Tartine bread

I am going to be out of commission for another few days (as I have been, regrettably) as I finish up school. I'm scouring for things to keep me going. 

 

This absolutely fit the bill. 

 

Mind blowing.

 

If you have not flipped through the Tartine bread book, I don't know how you get through every day. The photography alone is so romantic. The recipes and methods are nothing short of totally inspiring. Two dudes totally committed to bread. It's a beautiful thing. 

I finish up this week. My practical exam is next Tuesday. I miss it here. I will be so happy to write again and to get back into the narrative of life. Instead of simply pouring myself wine. Not that I'm complaining. First world problems.

I want this to be my life. The community of food. 

 

Watch the movie. Get up and do a dance. Possibly pontificate about how much you love bread. Repeat. 

Hello Stranger.

Hi, my name's Bri. Maybe you've heard of me. I bump around here sometimes. I make promises of dedication that I don't follow through on. Join me on my culinary journey. You will question my sanity and my photography style on a daily basis. That would be if I posted on a daily basis.

I've missed you. But I haven't been able to talk about school. Because it makes me tired. And as the photos that I will share with you today will attest, it has not all been experiences of grandeur.

I like his face. And his BEARD!

I wanted first and foremost to share what the Moozh has been up to. His first fun week was amuse bouche. The amuse bouche is the course before the appetizer. Not all restaurants do it but what it is meant to do is to stimulate your palate and prepare you for the meal to come; 'amuse the mouth', as it were.

Duck Carpaccio (or green pepper) with Cassis pearls

Salt-crust toasted beets and pickled walnuts on Belgian endive with lemongrass creme fraiche
caramelized orange rind and edible flowers. 

Shave smoked scallop and pear, with pomegranate and black garlic on goat's cheese crostini

For his fourth amuse, he did a dashi broth duck breast but he didn't get a picture of that one. Sometimes things just get too crazy and something's got to give. Moozh has such a creative mind though, especially when it comes the pairing of flavours and the melding of textures. I am so blown away. His technical proficiency has totally exploded since he got into advanced. It was good in basic but really being able to apply it in advanced and incorporate it into presentation, he has gotten so much better. And with the duck carpaccio as an example, he is extremely mindful to vegetarians, always having an option available. I am his blessing and his curse.

This week he's on appetizers.

Rainbow Salad

Beef Tartar

Tonight he's doing Pork Belly and I can't wait to see what it looks like. Moozh LOVES pork belly. Like it probably goes, "Jesus, Me, Pork Belly." Sugar puts up some seriously fight for a top spot in the trinity but pork belly does have a lot of uniqueness going for it.

Moozh and I are currently working through the Intermediate WSET Wine course at school. This past weekend, Moozh cooked for the courses on Saturday and he made the most amazing Thai Noodle salad. The salad itself was simple but then the dressing was so amazingly complex. He sweat lemongrass in sesame oil. He added red chiles turmeric, galangal, ginger, garlic. There was mirin, and rice wine vinegar. I said numerous times during the night that I wanted him to make me that salad for the remainder of our marriage. Numerous times.

Our wine class is fantastically fun. The sommelier at the school is such a wealth of knowledge in wine but also extremely accessible in the tasting of wine and the development of palate when it comes to wine. The above picture was from our red flight, including Pinot Noirs, Grenache, Merlot, Cab Sauv, and Shiraz. We also get to taste from the taller wine glasses that you can see behind, which are 'varietal specific' glasses. Each glass, designed by Riedel, presents the wine in the best way on the nose and on the palate. I know it sounds like bullshit, but it works. Works for $45 a stem? If you have the money yes. But you can enjoy wine just as well out of your run-of-the-mill, Ikea stems.

And now for my turn. I really have run the gamut these past weeks. I'm nothing if not versatile.

My first successful macaron, pistachio creme.

This was my dessert today. Lavender Lemon Posset, Chamomile madeleine, and a cherry mint galette.

Posset is the most amazing thing. I answered the question, "What's a posset?" probably a dozen times today and I didn't even have to deal with customers. Posset has only three ingredients. Lemon juice and sugar, which are combined and brought to a boil, and heavy cream, which is also brought to a boil but separately. The liquids are then combined, portioned into their serving containers and chilled. The lemon juice and cream react and 'set' the posset into almost a curd or pudding-like consistency. It is ethereal. Like a lemon curd but oh so creamy. If you are ever short on a dessert and you don't know what to do, make posset. It has to set for a minimum of two hours but it can set overnight for a really creamy texture that is more stable.  It is so simple and fresh and EEEEEASY. But we know how I feel about lemon.

I saved these pictures for last because this day will live in my memory for a long time.

Bad cupcake day.

Now I attend a culinary school that trains in the French style. Let's just say, we don't really 'DO' cupcakes. We make numerous varieties of 'gateaus' which is a layered cake. We make pate a choux (cream puffs, eclairs, etc). We do butter sauces and plate using classic French decor involved lattice work and filigree. Fancy muffins aren't really in the French repertoire.

But cupcakes. Are. Easy. You find a cake batter of which you are fond. You scoop it into muffin tins. You slater it in buttercream. You box it up. It sells. Always. Without fail. Even in Vancouver where cupcake shops are the new Starbucks. They are friggin' everywhere.

