Maryn's Been Baking

Wednesday, April 21st

2010-04-21T19:29:00.001-07:00

Gingerbread House update!

So here is a picture with one of the three sides attached before we stood it up...

Here it standing up! This is a view of the front - windows on the right, door way on the left... We split the ceiling so it would look like you are looking in on the scene...

Here is a view of the back part of our roof! Pain. Staking.

None of us think that we are going to finish because we only have four hours tomorrow to work on everything that goes IN the house before it is due tomorrow at 4. Sigh.

Tuesday, April 20th

2010-04-20T19:03:00.000-07:00

Well, Friends, this is my last week of classes. I'm a mix of totally stoked to start my three week internship slash completely nervous!

Last Friday, we completed our sugar sculptures... Here is mine:

We had to have a few different components: pulled sugar, straw sugar, a sugar base, net or bubble sugar, at least one rose and one exotic flower with three leaves.

Here is a close up of my exotic flowers. Oh la la.

And my rose:

Here is JM's:

And our official show-off, Henry:

Kim's:

Phar-Bears:

Monica's:

And last but not least, we counted that between the four of us, we went through 40+ latex gloves (which must always be worn when working with sugar), in one day.

Yesterday we started working on our final project (tear), gingerbread houses. It is the very last thing that the students in my program do. We are given a "scene" and must work in teams of two... For example, one team is doing a grave yard, one a train station, etc. and they all have certain criteria like the graveyard must have headstones, a few ghosts, a mausoleum. Me and Vicki? Well, Ill give you one guess as to what scene we got...

Ill give you a hit... You can typically find me here at the end of a long day or on the weekends with a very cold martini in my hand...

That's right. A bar.

So as you can imagine, not only am I stoked, but its totally my element.

We have until Thursday to finish but I thought that I would document a little bit of our work each day.

Yesterday we baked off the gingerbread (which took a while after we figured out the measurements of everything), and today we actually began construction. Here is a picture of Vicki working with modeling chocolate to create our bar stools:

Below is a picture of one of the outside sides of our bar (named Ohbergs (Oh + Silverberg = Ohberg's)... I piped the bricks with colored royal icing and started putting the roof (Bakel's chocolate chips) on. The windows are filled with sugar so that when we put the bar together, it will actually have windows on it!

Most of us spent the day a tad frustrated as gingerbread has the tendency to be fickle and break so Chef lent us some comic relief:

Tuesday, April 13th

2010-04-13T18:56:00.000-07:00

Hi! Remember me? The pastry student that used to be so diligent about updating her blog?!

Well I'm back! And I have a lot to update you on, so grab a cup 'o Joe and take a quick potty break!!!

Here we go!

So where we left off, I was still in plated desserts. Our team of four was instructed to use all the main components of a plated dessert and center them around pineapple and, wait for it, marshmallow... So we sauteed the pineapple in brown sugar and butter, topped it with some delicious pound cake, a coconut covered marshmallow with a coconut tuile cookie and served it with a passion fruit sauce and a chocolate sauce. Tres successful...

That was our last day of class work and then we were given three rather stressful days to complete our final where we were asked to create three plated desserts and construct them start to finish. Everything had to be homemade from crackers to marshmallows...

My first dish was toasted lemon pound cake with a lemon rum sorbet, a honey tuile cookie, raspberry coulis and a honey sauce.

This was the least well received dish of all three of the ones I presented although my lemon rum sorbet was a huge hit.

Next I did a chocolate-chocolate chip cookie with peanut butter mousse, salted candied peanuts, a creme anglaise and chocolate sauce.

The mousse was outstanding (and everyone in my class wanted a cookie) but Chef said that because the dish is so rich, the portion should be smaller.

I told her we don't do "smaller" in the mid-west.

