! Thinking more France or Switzerland since I have family I could stay with – has anyone ever done this? I’ve traveled to both places but never studied or anything like that, so I’m not sure how to go about it and would love to know if any one of you have. It’s a somewhat daunting task – trying to find a bakery, contacting them to see if they’d even take you, all the back and forth and in French? Definitely have my work cut out for me, luckily I studied French in school although I’m not 100% fluent. Time to dust off the ol’ Rosetta Stone I’ve had sitting in my closet for a year.

Well, I’m going to enjoy the remainder of my birthday by having dinner with the family in a few hours, no better way to spend it. One last thing, I want to plug the fact that I started a Facebook for my blog so if you would be so kind as to like it. You can find it here: Just Enough Sugar on Facebook. I’m also on Instagram @justenoughsugar and Twitter @melissabakes. Alright that’s all, I’ll have a new Bake it Yourself up within the week – have a great Sunday everyone!

 
Love & Sweets,
Melissa

Great Food, Great Times

This past Monday March 4, my class catered a few sweet treats for the 20th anniversary of An Evening of Good Taste in Syosset, NY. Now, when I say a few, I really mean over 1000, my first time delving into such a large production – easier with a group, but still a lot of work. This event is a fundraiser held every year for the South Nassau hospitals of Long Island; chefs, restaurants, bakeries, and distributors from all across the island serve scrumptious food and drinks. It’s also a competition, and the food is judged in a bunch of different categories. Tickets were around $70, held at the Crest Hollow Country Club, a large, beautiful place with many rooms, lots of lights, and one of the fanciest bathrooms I’ve ever seen. There were several attendees, lot of amusement, and it was for a good cause, what more could you want?

 
A peek of our creations: Rainbow Cake with Chocolate Ganache, a Coconut Macademia cake with Pineapple Chiboust called Rio Torte, Chocolate Mousse, and a Jaconde Spongecake with Mocha Buttercream frosting.

 
The class spent the better part of the Saturday morning prior to the event preparing all the components of our recipes. Our instructor, Chef Gina selected a few key recipes and decided to serve them in nice little shot glasses, a great choice because you’re able to see all the layers of the desserts and it makes for a clean presentation. School on a Saturday doesn’t sound appealing, but it is actually tons of fun when you enjoy what you’re doing! We work really well as a team and were able to knock out different cakes, frostings, meringues, mousse, and decorative toppings into 4 composed desserts in just a few hours. I learned a lot, such as refrigerate your meringue as soon as it’s done, unless you want a liquid version, don’t forget the sugar in a chocolate mousse, lest you want a clumpy mess, and pineapple and coconut are a pretty amazing tropical combination. I also learned how to properly do the harlem shake (and, in turn, learned that we’re all a little nuts ).

 

Excuse the blurry view of a packed country club.

 
I got to the event at six o’clock on the dot and immediately got to work reeling in the guests to try our sweet shots of food while smiling a lot and general shmoozing. Everyone of us was allowed to go around in pairs and eat the other vendors’ food, everything of which was real tasty. I might have also indulged in a wine and beer tasting or two (Peach ale is so good!), just for networking purposes, of course. Though our class was not part of the judging competition, we still had a box for votes so that guests could vote for their favorite food out of all to win the People’s Choice. Leave it to our loud ragtag clan of chefs-in-training to draw almost every single person there to try our food and vote for us. Our box had votes not only on people’s ballots but also written out and signed on napkins and anything else they could get their hands on. Guests were running to us, toppling over each other, fighting for our treats in a sugar-induced rage! Okay, I’m probably exaggerating and it wasn’t exactly like that, but the part about the votes on napkins is true, and people did come back for seconds and thirds. And who should win at the end of it all, beating out every other restaurant, bakery, school, out of savory and sweet, overall the most favored food and not even a part of the judging competition? Us. We did, we won.

 

Me, happy as a clam.

 
Talk about an excitingly magical night. I’ve never felt such a rush of energy from just being part of something so big to hearing our name called out for the People’s Choice Award. We went up to receive it while reciting Queen’s “We are the Champions” at the top our lungs (did I mention we are a tad eclectic?). If I were ever at the Oscars or some other award ceremony, I imagine that is what it would feel like. Happy, accomplished, winners. Bring on more competitions!