So when we got a special order for forty cupcakes, twenty chocolate, twenty vanilla, we were not concerned. I was not concerned. That was my station and I was responsible for making sure that most of it was prepped and ready to go. The request on the order was for 'garden cupcakes' so we were going to decorate them with coloured buttercream in a variety of different flowers. We have girls in our class who have taken cake decorating courses before and some even work at a grocery store in the cake decorating department. They had the decorating part down pat. Now I had to hold up my end. Simple.

Didn't end up being so simple.

Y'all I don't even know how it happened. Danielle in my class, (SHOUT OUT) said they were 'apocalypse cupcakes' and honestly that is the only description that feels appropriate. It looks like mummification. And it was a CIA recipe!! The CIA (Culinary Institute of America) publishes all of their textbooks and recipes. They are extensively tested. They are to be trusted. SUPPOSEDLY. It was a cake recipe and I am racking my brain trying to come up with a solution for why they did what they did. I followed the recipe. I did it twice! The pan turned out like this TWICE.

They souffléd (meaning they puffed up in the oven). They also souffléd ALL OVER everything. But just as a soufflé, when we opened the door to check if they were done, they collapsed….into that. And I ended up with the worst burn of the program that is easily two and a half inches long on my forearm. I'm not bent out of shape about the burn but my conscience as a writer knows that it needs to be included to somehow communicate how bullshit the day was. So bullshit, that's how.

After the second batch, I was NOT doing the recipe again. Not even my respect for and belief in the CIA's recipe practices could make me do it a third time. DEvil's food it was. And they turned pretty good.

You see those leaves? Those were my doing. And the chocolate icing underneath the flowers. But the roses, gardenias, plumeria and daisies had nary a whiff of me near them. How beautiful are those?! The girls did a mega job on them. And we boxed those babies up and sent them away. I don't even care if they lady liked them.

And the moral of this story is not to avoid CIA recipes. Just when you are making their High Ratio Chocolate Cake, have your whits about you.

There is a Food and Wine Writer's conference in the Okanagan in the middle of June that I want to go to so bad. But it ends the same day as my written final. School is a buzz kill once again. But there's also an event at the UBC farm called "The Joy of Eating" or something like that going on pretty soon that I am GOING TO BE AT.  So help me God.
(Please help me.)

Find a recipe you like. Make it. Feel like a boss. Cover it in cream cheese icing but it makes everything better. Repeat.

Can't I just put butter on it? Butter makes everything better.

 Not gonna lie, I'm kind of tired of being in the kitchen. Thank God it's not the 50's. 

It's been a full day dry run of my midterm today. I know that it doesn't sound like a very successful dry run. 'Bri', you say, 'don't you only have four hours for your midterm? And today took you ten?' 

*In my head you sound like a Precious Moment when you talk.

But yes you would be absolutely right. I only have four hours to do everything that I took all day to do today. And there are even things that I will have to do on Wednesday that I didn't even DO today. Self-sabotage? Perhaps. My life resembled a bit of a science experiment today. I had my projections of what my midterm should look like, my HYPOTHESIS if you will -(guaranteed I just lost a couple of readers)- and compared it to what I felt I was capable of against what I was able to actually pull off. 

To my surprise -probably an hour added up throughout the day was made up of me congratulating myself on being realistic about my abilities and that I was 'going to be just fine at the midterm'- everything went fairly smoothly.  

Now being in pastry school has been an exercise in managed expectations. Anything you do at school -ANYTHING- that you choose to try and replicate at home, you will likely be disappointed. Professional kitchens are laid out with a certain modicum of premeditation. Ergonomics. "Flow". And you have a $1000 knife kit at your disposal. Your tuition has paid to enable anything you could want to put your hand to to be at your fingertips. Your apartment kitchen was made with the premeditation of "We were just going to put in a hot plate and a plug-in for a microwave but the building next door just put in new faucets and privacy film on the bathroom windows. So we have to at least make room for a full-size refrigerator." So any moments of Sound of Music-style spinning that was possible at school is only possible OUTSIDE your apartment. I don't remember my kitchen being inadequate before I went to pastry school. This is why you don't sleep around with other kitchens. Hindsight and all that.

So you get home. And you realize that you have a cloth piping bag that smells like morning breath (It DOESN'T dry well OKAY!?), you have a dough scraper that was obviously designed by someone who had never made bread before and purchased by someone (me) who hadn't a clue either, and your spatula has chunks missing along the side due to it being left on hot surfaces unattended. And then you feel sad. 

But then. You look back at your recipe. You remember the glory of school days recently passed. You conjure up your best show stopping dish. Commence dancing and inspired chanting at the glory of your semolina bread and how it's going to bring all the boys to the yard. 

Fast forward fifteen minutes: "Bah! This thing doesn't work AT ALL!"

Inspired chanting is replaced by swearing under one's breath. You make concessions for your recipe not shaping up like you had hoped. You pass the buck to the (now) broken spatula. You say that "It's just not for the home baker". And then you feel ashamed because you promised yourself that you would be better than that. Whatever you were making comes to a relative state of completion and you eat it with your eyes closed trying to resuscitate the previous beacon of talent and unchallenged winning. 

I have done this before if you couldn't tell. 