My final dish was a trio of brownies (from left: a coconut and pecan deep chocolate brownie, a white and semi-sweet chocolate chip blondie and a peanut butter marshmallow (everyone's favorite) brownie (thank you, Gail Kichler, creator and author of TEMPTATIONS, TEMPTATIONS, TEMPTATIONS) with vanilla bean ice cream (and a sugar garnish) with a rum caramel sauce and a chocolate sauce.

This was the most time consuming dish because I had to make three different batches of brownies and work on making good curly-q for my sugar decoration.

After that class, we took a week off for spring break.

We are now in our candy module which also happens to be our last class (sad face).

We have Chef Folck who I have wanted to teach one of our classes since the third week of school.

Last week we worked solely on tempering chocolate (not as easy as one would think), and made port truffles, coffee truffles, Grand Marnier truffles and passion fruit truffles.

Below, Kim demonstrates that if you leave your spatula and ladle in a bowl of chocolate that overtime begins to harden, you will not be getting your tools back anytime soon... Notice how she isn't holding the chocolate up by the bowl...

After we learned how to make our truffles, we worked on creating a chocolate box (insert obvious joke here), which we would be tested on making Monday. Below you can also see the truffles I made.

Here is a close up of the lid because I was pretty proud of it.

Here is what I made on Monday... This time, I only used three sides to make the box because four was just way too much for my shaky hands and impatient attitude to handle. We had to make two types of truffles, one dipped and one shaped so I made the coffee truffles (dipped) and the passion fruit truffles (dipped).

So today we started on what we will be focusing on for the rest of the week: sugar work.

Here is what Chef made in demo today, and what we will be recreating over the rest of the week. We must make a log (made from pulled sugar), two flowers (one a rose and one of an "exotic nature" with three leaves made from poured sugar and other decoration made from bubble sugar:

Ill keep you updated on that one....

For the rest of class, Chef agreed to made us other things from sugar that we would not have the opportunity to make, like blow sugar. Below is him making a fish...

Readers, Darrell Folck.

Chef, the 4 readers of Maryn's Been Baking.

You will notice that half way through the demo, the fish changes color because the red one broke...

So here, Chef is pumping air into the sugar:

Then he manually blows air through the tube to inflate he sugar while shaping it with his other hand.

He holds it in front of this machine which cools the sugar into its shape.

More shaping, but you can really see it coming together:

We will use super hot lights to keep our sugar pliable while we are using it.

As Chef begins to assemble the rest of the fish, Vicki shows us what "gills" are.

They may be "gills" to you, Vicki. But to me, they are "boob wings."

And here is her Fish Face!

And here is the new fish being shaped.

Chef them affixes the tail of the fish.

Here, with the help of Henry, Chef adds eyes,

... and a mouth,

And places it on a stand that has also been made from sugar:

And here is Chef Folck in all his paparazzi glory as everyone in the class wanted to take a picture of him with the final product.

Here is a little bow he showed us how to make:

Phew! So there you go! You are now all caught up!!!

P.S. The number of times to date I have been asked, while in uniform, if I am a doctor: 3.

Tuesday, March 16 - Friday, March 19

2010-03-21T19:49:00.000-07:00

This past week was killer stressful. On top of the challenging work at school, my computer died on me...

My classmates can attest to the stress zits on my worried face.

On Tuesday we had our first real team work challenge. We broke into teams of 8 to create 15 identical plated desserts. We had to use phyllo dough, make a tempered chocolate garnish and to be honest, I cant remember the rest of the regulations, that's how fuzzy I am. I digress. Here is our take on a re-invented Neapolitan. We used flourless chocolate cake on the bottom, a strawberry Diplomat (a really smooth and tasty mousse), with a graham cracker layer which was topped with more mousse, creme Chantilly and white chocolate. Our sauces were chocolate and a berry coulis...

Here is what our table looked like. We teamed up with three of the girls from the other class.

On Wednesday, we did what Chef Rocque called "A Reality Check" otherwise known as the "Top Chef Challenge."

We were given six ingredients and had to use four of them to create a plated dessert. We had to break into teams of two so Vicki and I worked together.

