Wednesday, November 26

Aaaaaand scene!!!! Phew! Three and a half days later!!!!!

Well, here it is, the final product. My theme was, as you can see, flowers. I did super well even though Chef docked the ENTIRE class because we have some totally lazy classmates who decided not to clean. Haters.

Here is a picture of my entire final.



Here is the L'Opera cake. Chef said it was a tad heavy on the "RUMMMMMMMMM."

Umm... Hi. Have we met?

The dreaded Petits Fours. The decoration is hand colored marzipan.

Lemon Meringue Tarts.

Florentine (which I personally think are awesome. Super tasty). They have all been dipped in chocolate and half are sprinkled with crushed almonds.

Linzer Window Cookies.

Linzer Jewel Cookies.

Baton Marcheaux dipped in chocolate.

I thought you might appreciate seeing some of my classmates' final projects as well. Here is Monica's. Its... wait for it... a Barbie Tea Party. Awe-some.

Sandy's. I'm not sure what here theme is...

Erica's. I think her theme was a tea party.

Hahahaha! Here is one of my favorites: Henry's. Its a medieval theme. Check out the candles, glasses of "wine" (ie cranberry raspberry juice), and sword.

I also thought Jessi's was totally brilliant and extremely well executed.

This is JM's. He couldn't really describe what his theme was...

This presentation belongs to The Russian Spy (Veronica). Maybe her theme was fuchsia?

Kimberly's was a tea party theme.

I'm so thrilled that final is over, I cant even tell you. I have to go finish packing now... I hope you all have a fantastic Thanksgiving!

Next week our new module is laminated doughs. Think croissants.... Danishes....

Thursday, November 19th

I just did a double take when I went looking for today's date. How is it November 19th?!?!?

Another recent find: My camera has a "food" picture function. Sigh.

Today we made our Opera cakes. Talk about time intensive. After making and cooling the sponge cake, we had to make our coffee butter cream frosting, coffee rum sauce, chocolate ganache and seized chocolate for piping. The Opera cake has a history and has been around for a while:

Said to have been created in the early 1900's by Louis Clichy at the Exposition Culinaire, this cake is comprised of layers of almond Joconde sponge cake soaked in a coffee-rum syrup between alternating layers of coffee butter cream and chocolate gananche. Others believe that Dalloyau, who sold a very similar pastry in his patisserie, created the cake in honor of the Paris Grand Opera.

After assembling the cake, and piping L'Opera on top, it is finished with a touch of gold leaf. One of the important presentation aspects of this cake is cutting it with a hot knife (and wiping the knife after each cut) so that the layers are clearly seen all around. The cakes are cut in two inch squares and will be part of our four day final, which starts tomorrow....

So check this out... Here is what will be required of us starting tomorrow... We will begin with our written exam which I HAVE to study for, and a 25 item product ID. We will then be required, over the next three and a half days (Wednesday we will finish and present and be graded... Grading will take almost two hours), to create the following: A whole Gateau L'Opera (8 pieces), Lemon Meringue Tarts (3 each), Florentines (8), Batons Marechaux (8), Petits Fours Glace (8-12), Linzer Window cookies (8), Linzer Jewel cookies (8) and "properly display" these items in a themed manner...

JIGGA WHAT?!!?!?

So here is how Chef suggested we break our days down...

Friday (tomorrow)

Written test

Product ID test

Make dough for lemon tarts

Make sponge cake for L'Opera

Make sponge for Petits Four Glace

Make marzipan (that is the top layer of almond flavored candy) for Petits Four Glace

Monday

Assemble Petits Fours and freeze

Assemble Opera cake and freeze

Bake dough for lemon tarts

Make lemon curd for lemon tarts

Tuesday

Make florentines

Glaze Petits Fours

Make both types of Linzer cookies

Glaze Opera cake

Wednesday

Seize chocolate for piping on Opera cake and Petits Fours

Make Batons

Lemon curd into shells, make meringue and torch

Set and prepare table and be out of the class room by 1:30 for grading

All of the cakes and cookies, by the way, must be uniform in every aspect...

I MEAN COME ON!!!

I just got stressed out. I have to go.