But today went well. I tried my best to preempt any tool-related shortages and use what I had at my disposal for it's intended purpose. I know you say, "Just take your knife kit home." But I would probably just say -and probably not very nicely- that it is simply not that simple. I don't know if you have ever been in the charge of a toddler or related small human before but there is this inevitable moment where you realized that they blew a shoe, or their pacifier or their blanket at all Hell breaks loose when they are without it. You search and retrace your steps. "You just had it. I don't understand." This life is my life. Everything I have is on an idiot -ahem, tether- when we go to the airport.  So two days before my midterm I am not going to lose my shoe THANK YOU VERY MUCH. 

I documented my truffle making process today because... I am a product of my generation and I have this insatiable desire to take pictures of my life on my phone using unnecessary photo sharing apps. Mae culpa, mea culpa. I worked with milk chocolate today whereas I've only worked with dark chocolate before. This made for a learning experience I probably could have saved for AFTER my midterm. Because dark chocolate has more cocoa solids in it, its sets up faster and requires less work to create the proper crystallization. The milk chocolate ganache is quite soft but it has bourbon in it so it can't be THAT bad right?

Including the Saran wrap and Archimedes the napkin holder seemed necessary. Or I just didn't realize I hadn't moved them until after. Our glass table isn't a marble and therefore will never be as great as marble but it definitely served its purpose well today. 

I also practiced my pate a choux paste today. I made eclairs, with drive me crazy but are on my exam, and then some profiteroles, which are much easier to work with and therefore more gratifying. I practiced some lemon curd today as well so instead of pastry cream I crammed the profiteroles full of lemon curd and left the finicky eclairs without any filling. That'll teach them right? Lie to me. 

 Tomorrow I have time to further finesse my agenda because I am the queen of over planning. A third of my class has already done their midterm. I want to ask them, ya know, pick their brain and TOTALLY obsess. But I know it is a short distance for me right now to go from there to rocking back and forth whispering, "I'll never teeeeeell." Best if I just keep to myself until Wednesday morning. 

Moozh did his this morning. The culinary students weren't told ahead of time what would be on their exam so Moozh went in blind. His chef told him that all of his stuff was cooked perfectly and that he did very well. And after six years of education and a master's program, Moozh still considered this midterm the most stressful exam he's ever written. I concur. Already. 

One more day to overprepare. 

Find a cookie. No, two. Find some ice cream. Make a sandwich. CUZ WHO DOESN'T LIKE AN ICE CREAM SANDWICH? Repeat. 

Wednesday, March 7, 2012

"What do you want me to do? Dress in drag and do the hula?"

If I were a racer, and providing I could any longer see my toes, I would be stretching right now. I would be decked out in something unflattering, that wicks away sweat and pinches at your armpits (and your groin). I would likely be sizing up my competition, praying my shoelaces hold, and injecting myself with some kind of steroids (secretly). But I'm not a runner. I'm a baker. I still wear unflattering clothes. I still sweat a lot. Nothing pinches because everything is too big. (Which is a good sign.) I'm not sizing up my competition, I'm clinging to them for emotional support. I'm not on steroids but when you eat nougat for breakfast, you might as well be.

I ROYALLY messed up my marshmallows. I had coffee extract all ready for it. Coffee marshmallows + HoCho* = what you want your life to be all about. Or a mocha. This is a "both/and" kind of situation.
Anyways, I then realized we had a scaling situation on our hands as we were pouring the BOILING SUGAR SYRUP into our egg whites. Hot sloshy mess = not what marshmallows look like. And then I nearly poured that mess down the drain which would have resulted in, what we call in the culinary world, 'call the plumber cuz shit just went down'….and it's not moving. I guess. (This is stream of consciousness blogging.) But I've picked up some gelatine so I'm going to give it a try this weekend on my own when I should be studying for my midterm.

*HoCho is the gangst terminology for Hot Chocolate for those of you unaware. Now you know. And you sound cooler or as Moozh likes to call it, "Trying to be black, you white girl". You're welcome.

So marshmallows were not to be for us but we did make nougat. Did you know that nougat (and marshmallows and hard candies, I kid you not) started out as medicine? They were a way for pharmacists and apothecaries to cover up the gnarly taste of their medicine.
I was telling my friend Zoe that marshmallows used to be made from the mallow plant, that grew in marshes. And then I told her that they also used to be medicine. She will henceforth never believe anything credible I have to say. Certifiably.

But look at our nougat. Yum city, right?

Candied orange, toasted almonds and pistachio nougat. I don't know about you but I was NOT excited for nougat. Whenever I think nougat, I think of that irritating crud that gets stuck in your teeth when you eat a Toblerone. So I also associate nougat with Swiss Chalet. Not a good association. But this nougat is NOTHING like that crud. Like anything made by hand. My mind was completely changed about marshmallows, marzipan, and fondant for this same reason. When it's not churned out in a factory where the air smells like Frito Lay chips, it actually turns out pretty good. This nougat is chewy in the best way while still being pillowy. And it's not the 'clingy-chewy', where you think you're gonna rip out your fillings if you eat another piece. I have totally made things like that. Good nougat.

We also made Pate de Fruit (Pat-due-Free) yesterday and it is the candy equivalent of bacon. You will eat EXCESSIVE amounts of it and it 'cures' underneath a centimetre of granulated sugar for at least a day. K, maybe it's not JUST like bacon but it is so good. Again, it's the artisan equivalent of a fuzzy peach (or whatever fruit puree you choose to make it out of). I'm sure if Epic Meal Time found out about Pate de Fruit there would be a shirt that read "Pate de Fruit Pate de Fruit Pate de Fruit Pate de Fruit".