Here is what we got to choose from:

Fresh yeast

oats

any kind of berry

pears

red wine

olive oil

I meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeean.

So we went with an oat tart shell filled with a raspberry curd (ahem, Chef asked for our recipe :-) ), pears that we poached in red wine and simple syrup, chocolate sauce, rum caramel sauce, almond "comet," topped with a raspberry.

Here is what some of the other teams created:

One day before class, Monica found a pair of roller blades in JM's trunk which she immediately put on and started tooling around the parking lot in... Having made PLENTY of fun of me in the past for owning a pair, Pharyn grabbed mine out of the CRV to join Monica.

This thoroughly made my day.

For our next challenge, we were broken down into teams of four to create a dessert that utilized chocolate fondant cake, two sauces, an ice cream and marshmallows.

Me, Monica, Pharyn and Vicki created chocolate fondant cake topped with caramelized bananas, a peanut butter marshmallow topped with a tempered chocolate cigarette and a rum caramel sauce with a banana creme anglaise. Chef said if he had to suggest something to change, he wouldn't change anything.

Just sayin.

Friday was yet another plated dessert challenge (just remembering my week brings the feeling of a not-so-pleasant clogged pore on my face) where we were required to make two sauces, use apples or pears and phyllo dough. We hollowed out and baked our apple in cinnamon, sugar and butter and made a phyllo cup for it. We made caramel rum sauce again cause, well, its awesome, chocolate, cinnamon ice cream that everyone in class thought was super tasty, and topped it with a sugar coil.

This past weekend has been about putting my portfolio for this class together (major thanks to Jeff for letting me use his computer and printer ALL day Saturday to do so) while biting my nails over the three and a half days of finals that looms ahead of me...

Monday, March 15th

2010-03-15T22:54:00.000-07:00

Today we had our practical where we had to recreate the plated dessert that we made last week... This time, I made a white chocolate cup and a cocoa transfer design on the side and a dark chocolate filigree with the same pattern...

After the very long day (since for some reason, NONE of us got sleep last night... Me due to stupid Terroni which has now gotten me sick for the second time), we all headed to Monica's home in Moorepark for game night! After a few rousing games of Catch Phrase and Taboo, we finally got to meet Monica's awesome Dad (who walked in with a stogie) (amazing) and Mom, Janet (who we all couldn't wait to meet), who loved seeing all our shoes by the front door:

Monday, March 8th - Friday, March 12th

2010-03-14T11:48:00.000-07:00

Phew!!! The week started off a tad stressful... While we are delighted to have Chef Gomez again, but the school blended us with another class who is also learning Plated Desserts so now, instead of 14 of us, there are now 34. We are SO not used to having that many people in a class and its tight and busy and congested and pushy and loud and we have to form lines just to use the ovens and the sinks. As you can imagine, yours truly is NOT thrilled. On the upside, we get the benefits of being taught by their Chef, Chef Rocque, who is absolutely hilarious.

So after a very stressful Monday and a refresher of fruit coulis and creme anglaise, we went out to our favorite burger place, Islands, to celebrate Vicki's 25th birthday!

I ordered the worlds largest beer...

And then we did a very-illegal-in-school-uniform-happy-birthday-Vicki shot:

... Which Monica passed on and instead ordered a chocolate milk shake...

Wednesday we worked on tuile cookies. Thursday we tempered chocolate for the first time and learned how to make chocolate cups and filigrees and we also made a mousse that would go towards plating our first dessert....

So here is my fruit coulis with creme anglaise with my tempered chocolate cup, flourless chocolate cake, chocolate mousse, quenelle of creme Chantilly and chocolate filigree. Phew! It is very important to have a crunch factor in a plated dessert, at least one sauce, a garnish as well as "negative plate space."

And a close up:

Friday we made crepes in teams of two... Vicki and I made a fruit compote to top our crepes which were filled with nutella (drool) and topped with Chantilly creme.

It tasted as good as it looks... So good, in fact, that Vicki and I absolutely devoured our presentation plate and had to make up another identical plate just so we could take pictures...