 
Love & Sweets,
Melissa

Bake it Yourself: Challah Bread

Challah is a gorgeous traditional Jewish bread, braided with a dark, golden brown color that is rich with a hint of honey sweetness. It can be topped with sesame or poppy seeds, eaten on its own, and is my absolute favorite kind of bread to use in french toast! It takes a bit of time and maybe some practice, but there’s nothing like the satisfaction of baking your own bread at home. (And the smell of it in the oven, divine!) I’ve adapted the recipe for the home from the On Baking textbook I’m using at school, and have tried to make it as easy as possible. Of course if any clarifications are needed, please let me know!

Challah Bread
Yields: 2 braided loaves

Ingredients
2 packets Active dry yeast
1 cup scant 2 tbsp water @ 90 degrees F
6 tbsp honey
1 stick unsalted butter, melted
4 eggs
3 1/2 cups bread flour
1 tbsp salt
Egg wash
Sesame seeds (optional)

*You will need a thermometer, important when working with yeast and making bread! A scale would be real useful also.*

Method

Measure out all your ingredients in separate containers.

 
Heat the water up in your microwave, about 15 seconds. Using your thermometer, check that the water is at 90 degrees. This is important, if the water is not warm enough, the yeast won’t activate, but if it’s too hot, it will kill the yeast!

 
Dissolve the yeast in 4 tablespoons of the water. Allow it to sit for a minute before stirring to fully dissolve. Afterwards, stir in the honey.

 
Put remaining water, butter, eggs, one cup of the flour and the salt in a stand mixer fitted with the dough attachment. Add the yeast mixture and mix on low speed until smooth.

 
Knead the dough on medium speed, adding the remaining flour a little bit at a time. You’re going to have to scrape down the bowl a couple of times also. Knead until smooth and elastic, 5-10 minutes. If you’ve never made bread before, the dough is going to come together and wrap all up and around the hook, which is totally fine!

 
Pull the dough off the hook and out of the mixer bowl into a lightly greased bowl. I just use Pam and do a quick spray. Cover tightly with plastic wrap and leave at room temperature for approximately 1 – 1 1/2 hours to ferment until the dough doubles in size.

 
Like so. It’s crazy how much the dough rises!

 
Using your (clean) hands and fingertips, punch down the dough. This is going to make it deflate so you can work with it, but it’s okay, it will rise again in the proofing stage.

 
On a lightly floured surface, divide your dough into two equal portions. Here is where a scale would come in handy so you can weigh the dough out to the exact amount. It’s important that it’s equal portions so the bread bakes evenly, so I’d suggest weighing the dough out if you can. Also – don’t tear the dough with your hands, you will tear the gluten that way. Use a knife to portion it or a dough scraper like I’m using here.

 
Divide your two equal portions of dough into 3 more equal portions each, so you end up with 6 equal portions of dough in total.

 
Take one portion of dough and stretch it back onto itself a few times until smooth.

 
Take the same portion and hit it with the sides of your hands, moving the dough around in a circular motion, so that you are tucking the bottom underneath. It’s like a karate chop. Do this until you get a smooth ball.

 
Take the ball and roll it under your hands from the middle out, until you get a long log. Repeat the previous two steps and this one with the remaining 5 portions.

 
Take three of the logs, lie them next to each other and pinch the tops together. Then braid the dough just like you would braid hair, be sure to do a nice tight braid.

 
Tuck the ends underneath the braided loaf and place in a parchment lined pan. Do the same for the other loaf and you can put them both on the same large pan if you have one. I happened to lend my big pan to someone so I had to use two different ones. Time for proofing!

 
At school we have what is called a proof box, which just steams the dough so that it rises again. Proofing is like a second fermentation. For us home bakers, we have this little makeshift proofing method: Put your pan in the oven (turned off) and place another pan on a rack right underneath that. Fill the second pan 3/4 of the way with boiling water and close the oven door. Proof, leave it in there, for 45 minutes, until the loaves double in size.