This week has been more of midterm prep.
We made more chocolate truffles:

More buns (accompanied by Chef's continuous jokes about 'handling our buns'. Hardy har. My sense of humour is the first to go under stress.)

We may take another stab at eclairs tomorrow but that is somewhat unlikely I think. We are learning plating tomorrow. Pretty desserts. I am forbidden to put a mint sprig on ANYTHING. EVER. Chef ranted about that for probably five straight minutes today. Which I get. Mint is boring. And unless you have halitosis, I would wager, no one eats the mint sprig. You either leave it on the side of your plate or flick it at your eating partner. (Moozh and I never go for dinner anymore. So strange.)
We made sauces today: caramel, chocolate, anglaise, fruit coulis, gelee, to use to plate things tomorrow. Eight hours will be spent on learning the art of the 'smear'. You know the one I'm talking about. The sauce that you always wish there was more of.

My practical is a week from today. Week. From. Today. What is scarier to me is that a week from tomorrow, I will BE in advanced, preparing food for the general public! But what if…what if something totally irrational and unlikely happens! What will I do?! How will I recover from the embarrassment?! Like what if I stab someone (by accident, for real)? What if I give someone food poisoning?! What if my mousse doesn't set?
(I'm trying to poke fun at myself now. I will laugh later. WHEN IT HAPPENS.)

P.S ~ Three points for me: I used the "Hula Dance" from The Lion King in conversation at school the other day. Someone mentioned something about doing the hula (Because this is what you talk about in your down time at pastry school) and of all the songs and quips that could have come to mind, I managed to pull this out, complete with dance moves, I can guarantee you. It's stuck there, in my head. That is core space I am never going to get back, never be able to use for any other useful purpose.

Find some Toblerone. DON'T EAT THE NOUGAT CRAP. Sing a Disney song. Repeat.

Friday, March 2, 2012

Don't be hatin'

Midterm prep!

Post-wedding cakes, there was nary a moment for revelry of any kind or self-congratulatory talk, but for the moment when the other inquisitive -and blindly supportive- students from the other classes came in exclaiming at the cakes, "Oh she say you look so pree-tay!" Directly following, we began prepping and practicing for our practical midterm. Our midterm is made up of a written portion of all of our theory, and then a 4-hour practical exam wherein we are given four products to produce and four hours to do them. Certifiably, our exam includes lemon meringue tarts, chocolate eclairs, semolina bread, and chocolate truffles. Wednesday, we did bread and eclairs as well as fruitcake and brioche tropezianne which were additional pieces to our curriculum -all with a deadline to imitate the exam. Had I left the extra pieces until I had finished my exam prep pieces, I would have finished on time. But I finished ten minutes late. Which means I theoretically failed the exam.

Then I kind of hit a wall Wednesday night. And then I felt like I literally hit a wall on Thursday. In a food prep class, especially one as small as ours, illness circulates like tornado season, running around waving its hands over it's head screaming, 'YOU CAN'T CATCH ME!" Except you CAN catch it and that means that you are sick, lying in the middle of the floor in the dark, possibly groaning. I managed to avoid any serious illness but mine was more a feeling of exhaustion.

I took Thursday to see if I could recoup. It is NOT AN OPTION to be sick during midterms. Anxiety anxiety anxiety. So if I'm gonna get sick I HAVE to get sick now. Knock on wood that was my dose for the season. And turns out I wasn't the only one. I was one of six, or HALF of our class, that was away yesterday and our Chef went home early as well with a raging fever.

So TODAY, we were still down three people but most of us where there and so we took another stab at prepping for the midterm. Today was lemon meringue tarts, as well as ICE CREAM DAY! My chef is Italian and therefore extremely particular about ice cream. He competed in an international gelato competition so he has the right to be. We learned chocolate sorbet, chocolate gelato, vanilla bean gelato, passionfruit sorbet and a lemon granita. The chocolate sorbet was wicked good. It had this sandy texture that no one else liked but me. The passionfruit sorbet was amazeballs, I mean seriously good. Like "eat out of my bare hand in the light of the refrigerator in the middle of the night by myself" good. Embarrassing good.

Lemon Tarts were a good exercise. My lemon filling had the texture of a gel insole because I WAY overcooked it. My first batch of tart shells were adequate. My second set were majestic. And then I went and baked them for forty-five minutes. They came out looking like chocolate tart shells. Dangit. Not good for the exam. My tarts officially don't look like the picture anymore. Without a serious degree of forethought, lemon meringue does not travel well. Looks like shaving cream with toasted coconut in it now. With a tart under there somewhere.

Monday we make pate du fruit and marshmallows!!

Find some ice cream. Find your pyjamas. Eat on the floor. Don't be hatin'. Repeat.

Tuesday, February 28, 2012

Just another day at the spa.