Monday, March 1st - Friday, March 5th

2010-03-05T17:11:00.000-08:00

Hurrah! Its Friday!!

Thank you to those of you who called and emailed, totally antsy to see the cakes!

So without further adieu, here are our wedding cakes! We were graded on many different aspects ranging from piping, texture, flowers, color scheme and fondant coloring.

Here is mine! I chose to make hydrangea, roses and ranunculus, which are my absolute favorite flowers...

Here is a picture of the top of the cake... We were responsible for hand dusting each petal. We worked about 20 hours total on our cakes...

Here is a close up of the flowers on the left side of the cake...

And here are the flowers on the bottom.

I have to say that out of all the projects we have done, this is maybe the one I am most proud of. :-)

Here is Jessi's. No one did a cake like hers... I thought it was different and very elegant.

Here is a close up of the top of her cake.

This one is Monica's. We decided that her cake is for a couple getting Maui'ed...

And the lovely Pharyn's...

This one is Vicki's. She took the idea from one of Martha Stewart's cakes. I absolutely love Orchids.

Here is a close up of her detailed work.

While Chef was grading, Pharyn and Monica took a moment to show you the do's and dont's of Le Cordon Bleu school uniform. Monica is wearing black socks, while Pharyn, ahem, is wearing socks with ice cream cones on them. Shame shame.

This is Kimberly's cake.

... And Henry's...

Here is a close up of Henry's awesome Stargazers.

This one is Nika's. It is incredibly well done and she got 100% on it. She put SO much work into it.

Erica's...

And then I gave the girls a ride back to their cars... There was not a single square inch of room left after we managed to get our bags and cakes into the CRV.

Next week we begin plated desserts which I'm really looking forward to because that is what you really need to know how to do when you work in a restaurant... More details on that to come... But before I go, I want to give a little shout out to my brand new cousin, Eli Samuel Kestin!!! I can't wait to meet you!!!

Monday the 22nd - Thursday the 25th

2010-02-25T17:40:00.000-08:00

Here it is, Folks!

Our Children's Theme Cakes!

Styrofoam middle (as this project was about modeling), and fifteen plus HOURS over the course of four days to work with modeling chocolate... dark and white, (and if you are anything like me and have a hand temperature of 289 degrees on a normal basis) that melts promptly and sticks to your hands.

We were required to have three figures, many different shades of chocolate (incorporated by hand), a border around the bottom of the cake that relates to your theme, the use of only one color that wasn't made of chocolate and could only be used in a very small quantity, and a pastiage item (another item made of sugar), which had to be painted with cocoa butter... SIGH. This has been, so far, my least favorite thing we have done since we started school in September... Even more so than my terrible Pate a Choux day...

So here is my finished product! I chose Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs, one of my all-time favorite books as a child... (next time, I will choose a theme that does NOT require me to make realistic looking figures... Again, le sigh).

A view from the top (my pastiage item is the umbrella)...

And a view of the bottom... (and no, that is not a frown on his face, is a 'stash!)

A close up of my borders... Sandwiches and... a hot dog,

... Some blurry ice cream cones,

B-A-N-A-N-A-S,

... And a chocolate chip cookie.

Here is Monica's... Wallace & Gromit.

Donna chose a penguin-gone-fishin' theme:

Pharyn, true to form, chose a Disney theme: Cinderella. Notice her adorable and almost impossible to make mice.

This was the cake that Chef made to demo for us... Its a baby theme. She used Luster Dust to make those certain parts shiny and the sides of her cake are decorated with buttons.

Here is JM's who chose Sid the Science Kid, which I have never heard of, but his attention to detail is awesome. The pictures just don't really show how much went into these cakes.

Here is Vicki's - Winnie the Pooh. The best part of her cake is Tigger with his head stuck in the honey jar!

Kimberly's... Frog Family Picnic... yes... it seems all sweet and innocent until....

