Viamo, guys

Tomorrow is my first test of the program.Thank God it's not practical is all I can say. I can spew theory a couple of weeks in but producing consistency a couple weeks in is a bit beyond me at this point.
It's been almost a full week without any Italian motivation. We've had to resort to screaming, "Viamo, guys" at each other simply to keep our spirits up. And our asses in gear.

The past few days have been so fast as we learned quick breads….see what I did there?
Anyway, yesterday was the introduction to quick breads through the different methods of mixing. We made oatmeal streusel muffins, which thus far in my journey in life, were the most labor intensive muffins I've ever made. The reason you can have muffins fresh for breakfast is because they take five minutes to throw together and then twenty to bake. No probs. But then you add a million steps and that's what's supposed to make the muffins fantastic? These were pretty good so this is a bad example but halfway through boiling a glaze to pour over the oats which then had to cool while you whisked eggs and sugar together until you wanted to peel your fingernails off, I was thinking, "I don't remember muffins being this labor intensive."

The streusel on the top is the bomb dignity. Seriously. But when you combine butter and sugar and just enough flour to bind it all together so they become crunchy, caramelly bits on the top of your muffin, you kind of can't go wrong. My instagram portraits leave something to be desired right now because they come off so dark. This is the only lens that seems to provide enough "light" for detail. First world problems.

Next was scones and the key with scones is all mixing method. The dough is not fragile so you don't have to be gentle with it but your scones will become the martyr of over-mixing.  You want to mix them only until everything comes together into a shaggy ball. You don't want the dough to look smooth. You still want pea-sized clumps of butter mingled throughout to make a tasty-flaky party. If you're planning on adding anything, you really need to add it once things are probably half to three-quarters mixed. Give it a couple turns to incorporate whatever you're looking to and then flatten it out into a sheet and let it rest for a couple minutes. Flour will develop gluten whenever it comes into contact with water. Think about papier mache. Developing the gluten structure so that it can be a support structure for the loaf is important in baking. In scones, you are adding fat, sugar, eggs, all things that tenderize the dough. Scones are tender. They're British, I mean really. So with all of those things working towards the tender, flakiness of a scone, you don't want to knead the crap out of the scone mix. You'll get weird empty pockets (called 'tunnelling'), the scone will be bland, and you'll end up with a gummy texture. Be brief.

My mom has a great recipe for scones, which she probably got from her mom who got it from her mom who probably got it from the Queen, or dug it out of the ground in some golden 'excalibur' moment. The cranberry-white chocolate variation was always a big hit. So I grew up with an idea of what a good scone tasted like. Rather spoiled, really. These are cranberry buttermilk scones. I think the buttermilk is unnecessary but it's provides the necessary acidity for the leavening agents in the dough. You could replace the buttermilk with regular whole milk as long as you introduced the acidity somewhere else, through lemon juice or cream of tartar. Or something. Who sounds like they're in pastry school? This kid.

And then we made stollen. All the anticipation and excitement that had been building for my own christmastime stollen became immediately affixed to the concept that we would be making stollen in school. Back in Victoria, BC, during my year there, the bakery that I worked at, Bubby Rose's Bakery and Cafe, introduced me to stollen. And it blew my mind. The almond paste inside was so buttery that it kind of melted into the dough around it a little bit and effused it's almond flavour everywhere in the dough. The dried fruit and the nuts. Buttered fresh out of the oven and then dusted with powdered sugar. Unreal. This one…was not what I was hoping for. Again, rather spoiled.

I was eager to learn the method and to have all the different aspects of traditional breads in my head that way. But I was more excited for the flavours. The marzipan was very resilient inside and didn't have almost any almond flavour, which marzipan has the reputation of doing. The bread is really beautiful and tastes really good it just wasn't what I was expecting. Thank God for Christmas. When menus everywhere change because you're gonna gain weight anyway.

Today, we wrapped up our section on quick breads. We move on to cookies tomorrow, which Moozh is very excited for. I'm just scrambling to find people to give our food away to. I have four dozen muffins in my house right now.

We worked on another PICA standard today. Their blueberry yogurt muffins are a mainstay in the bakeshop. For good reason, they are very tasty. But they're also kind of boring. If I'm going to eat half of my daily intake in calories for BREAKFAST, I want it to be worth it. The muffins were quite lemony, which paired well with the blueberries and the tang of the yogurt. But my came out looking so short and dense. When you quarter a recipe though, the ratios and precision (because your scale won't measure .325 of a gram) kind of get messed up. Maybe not enough leavening. Maybe not enough acid. Maybe it's the muffin. I'm begin sabotaged.

Cornbread was also on the list today! In any foodie conversation worth its salt, cornbread conversations always devolve into some regional defiance over the recipe regarding sugar, salt, butter or all of the above and then comfortably lands in the realm of talk of hush puppies, which is almost like a lullaby. Deep fried cornbread balls that you dip in maple syrup and pair with a pickle. Them southerners do it right. We have two southerners in our class and it was fun to sit back while one of them 'schooled' the rest of us on the merit and stipulations regarding what can in all good conscience be called 'cornbread'.

I easily could have doubled or even tripled the amount of jalapeños I chopped. The 'kick' of the chilies was lost beneath all the butter. I popped some cheese in there too, just because cheese always makes things better.

Lastly, we made banana bread, which I could probably make with my eyes closed. We ALWAYS had banana bread in the house growing up. We tried every variation we could dream. I think in my first year of marriage alone I made banana bread at least twice a month, which for two people is bordering on excessive. (*BTW though, I hear you can take a banana bread recipe and instead of baking it in a loaf pan, spread it out on a cookie sheet -with sides obviously. And then I hear you can slice it into slabs of cake and ice between the layers with nutella. I hear your husband will eat almost the whole thing himself and praise you for days and be super nice to you, like bubble-baths-and-foot-rubs-nice-to-you. I hear, anyway. Could be hearsay.)
This banana bread, however, was unlike any banana bread I've ever made. It had this toasted brown sugar tasted when it came out of the oven and came out quite dense because it couldn't rise through the top. I've never had to 'score' my banana bread before because it always came out looking gorge and really tall. But this one was short. Like "I'm an adult and I still shop at Gap Kids" short. Hmm. Again, it could be leavening. I'm determined to make my banana bread and this recipe again and compare them. Now THAT'S a lot of banana bread.

We also attempted, rather cavalierly, to make carrot cake today. Mine was mixed and in the oven in like ten minutes flat and that's with grating the carrots and running to the walk-in for coconut. But we misjudged how long it was going to take to bake them. Conveniently, the recipe didn't state an estimated baking time. Carrot cake is super moist and so it does take a long time to bake. Banana bread takes at least an hour, so carrot cake shouldn't be much behind that, if at all. Two o'clock had come and gone and we were still waiting for them to come out of the oven. Every time we pulled out the pan to check, they were bloated and still jiggly. So we eventually had to pull them and put them on a tray in the fridge for assessment tomorrow morning, which I'm thinking is going to be something along the lines of, "Bake until fully cooked in the middle. Got it. What's next?"

IN the other kitchen, Moozh's exercises have continued in the aforementioned perplexing fashion. He came home the other night and made me hollandaise sauce. Then today, he made:

Pork Tenderloin with Parsnip puree and Au Jus. I don't see the correlation. I guess that's why I'm not in culinary. So pretty though!

Find a loved one. Eat an excessive amount of banana bread. Talk about how happy you are. Repeat.