It has been a few days straight out of Cake Boss or Ace of Cakes. If you have ever seen those shows, you will have absolutely NO idea what my day was like. There was likely less frustration, more precision, and actual cake underneath all the fondant. Yesterday and today we worked through cake decorating. Earlier in our cake lessons, we learned how to split, fill and mask a cake. We learned how to cover a cake with buttercream and make piped decorations. This was really an extension of that day. Last Friday, we made our own rolled fondant and then yesterday, we added any necessary colouring and covered our tiers with it. Today was then, prepping all of our decorations and finishing our cake. In retrospect, I saved myself a significant amount of breathing exercises by opting out of the flower brigade. Others in my class made beautiful flowers, SERIOUSLY. But I know that my flower afternoon would have been made up of muttering under my breath, throwing hunks of fondant across the room and then inevitably changing my flowers to balls of fondant, with or without a seam showing. The colour may not even match.

So I did some research, which was primarily comprised of me sitting on weddinggawker for hours at a time and looking at what people more detail oriented and coordinated than I am did with their opportunity to decorate a special occasion cake. I was really drawn towards simplicity, and by that I mean of course, less work. I wanted something to do with preferably cut outs, aka cookie cutters. I didn't know what colours I wanted either. Chef made it clear that we were making a wedding cake, that this wasn't just an opportunity to decorate a crazy cake. That meant soft colours. I started thinking of the kinds of cakes that I'm drawn to. Not a lot of flowers. Not a lot of scrollwork, if any. A lot of dots. Circles. Lines. I added these things up in my head and came up with K'nex. But I also came up with Art Deco! Art Deco is very clean, linear. It uses the repetition of shapes to create depth and height. It was the 30's, I couldn't resist. Colors are where I can't chill out. Even when I was in fashion studies, I was the one doing a lavender high-waist dress with a champagne bodice when everyone else was doing black and white. So here as well I couldn't just do turquoise and chocolate brown like everyone else. (*It's funny because no one in the class actually used that colour combination. I'm such a whiner.)

I started off with colour blocking my tiers a little bit. This involved WAY overworking my fondant and so it got a little crackly. But across the internet, you can't tell! The bottom at this stage made me think of Nibbler from Futurama immediately followed by breasts. And then maybe a penguin. Originally I wanted kind of an antique peach colour with a cool slate grey against the white fondant. But instead I achieved a pale pink  and a dark purple. The colours were still fine, just not as they were initially intended.

On the second tier, I really like the addition of taller columns, continuing on with the layer and the colour scheme. No one would actually want to eat my cake, because it has SO MUCH fondant on it. But working with the repetition of colours and shapes, it kind of became classy. We had to have a topper. I didn't know what to do for a topper with the style of my cake. I still like it better without the topper but I think the topper gives the cake a strong retro feeling. Kind of like a lounge singer. In a good or bad way, not sure.

This is the close up, and my favourite angle of the cake. Just two tiers. A monochromatic grey on grey would be classy. Or even a pale grey and a white. For someone to get married on New Years Eve. You could of course do green and black, if you wanted to be really Art Deco.

After I started working on the second tier and then on the finishing aspects, I found that I actually really liked it! A project that I was loathe to get involved in, I actually came away from it proud of my design. Not everyone liked it but like I said, I DON'T DO FLOWERS. We all have our strengths. The PM teacher came in and took a picture of mine because she said it was a good example of a cake that is 'easy to achieve but still beautiful'. I'm good with that.

On MOnday, we also finished our petit fours. We glazed them with pastry fondant (different than the fondant regarded above) and piped designs on top. They taste kind of like a donut, if a donut had a bajillion layers. One girl said it looked like the buildings from Inception when you lined them up in rows. This of course inspired a lot of kicking over the 'towers' with one's fingers and then stomping around the kitchen like a T-Rex. We all did it, I swear. I think it would have been fun to ice them all like dominos but it was good to practice our piping. I thought the domino theme would be cool for a New Years party too. I'm seeing a theme. Maybe I'm just wishing for a New Years.

Tomorrow we do fruitcake….yahoo. And then we start prepping for our Midterm! I do not remember bread. I do not remember anything earlier than last week. Who am I kidding -the weekend. I remember THE WEEKEND. We're gonna be practicing bread, pate a choux, tart shells and chocolate truffle. And then our skills are inflicted on the general public when we bake for the restaurant. In two weeks, I will be looking back on all of this, and it will feel like kindergarten, when you wish that you could still play at the water table and colour with HUGE felt markers when you're now forced to do big kid stuff like practice your cursive writing and remember your times tables up to 5. Except now we're plating desserts and trying not to give paying customers Staphylococcus. Easy shit.

Find a donut. Kick it over like a boss (with your fingers of course). Chow down. Repeat.

Friday, February 24, 2012

"How do strippers do it? They really must have so much cardio."

Oh chocolate. You've gotta be more like cilantro. Or Dub Step. A love or hate kind of thing. Because this ambiguous middle ground that I am feelin' for you right now is very confusing.
Chocolate demo: kind of frustrating. Not that inspiring.
Chocolate day: Kind of frustrating. Not as gratifying as I was expecting. Wanted to throw my chocolate writing AT somebody.
My chocolate-related imagination: Totally Wicked.

Chef put some bugs in my brain by the mere mention that things could be done with chocolate beyond what I've seen at Purdy's (which I would venture to say is one of the least imaginative chocolate shops ever. Which is not to say that it's not good.). Like instead of a ganache with cream and dark chocolate, you do it with passionfruit puree and milk chocolate?! Amazeballs. No kidding. Even tempering, which I was beyond unexcited for, was really pretty relaxing. And almost instantaneous. If you ever decide to try tempering at home (which I would probably just tell you to buy tempered chocolate), it will likely not take you long -unless your house is like Dante's Inferno. I dumped my chocolate on the marble, fooled around with my offset spatulas for like two minutes and the chocolate was already hardening. Back in the bowl and onto the ganache.