 
When done, take all pans out of the oven and preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Brush your loaves with an egg wash before baking – this is also where you would sprinkle on the sesame seeds if you’re using them. Bake for approximately 40 minutes, until the loaves are a dark, golden brown.

 
In time you will have these beautiful Challah bread loaves!

 
Lots of steps, but, believe me, it’s totally worth it for your own home-made bread. Try it out!

 
Love & Sweets,
Melissa

Bread Bakin’ Breakdown

Brioche, beautifully braided, tender, buttery bread.

Of all the baking there is to learn about and to execute, I think bread baking is one of the hardest to master. In general, baking is more precise, having to weigh or measure all ingredients out seems tedious to those who prefer say culinary, where you have free reign to play around with the components of a recipe. All ingredients in a baking recipe serve its purpose, especially with breads. It involves a lot more science and math than most people like to handle; you can’t just throw all your ingredients in a pot and call it a day. If the water isn’t at the right temperature the yeast won’t activate, if you don’t knead the dough enough the gluten won’t develop. There’s fermentation – process where yeast converts sugar into alcohol and carbon dioxide – and proofing – time given to shaped yeast breads to allow to rise before baking – and a whole lot of waiting time in between.

I can see now why bread bakers work from the wee hours of the morning, there’s a lot of work and time involved! In class we only made a few loaves of each type of bread, so I can only imagine what it would be like for mass production. I’m sure they have equipment that makes it easier, but nothing beats the power of your own two hands (which get really tired!). Some breads you only have to ferment for an hour or two while others you have to ferment for days. For me, the whole process is really interesting. It’s crazy how much the bread dough doubles or triples in size!

 
Italian bread and a French baguette, made from the same dough formed in two different ways. And focaccia, similar to pizza dough and flavored with onion and rosemary.

It’s necessary to learn the science behind it all to facilitate things; actually reading through my textbook and learning why this step is necessary or what the next move is, is important. That’s one of the reasons I decided to join culinary school in the first place, so that I expand my mind and know why things have to be baked a certain way. In this way it’ll make it easier to develop my own recipes, when I know the reasons behind the ingredients and methods.

 
Anyone like the dessert strawberry shortcake? These are the cakes used for that, just like biscuits but sweet!

The most soothing part of the whole bread bakin’ ordeal is the kneading and forming time. When you get to punch down the dough and hit it with your hands, massaging it over the table. It is therapeutic in the way that beating hard, cold pie dough fresh out of the fridge with your rolling pin is! And the most fun is right before you put your breads in the oven, when you get to sprinkle it with any toppings you want like garlic, cheese or a simple egg wash.

 
Fougasse bread, shaped and scored like a big leaf and flavored with parmesan cheese and some sesame seeds.

 
A few days late, but I hope everyone had a nice Valentine’s Day. I spent mine at school, where we had a feast and some red velvet cake. Afterwards I came home to eat the box of chocolates I received from my sister and enjoyed the breads I baked. Joy. I’m going to gain a lot of weight this month.

 
Love & Sweets,
Melissa

On Finals and Practicals

We are done with the first basics unit in school and our first final and practical exam. I spent the better part of the last two weeks fretting and studying until my brain felt like it was oozing through my eyeballs. Don’t think I could have prepared any more than I did. Oh – and I did get the highest grade in the class. Not to brag, but I am really proud of myself.

 

One of the last lovely things we learned to make before our final exam: puff pastry! It is a hard process, and takes at least a day or two to make, but the results are delicious.

 
I never felt closer to being on an actual food competition show (i.e, Chopped or Top Chef) than I did while doing this 3-day practical exam. We had to take everything we learned and produce baked goods on our own in a completely silent kitchen, except for the occasional warnings of “Hot!” and “Behind you!” It’s somewhat tough to transition to this, being that we always work in pairs, so one of you is working on a mixture while the other is rolling out a dough of some sort. But for this we all had to gather our own ingredients, measure them out, prepare, and bake it all ourselves. We also had to quarter each recipe, so there was a bit of math involved. Though I’m used to doing this in my own kitchen, it’s really not the same – this is baking on a bigger scale! On the list of required recipes were: Chocolate Mousse, Apple Pie with a lattice top, Éclairs, Cream Puffs, Paris-Brest, Chocolate Chip Cookies, and Spritz Cookies. Everything also had to be plated nicely – just like those shows!

