I'm Back!

Ok.... so it's been a while.
School really kicked my butt last quarter, and softball and the family didn't help ease the pain when I wasn't in school.

Anyhoot... I'm back. Here to share the greatest recipes (from school) ever and also here to try out some of yours.

Stay tuned... for a lot of catching up :)

Egg Wash

In culinary school they have a funny way of letting you know that the way that you've been doing things for the past 50 years is WRONG. Apparently there's an entire "way" of creating egg wash.

What? You didn't know that? And you call yourselves mothers, cooks, men!

So, the (*cough*) proper way of creating egg wash is by using 2 eggs. after cracking and emptying them into a strainer, you're suppose to whisk them (while still in the strainer) and allow the "egg" to strain into a bowl. And VIOLA you have culinary egg wash.

1st Qtr of school finals

So tonight I took the second part of a two-part final for my Intro to Baking class. Last night we had to bake 3 different items (brioche, soft rolls and blueberry muffins) of which we've baked before. We were graded on appearance, consistency and weight. 12 muffins, 12 rolls and 12 petite pain loafs were lined up, measured and weighed. They had to be within a certain range in order to fall into the "consistent" column.
I'm proud to say that I passed and my items were even used as examples for class.
(it sucks that some friends of mine had to work with a couple of students that honestly should not be in this class.... they could truly care less).

For tonight's final we had to first clean the entire kitchen. I mean REALLY CLEAN THE KITCHEN. We might as well have been on our hands and knees with a 2-bristle toothbrush cleaning a 600-700 sq ft kitchen. After the cleaning was done, we took a written exam which could have been a nightmare. Chef Charles was decent enough to ask questions that the entire class "should" have known the answer too, and that resulted in me knowing the answers to all of the questions. I did miss one, but it was because I truly thought it was a trick question and "over" answered the question. You know what I mean, right?

Oh well, one more final to go, that's in my online Safety and Sanitation class. Wish me luck.

Classwork assignments - revisited

So in a previous post I talked about some classwork assignments that we made in class (again, I'm in pastry chef school).

So here they are:
Milk Bread









Baguette









Croissant












Star Shaped puff pastry












Envelop puff pastry












Chocolate stuffed puff pastry












Marguette shaped bread










And here's what you're looking for...

Week 4 of class

Ok, so I'm not sure if our Chef instructor had a good holiday weekend or a bad one. I"m not sure if the reason he had us preparing 8-10 different items was because he was Happy to see us, or if he was Pissed to see us (I guess I'll never know).

Wednesday's class we basically prepped and prepared the following items to be baked on Thursday: Poolish, Milk Bread, Fermented dough, Orange cream, Lemon Cream, Almond cream, Pastry Cream, Italian meringue and sweet pie dough. All of which was simple to make, however the instructor made us "switch" groups and that ruffled some feathers (I loved my "old" group).

Last night (Thursday) we were in full speed. The class thought we were getting ready to take our weekly quiz, however the Chef wanted us to begin working at WARP speed.

So we were OFF to the races!

We smashed, mixed, played in powdered sugar, stuck our hands in a pot fille with boiling hot sugar to make (a soft roll), diced and sliced tomatoes and onions and baked our first BAGUETTE. I wasn't able to stick around for the finish bread, but I did take home all of our yummy pies, rolls and foccassia bread (YUM!)

So I think the craziest thing that happened in class is when we were told that we had to check the temperature of COOKING SUGAR with our hands. We were suppose to stick 3 fingers into cold water, then into the hot boiling sugar (grab some sugar), and then back into the cold water. We should be able to form little small "soft roll" balls with our sugar into the cold water. If we are able to then our sugar reached the optimal temperature of 121 degrees F (what ever happened to a candy thermometer)?

Week 1-3 of school in review

School has been coming along quite well. This is a short quarter for me, it's only 6 weeks long. You'd think we wouldn't get into "too much" because of that... HA! Yeah right! This chef instructor that I have may be the strict-est, mean-est, crazy-est one I'm ever going to have. I'll let you in on some of the "rules" of his class.

1 - If you're late to class you peel potatoes for 6 hours
2 - If you're not in complete uniform, and ready to begin right at 6p, you wash and clean the entire kitchen for 6 hours.
3 - There is NO MAKE-UP work ever, and once an assignment has passed, there's no way to ever turn it in.... basically your S-O-L if you're absent.

Even if you break rule 1 or 2, and manage to come into class, you get a "0" for the day and can't make up the points. Since the class is only 6 weeks (5 1/2 if you want to be technical) you've screwed yourself right out of a passing grade.

The first 3 weeks haven't been all bad, I've met some pretty cool people - my first "industry friends!" I met them during the initial orientation (I sat right next to Kim) and now we make up Table #3 in our CUL1125 class. So far we've met blueberry muffins, cream scones, brioche (pictured above - braided), country rolls and some other bread that I've since forgotten about (also pictured above - dusted with flour).

As someone who "bakes" often I must say that the classroom kitchen is pretty intimidating. I mean, there's 4 different types of stoves, 3 refrigerators, a proofer (who knew), 5 sinks, blah blah blah. Add to the fact that my instructor is CRAZY and it only makes it much more intense.

Yes Chef!

hi-ho, hi-ho, it's off to school I go

Well, all went well yesterday (except the part where I saw how much money I'll have to pay back) during the enrollment process. I'm now officially a student of the culinary arts. My first day of class isn't for another couple of weeks, so I have time to "brush up" on some of my baking skills, in my attempt to impress the chef instructor.

The school is pretty cool, and the kitchens absolutely blow you away - they have all the latest "tools of the trade" daw-ling! Stay tuned for some pics of my creations, etc.

the first step

Today I take the first step in becoming a pastry chef. It's been a strange (not difficult) couple of months. Trying to decide on which school to enroll and how to re-adjust my family normal, day-to-day routines. My husband has been real supportive and we've worked it all out (so far so good).

I'll be heading down to the school today to sign enrollment paperwork, to start class on Nov 13th. The school seems to be a perfect fit for me, one of two schools that I checked out. Small classroom sizes, large kitchens and cool competitions once you get your feet wet.

My appointments at 11:30... I'll let you know what happens. Wish me luck!