But flavours! Boundless. Which I knew but at the same time, there is so much I haven't even considered. Adding flavouring to a ganache is typically alcohol even though you could use nut pastes, and syrups if you so desired. The alcohol we used was pretty much cleaning solution. You took the lid off and instantly the kitchen smelled like a casino: just alcohol and sweat. But think about using a spiced rum, or a bourbon. Chef told me you could get tobacco truffles. Which I WANT. As in, not optional. You could do an Irish Car Bomb truffle. You WOULD fall down but man would that be tasty. And worth it. The things I love about what foodie culture has contributed to the culinary world is a creativity and a playfulness to flavour and texture combinations. Not that that aspect wasn't present before but now you have this demographic desperately seeking it out.

Like rosemary chocolate truffles. Or lemon rind cacao nib chocolates. Why am I dreaming about this? I pretty much everything about chocolate including it's mother on Thursday. Whatever.

My dark chocolate truffles and Lex's white chocolate truffles. Chef complimented our properly tempered coating but my ganache had a chunk of solid chocolate at the base from when my ganache set unevenly on the marble. That's what is known in the culinary world as 'not paying attention'.

Today we made Dobos Strips, prepped petit fours and made rolled fondant for our cake decorating days next week. I know that I will feel as if I have been transported back to elementary school when I was trying desperately to do one of those stupid grid pictures. Art + Math = no thanks. People will walk past my station, squint, clear their throats and then ask, "What is that?" at which point I will probably growl, insult them in my internal monologue and reply, "I'm not done yet." But of course we all know, I will never be done. Because it was supposed to be a  teapot, why does it look like a cactus?! That's it! I'm being a librarian!

…

I'm really aiming for something realistically achievable next week. Employing a lot of cut outs. Stencils. Bands of fondant. Like scrapbooking but with cakes. And not like Michael's scrapbooking where you pay $3 for a sheet of patterned paper. But like, Drunken Craft night scrapbooking where you cut out your friend's face and put a Powerpuff Girl sticker on them. That kind. Just trying to keep it interesting.

This is my Dobos Strip, which is a kind of petit four. My friend Danielle accurately described it as my cake having 'toast on the top'. Which I think is mortifyingly accurate and totally hilarious. This is what a Dobos is supposed to look like (once again put to shame by Smitten Kitchen. This woman has a two year old!)

And then we hand made rolled fondant. Or I made three batches of fondant. We had a couple people absent and so Chef asked me to make a second batch after I finished my first one. "Yours is good", he said to which I wanted to reply, "Totes a fluke Chef". But I don't think 'totes' is in Chef's vocabulary. So I did a second. And then he was going to do a double batch in the Hobart. So I did that one too. Hopefully, in my future I will look back on this day and I will say, "I am glad I got so much practice on fondant because otherwise I would be in a real pickle right now." Because in my future, I will STILL be lending from profanity and so I will STILL be talking like a Precious Moments doll and my life will be hard.

I also made caramel sauce last night that is so bitter that I need to throw it out but I want to save it so it's in my fridge. I talked to Chef about it and he's going to demo caramel sauce three different ways for me on Monday! I will be a caramel genius and Moozh will love me for it! And then I may just inch above Indian Food for first place rank in Moozh's heart. It'll be temporary but it will be a success!

Guess who's hilarious? Daily Grace! I want to be her. Especially in the kitchen.

Find some fries. Melt chocolate over them. Eat it standing in the kitchen, preferably in the dark. Exclaim over the redemption. Repeat.

Wednesday, February 22, 2012

"Why can't you wear black shoes like the other mothers?"

I was completely blown away by how NOT into chocolate I was today. Our entire day today was a demo day where Chef demo'd how to properly temper chocolate using two different methods. We had what in my opinion (being presently jaded -just for a day) was an excessively long lecture about the origin of chocolate, the fermentation process, drying and processing. We tried different kinds of chocolate, which varying degrees of cocoa butter, cocoa solids, sugar, from different companies, origins. It really just left me confused. Then the tempering came and I am going to be SOAKED in chocolate tomorrow. I got my jacket dirty today and I didn't even DO  anything. I am going to wear the dirty one tomorrow because then I still have something to wear on Friday.

And today was Ash Wednesday so my typical catharsis method of swearing my face off is officially out the window.

I'll just do my best to channel Vianne tomorrow. Chocolat is one of my favourite movies, there is something intoxicating about it. Vianne is so whimsical. Perhaps it is chocolate's role in her life, maybe not. Maybe it's the red shoes. I wonder if Chef would let me wear red heels tomorrow. That would really help my frame of mind. But my Chef pants are pegged and everyone knows you don't wear heels with pegged pants. Unless you want to look like an extra from Dynasty.

There's a quote in the movie, "Don't worry so much about supposed to." That is going to be my mantra tomorrow. I get too caught up in frustration when I make mistakes, I miss the opportunity to learn. And we will be making a passionfruit ganache for our truffles tomorrow. Anything with passionfruit is a win.

Here are the cakes we finished yesterday!