Wednesday, November 18th

Yesterday we made delicious coconut macaroons dipped in chocolate. Since I wasn't feeling well, I went directly home and they went in the garbage. We also made lemon Madeline's, and since NO ONE'S came out (including Chef's), those were trashed as well. We also made the cake that would become our petite fours, which we finished today:



They don't look like much, do they? Well Ill tell you what: they are tedious, time consuming and obscenely sweet. After making the cake, it is split into thirds and stacked between layers of really sweet jam, and then frozen overnight. The following day, the cake is cut into squares, diamonds, triangles, circles, whatever. Next, fondant must be made and kneaded to the appropriate and pourable texture, then colored if desired. Then fondant is messily spilled over the cakes (and hopefully yours don't fall over like many of ours did), and then the cakes must set. Finally, they are moved to a clean sheet and piped with chocolate on the top. Good luck on making them all look the same. For our final, we will have to create a dozen identical petite fours. I need to go to bed now.

Monday, November 16th

After class on Friday, us girls hit Big Wangs for what would be a seriously unforgettable night...

Pharyn, Monica and Vicki

Our first round at the bar: Irish Car Bombs...

Maryn and Jessi

Today we began our Petits Fours - and we started with cookies:

Below are Linzer cookies filled with an incredibly sweet jam. (I wasn't a fan).

Pink Almond Macaroons - some were filled with the jam from above and some were filled with chocolate (these immediately met the garbage can after grading. Needless to say, I wasn't a fan of these either). Per Vicki and Erica, these are huge in Japan. So are chicken feet.

Florentines. Ahhh, Florentines. A sugar and butter mixture melted with almonds then baked and coated in chocolate. Delish.

Batons Marechoux. In English that means "Maryn wasn't a fan of these either." Super light cookies dipped in chocolate.

Thursday, November 12th

So - My big project for today is figuring out how to bake and ship a wedding cake to Chicago for Andrea Kavoosi and Dave McHugh's 2010 summer wedding!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Congrats, Darlings!!!!!

Today we made Sweet Potato Pie which tastes just like Pumpkin pie (ie NOT my thing). We also made Peach Cobbler which was really good (I ate the top off of one... Who needs filling!?)

Since we finished early, a few of us walked over to the farmers market that they have every Thursday on South Campus. It was AWESOME. I bought some BBQ almonds and 10 flavored honey sticks (a la Trina!)

Tomorrow we have our first practical and written test. Luckily, tomorrow night we (me, Monica, Vicki, Jessi and Pharyn) are supposed to hit Big Wang's! HOLLER!!!

Wednesday, November 11th

I want to proudly relay the email that my amazing friend Melanie sent me yesterday... She said, and I quote, "You are totally inspiring me" as she made, from scratch, honey pizza dough for the below pizzas with homemade garlic oil, cheese, arugula, and a homemade lemon vinaigrette:

In the words of our good friend Rachel: YUMMERS.

Today we made a Pumpkin Chiffon Pie with a graham cracker crust in the spirit of the holidays. We used sheets of gelatin which I have never used before. The pie came out well, but I didn't try it cause I don't like pumpkin... that is, unless, we are talking about fresh toasted salted pumpkin seeds which I have a serious weakness for.

We also made a Peanut Butter Oreo Pie with an Oreo crust. While I didn't try a bite of the finished product, I may have tried some of the filling which may or may not have been heavenly. But then again, anything with chocolate, peanut butter and Oreos cant be too abysmal...

After we finished our pies, we all chipped in to make pizza. We have never used deck ovens and really wanted to try them out so we assigned ourselves toppings to bring in and made something like 12 pizzas from scratch. We had almost every topping you can imagine. Cheddar, mozzarella, goat cheese, grilled peppers, grilled onions, tomatoes, sun dried tomatoes, pesto, BBQ sauce, tomato sauce, sauteed mushrooms and fresh mushrooms, ham, pepperoni, pineapple, ham, banana peppers, basil... AMAZING. Monica posted pictures of the pizzas on my Facebook page. :-) You will also be able to see a few pics of Chef.

Tomorrow: Sweet Potato Pie (blech) and Peach Cobbler.

Tuesday, November 10th

Total lapse in blogging but the past few days have been crazy!

Friday we had our final exam (which I did fairly well on) and we said our farewells to Chef Mushet.

Yesterday we started PBK121 which after this week will be mainly peti fours, but this week, we are doing a lot of pies. Our new Chef, Roger Frey, is hilarious. He is an L.A. native who drives a blue Harley to work everyday and doesn't seem to be too put off by my table's sometimes off color humor.