The only one out of those that had a time constraint was the mousse, thank goodness, which had to be done by Tuesday at a certain time. I was the first one up, scrambling around the kitchen looking for strawberries at 5 minutes to the time I was given. Five minutes running around turned into 2 minutes and I still couldn’t find those darned strawberries (and I ran right into two tables and a chef-instructor!) Finally I decided to nix the strawberries and just put powdered sugar on my mousse, which I plated in a ramekin, and topped with pecans. I brought the plate to my chef instructor, and sat across from her sweating as she played with my mousse; checking for consistency and eyeing me as well. She finally tasted it, those few seconds of silence before her reaction seemed eternal! After a few moment she said it tasted excellent but took off points for the pecans, stating that it might confuse someone into thinking there are pecans in the actual mousse. I guess I agree, but I like nuts and chocolate and really wanted a garnish. Still – I was glad to be done with the first part!

 

Puff pastry heaven – flaky, buttery goodness.

 
The rest pretty much went the same; baking, waiting, worrying, rushing, plating, crying when something got burned (I had to make my cookies and éclair paste twice). Since everything else had to be done by Wednesday night, I had a few days to fix my mistakes and all in all I did a good job. I survived to bake another day, though my nerves need a bit of rest time.

Next unit – breads!

 
Love & Sweets,
Melissa

Bake it Yourself: Spritz Cookies

One of the first kinds of cookies we learned to bake at school were Spritz cookies. These are your standard bakeshop cookies, the kind you see sold everywhere with sprinkles on them or half dipped in chocolate. The dough is malleable enough that you can pipe it out into shapes or use a cookie press, but also thick enough to hold its shape. Super cute and easy to make, the hardest part being piping them out into uniform cookies. But practice makes perfect!

This recipe I obtained from my On Baking textbook and has worked well for me so far. I also indicated Strawberry jam, as that was the kind I was making, but feel free to use whatever additions you’d like!

Spritz Cookies with Strawberry Jam

Ingredients
1 cup (two sticks) unsalted butter, softened
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 large egg
1 1/4 cups cake flour
Strawberry fruit preserves/jam

You will also need:
2 piping or ziplock bags
1 large star tip

Method
Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F. Line a large baking pan with parchment paper.

Cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the salt, vanilla extract and egg; beat well.

 

Add the flour gradually, beating until just blended. Don’t over mix, you don’t want to get it stiff.

 

Fit your tip into your piping or ziplock bag. This is the size I used, it’s #829 in case you own numbered tips. It’s better to use a large tip because when you pipe out the dough into circles, smaller tips will leave a hole in the middle of your rounds. And if you’re putting preserves in there, it’ll fall right out the bottom.

 

Fill your piping bag with the dough. It does get messy but in order to get all the dough to the bottom (and have a cleaner bag, as our Chef instructor likes ), take a ruler or something with a flat edge to move it all down.

 

Like so. Cleaner bags make for cleaner piping!

 

Pipe the dough into rounds on your pan. This is the tricky part, but the good thing is any funky looking ones you can scrape up back in your bag and try again. Also – make sure to space them enough apart so there’s room to spread! These are actually too close together and they spread snugly right up next to each other in the oven. Once you’re done with that, make an indent in the middle of each cookie mound with a gloved finger dipped in water.

 

Now it’s time to jam out! Strawberry jam, that is. Fill your piping bag with enough to fill the middle of the cookies.

 

Snip off a small opening on the end of your bag and pipe the jam onto each cookie. I used a small ziplock bag. In case you’re doing the same, be careful not to squeeze too hard on the bag, as the pressure will cause the bag to break and hello mess! Gently squeeze from closer to the opening, not from the top.

 

Bake at 350 degrees for approximately 12 minutes, until lightly browned around the edges. Transfer to wire racks to cool.

 

This recipe yielded two dozen cookies, but that all depends on the size you make yours. I made this batch for my very beautiful and very pregnant friend, Justine – who will be expecting a brand new baby girl in two weeks! I couldn’t be more happy or excited for her . A belated but sweet Christmas gift. Yum!

 
Love & Sweets,
Mel