We did a sachertorte, which actually comes with quite the history. The Viennesse do not joke about their pastry. There was a lawsuit fought for years over who could claim the 'Original Sacher Torte". Doesn't matter to me because it tastes good. It's a dense chocolate sponge cake, almost like a brownie texture. It's split and filled with traditionally apricot preserves (duh-lish) but we used raspberry jam and then glazed with a chocolate ganache. As you can see, I was SHAKY when it came to writing on the surface. That is a skill that will come with time.

We also did a lemon blackberry mousse cake, similar to the raspberry one we did  a couple of days ago but using lemon curd, one of my top seven favourite things. We had to use the walk in freezer for our two mousse cakes and both of mine came out looking a little worse for wear. The glaze didn't set evenly and the outer edge got a little mangled but this cake is seriously SO GOOD. I find the assembly of modern cakes (mousse, ganache, etc) very meditative. You've got to have everything together but once you do you can knock off so many. Bodes well.

We did last a Bavarian Charlotte which is a vanilla cream filled cake with lady fingers around the outer edge. It made it out of the freezer a little more mangled but it still tasted good and when you pile some fresh fruit on top, it never looks all that bad.

The cross section shows the inserts. A lemon cremeux and a blackberry fruit gelee.

We glazed the top with the same glaze as the mousse cake, which is not traditional, to cover up some of the tears. The cremeux layer is WAY too thick even for a lemon lover like me. The gelee is bent but overall the layering is not too bad for a first time attempt hey?

Today Moozh made rabbit confit, which is rabbit cooked in it's own fat! Whose idea was that because I think they need a prize.

Yesterday, Moozh made a chicken roulade (which means a rolled thing) which a prawn filling.

Less than three weeks until our midterm. Then it's advanced. Then it's real. No red shoes in advanced.

Find some red shoes. Wear them in bed while you eat some chocolate. Consider yourself a rebel. Repeat.

Monday, February 20, 2012

Don't listen to anything I say. Basically.

Heyo! So we're doing our best to get back on the once a day track for posting. Otherwise, there are simply too many pictures. And pushing 'email photo' on my iPhone more than three times in a row is just exhausting.

Today was a hard Monday. I'm not gonna lie. All day I was just wishing for a stat holiday, or even (in my silent, inside voice) for something contagious. I was somewhat consoled by the fact that I wasn't the only one that stared at myself in the mirror this morning and contemplated calling in a sick day.  But eight hours a day, five days a week is pretty good training for real life. Except real life won't be like an Italian spa.

Today had a good clip though. There wasn't a ton of 'viamo guys!' going on. As long as you nestled your head firmly in the group and put one foot ahead of the other, you looked pretty ridiculous but two o'clock arrived with everything done. Tomorrow is our last day of cakes which will involve another mousse cake (yay) and infinite glazing, which is not so much 'yeah' and more so 'nononononono not like that'. All good.

The cake we glazed today is a cake custom to the school called a 'Pasuwa'. It consists of a chocolate sponge base, chocolate mousse, chocolate chips, cheesecake chunks, another sponge layer, more chocolate mousse and cheesecake chunks and then chocolate ganache, aka Boom. I brought it home, had a little chat with my digestive system and then went and made friends with my neighbours. The conversation that begins with 'Do you guys want some cake?" really only ever goes one way.

But Moozh had a good day today. Let me preface this by explaining that my husband has what could be described as a charismatic experience every time he eats Indian food. Something about the flavours, the textures, being able to eat it with your hands…something. It just speaks to him. So when he texted me this with the caption, "Indian Buffet", I knew he was going to be a very happy man when he got home, which a little bit of a kick in his step.

I feel personally blessed that Moozh has learned to make Indian. Especially such a spread. I am going to request an instant replay of this meal complete with everything you see represented here and I will dangle WHATEVER CARROT I HAVE TO in order to get. You have no idea how seriously a white kid can take Indian food.

Moozh also made quite the spread last night for our small group. Nothing is better than having people you love to pieces over for delicious food and wine. Nothing.

Rack of lamb, cumin rice pilaf, garam masala bean medley, roasted asparagus, and roasted veggie tower with a raspberry vinaigrette-pearl onion compote.

Not bad right?! My life, I tell ya. The man does me right.

Sunday, February 19, 2012

"And naturally you belong to me, wouldn't you agree?"

Cake-land is a comfortable place to be. And land where time is spent luxuriating through parks of mousse cake and up staircases of layered opera cakes
I have noticed a discernible propensity in me towards minimalist decoration.
Namely, Opera cake.
Chef

Me.

The cross section is pretty though.

And in my defence, it is not truly my 'decorating style' and maybe more informed by there being supplies AND TIME available. Cake is a new world, I kid you not. I posted Chef's sponge layer cake the other day. Methinks, I let my personal opinion inform my decorating style. And my artistic ability but that's a conversation for another time.

I also made the prettiest cake I EVER have as well. And it was absolutely the easier of the three.
Voila!

The cake wall at the bottom, could be in any colour you wanted. We prepped them last Tuesday and I decided that purple would be pretty. But then Chef did his pink in stripes like a candy cane or a retro beach towel. When he pulled his mousse cake out of the fridge after it had set, I was 1) completely overcome by jealousy over the beauty of his cake and 2) had this overwhelming to be five years old wearing a crinoline with THAT CAKE as my birthday cake. It was a very complex emotional state. But mousse cakes are fantastic. And due to my general dislike of icing (especially icing with massive amounts of butter in it), I think mousse cakes are my favourite. So light, creamy, fruity. Not that there is anything wrong with excessive amounts of chocolate, butter and/or sugar.