Yesterday we made a New York style Cheesecake which we presented today. We were allowed to decorate it however we wanted and while a lot of my classmates chose to top their cakes with pie filling, I chose whipped cream and fresh fruit. I ran our of berries so my design turned into what you see below.



We also made a Whiskey Pecan Pie. Pecan's aren't totally my thing but this was pretty tasty.



Below are Lemon Meringue tartelettes. We made everything by scratch and torched the tops ourselves.



The reason I didn't blog last night was because I went with Rhea to the So You Think You Can Dance tour at the Nokia! It was about three hours of sincere screaming and "OMG I LOVED this dance!" and "Philip is SO talented" and "You should have won, Kayla!"



Two more pies tomorrow... I am off to do homework.

Thursday, November 5th

Oh. My. After class yesterday, I went out with Monica, Pharyn and Vicki to "study" for our final today. We ended up "studying" for about FOUR hours between shots on the house and beer samplers. I'm up early today to review.

As for yesterday, we made our bread plaques. I really didn't understand the purpose of this day until Chef explained that there are competitions to make these things and you aren't allowed to use anything artificial whatsoever. (I Googled "bread plaque" and evidently they are big in the Christian arena...) The base is called a Weaver's Dough and the sculpted top is made from a Salt Dough.

Anywho... Here is my bar scene!!! I used spices for the studs in the char (and they also have an alligator texture that you can't really see), and black sesame seeds for the floor.



A few of my classmates let me take pictures of theirs...

This is Vicki's Cornacopuia.



Veronica's (or as we call her, Nica) (or as I sometimes refer to her to just myself, The Russian Spy).



Pharyn's Mickey.




Monica's.




Luca's.

Kimberly's. I'm sure her church group will be proud. Please note our favorite part of her plaquue - The ram at the bottom. The fur was made out of Panko bread crumbs.

J.M.'s.

Jessi's totally cute Snow Owel's which she is going to frost today to make them whiter.

Heidy's wreath.

Enrique (or as we call him, Henry's) Eagle.

And there you have 'em!

Today is our last bread class. Sigh. I'll miss you, Foccacia.

Wednesday, November 4th

Dear God,

Thank you for having us invent Monkey Bread.

Fondly,

Maryn Stephanie Silverberg

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Side note: For those of you that have had trouble posting comments, Lisa taught me how to change my settings so you should be able to comment away now... :-)
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We had a super busy day today! We made Hot Cross Buns which I personally think are Hot Cross Lame and only helped me to remember the song we learned on the recorder all those years ago.

With the left over dough from the Hot Cross Buns, we were allowed to make whatever we wanted... Most people opted for cinnamon rolls. I opted for Monkey Bread. Now let me break this down for you... The dough is cut into small pieces, drenched in butter then rolled in a cinnamon / sugar mixture and put into a loaf pan and baked. What you get in the end is this crusty on top, gooey on the bottom, warm and sweet in the center dessert type bread sent straight from Heaven. I kid you not. I mean. Its almost like an apple fritter from Patterson's in Cleveland, but in loaf form. Utopia.

As I told you yesterday, we were give the option of using our sourdough starter to make bread, so I did....

You know I don't normally brag on here, which is why I am going to take the time to do so now... Chef said, as I presented her my sourdough loaves, that they are "cover of a magazine worthy." BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOYA!!!!!

I immediately sliced one up for my classmates and saved the other for Julie as I have been promising her sourdough from the second I started school. She was also given the rest of the monkey bread as I could show no will power around it. I may or may not have insinuated to Chef that she needed to hurry up and grade me so I could dive into the bread.

We also made two other doughs today that are fermenting overnight. We are making what is called a bread plaque and today had to turn in a design for ours. I have to admit that I don't really know the point of the plaques is (we don't even eat it), but we had to create some sort of 3-D scene to construct out of dough, which we will be constructing all day tomorrow. So I drew a beach scene with an umbrella, some crabs, waves, a setting sun and a boardwalk. And then I made one that looks like an open book with Once Upon a Time written on the left and a castle with a drawbridge and a moat on the right. And then I made a bar scene fit with a bar, stools, drinks, and Christmas lights.

Needless to say, it was a unanimous vote for me to do the bar scene... Ill let you know how that one turns out...

In the meantime, I'm off to do sit-ups to try and make myself feel less guilty about the Monkey Bread...