We also made cupcakes. That had a very different texture than what I expected. Someone in my class suggested cornbread. I would probably say poundcake, simply because generally metaphors are supposed to HELP you understand. We made a French Buttercream, which is richer than the Italian buttercream we made the other day.

Don't you look so prettay! My best friend picked me up from school and we went for lunch. We had a very enthusiastic waitress who wanted to see all of my spoils from the day. She oohed and aahed very supportively over everything but the cupcakes got the most fanfare. And they are very pretty. Cupcakes are THE THING right now, aren't they? And I do understand why. They are infinitely customizable, transportable and very cute. This is the recipe for success in business and I believe the secret behind the success of purse dogs, mini tacos and bejewelled iPhones. All of this things are very popular in the city in which I live.

T-minus two days until we start learning chocolate which means truffles! Which also means my circle of friends is about to get a lot bigger. And then -AND THEN!! -two weeks from now, I write my midterm, do my midterm practical, and MOVE TO ADVANCED. I am very intimidated by this. I know I will do fine. But I am intensely fixated over the moment by moment, pre-play I am concocting in my imagination. (This is when being an imaginative person is a detraction from general quality of life. As I imagine, is bungee jumping.) The Advanced students are the BIG KIDS. I have been transported back to elementary school, sans the bicycle shorts this time (thank God).You don't talk to sixth graders when you are in third grade! (Why not?) YOU WILL DIE!
I need to talk to a professional.

Find a cupcake. Go talk to the big kids. The ones you're intimidated by. Maybe bring a cupcake for them. Bond. Repeat.

P.S -The title of this post is straight from Cee Lo GReen. I got my introduction to The Voice as an experience this past week. Cee Loo, while verging on the creepy, is so infinitely quotable.

Thursday, February 16, 2012

"Guys, when it go wrong. Do not desperate."

So Chef prefaced this week as being "a very challenge" if we were to miss even one day. I was all prepped to study study study.
And then I got the most amazing surprise. My Best Friend, author of the Love Tour and Reflect What You Believe and my long-distance partner in crime, surprised me as a belated birthday present. She has been here with me everyday this week! And I have still managed to learn something! Everyday when I would normally be stoked to stand around in class after I am supposed to be home and in my loungewear, I am itching to GET OUT OF THERE. It has been so wonderful to have selfish time with someone you usually have to share every time Moozh and I head home to Cowtown. We've been able to hang out and talk and drink tea and make crafts with pop rocks. (It involved rimming a glass. Booyah.)


Here's a rundown on what Moozh and I have been up to since I was here last.

Moozh made cream puffs and lamb stew one night.

He also made breakfast for dinner which consisted of mascarpone stuffed French Toast.

We made soufflés on Monday. Cheese (Gruyere), Vanilla Cream and Chocolate.

The chocolate was the only I managed to snap before it began to collapse. The cheese was great -if you like stinky cheese. (Be advised, you go to culinary school and stinky cheese is in everything. No cheddar up in here.) The Vanilla Cream tasted vaguely like vanilla scrambled eggs which was…weird. The chocolate was awesome, though. Very light and airy. Not eggy. Win. We also made a chilled lemon soufflé that I think was my favourite out of them all. And the advanced pastry chef liked them enough that he featured the ones we made in the restaurant as a dessert feature. Woot!

What has followed in the days since, when I have company of course, has mostly been prep. We made a lemon pound cake yesterday that was very much like pound cake. I didn't know this but the name 'pound cake' derives from the original recipe in England that called for one pound of flour, one pound of butter, one pound of sugar and one pound eggs. It's also known as The Four Quarters cake. One POUND of butter.

Today was fun because we began to learn the assembly of cakes, which is just as important as the proper baking.
We learned how to properly crumb-coat or 'mask' which is simply a thin layer of buttercream on the outside of the cake to keep any crumbs from getting onto the outside of the cake.

Then we learned how to fully ice and decorate the cake. Throughout the entire process -cutting, filling, masking and icing- I have never felt so uncoordinated. Everything else we have learned thus far I have felt like a beginner but today I just felt ridiculous, waving around offset spatulas and serrated knives. "Chef! What am I…What am I doing!?"
I went for a more monochromatic look, simply, minimalist. What I forgot about minimalism is that it shows ALL YOUR MISTAKES.

For a first try, I am happy with it. I realized that my general aversion to excessive icing kept me from playing around and really decorating up my cake. I am the person at the party that scrapes all the icing off the top of the cake and then dissects each layers so as to simply get just cake. Others did really impressive rosette work and piping.
Chef did some major piping.

 Tomorrow we ice our cupcakes, we finish off our opera cake, we make two mousse cakes, 

Opera Cake from Hardian Nazief

Also on the weekend I made cream puffs for some friends we were having over. I definitely feel more confident that I know what I'm doing.
Before the bake:

After the bake:

Filled with pastry cream!

I have been very blessed this week with simply quality time. The cakes continue next week and then we move on to chocolate!

Find a friend. Find some pop rocks. Brainstorm. Repeat.