...You get a close up of Mrs. Frog's knockers!!!

This is Rebecca's. She did a Clown theme. (this one's for you, Lisa!)

This one is Jessi's and a class favorite. She did James and the Giant Peach. Remember that one?!

This is a close up of her eight-a-pied, as she couldn't fit 100 legs on him, laying back, enjoying a cigar.

Here is the spider:

Here is Henry's - He chose Lilo and Stitch at story time.

This one is Erica's. She made the pearls around the bottom look totally real with luster dust.

This one is Nika's a.k.a The Russian Spy. She chose a theme based off a Russian children's book. Her details were totally out of control awesome.

Here is a close up of some of her figures.

The last one is Brigi's:

Here is a close up of her hot air balloon which I thought was so cute.

Tomorrow we have yet another pizza day followed by a three hour demo on sugar flowers (gum paste mixed with fondant) as we start making our wedding cakes next week. While we wont be using real cake, we will still be responsible for covering them with fondant, three theirs worth, and constructing and coloring all the flowers and other decoration we might want to use...

Friday, February 19th

2010-02-21T11:24:00.000-08:00

On Friday we finished our Princess Cakes... Three layer pound cake with butter cream frosting that I flavored with strawberry puree (with a layer of fresh raspberries) and covered in marzipan...

I had some extra left over so I made a mini princess cake that I split with the girls...

And since I was meeting Stephen for dinner (and he lives oh-so-far away in Santa Monica and never gets to try any of my sweets), I brought him the Princess Cake which Street (the restaurant where we dined) took to mean we were celebrating his birthday... I haven't seen this kind of smile since I last pretended it was my birthday at the local T.G.I. Friday's in Cleveland...

And here the "Birthday Boy" tries a piece of his cake...

Stephen was generous enough to let the restaurant keep the rest of the cake to enjoy, which they were very thankful for. :-)

Wednesday, February 17th

2010-02-17T17:34:00.001-08:00

Yesterday and today we made the classic French wedding cake dessert called Croquembouche.

We worked in teams of four so us girls almost literally threw together our first attempt at this dessert below...

We made cream puffs (they were not filled with anything), dipped them in caramel and then dipped them again to attach them. The whole "cake" is covered in "angel hair" and other sugar work...

This is rather sub-par work so we decided to do it again...

The whole cake is mounted on nougatine.

Here is a picture of our sugar work...

And here is us! Me, Vicki, Monica and Pharyn!

Tuesday, February 16th

2010-02-16T17:41:00.000-08:00

A special edition blog today, friends, that I have lovingly decided to title The Burn Blog... I went around the class today and compiled a current album of my classmates recent burns.

I hope you enjoy these pictures as much as we enjoyed receiving these physical-likely-to-scar mementos of how much we love to bake.

Here we have Vicki who I believe received this burn at work...

Monica got this bute last week while we were working on our finals.

You cant see Pharyn's that well, but trust me, its there...

... and ironically in the same place that I have mine!

My face says "Hurrah! Burns!!"

The award for today, however, goes to Erica Debrovsky who got this stunner at work...

And poor seems-to-seek-out-massive-disfiguring-burns Jessi got this one today while we were working with caramel...

Ouch!

Saturday, February 13th

2010-02-13T15:59:00.001-08:00

Cakes is finished!

Here is the Dobos Torte, yet again. Chef loved the color I got on my caramel this time and liked my even layers.

And the good old carrot cake... Chef thought my carrots were cute and my cake and frosting had great flavor.

But I mean, hello, its carrot cake. I know a lot of people who would eat it off the sidewalk...

And here is me, Monica and Henry playing footsie (we have been a tad on the slap happy side), while waiting for Chef to finish grading, as we are not allowed in the classroom as she does so.

And lastly, a special Happy Saturday shout out to my favorite cheese loving friend, Trina!

On Tuesday... Wedding cakes... :-)

Wednesday, February 10th

2010-02-10T18:09:00.000-08:00

Holler!

So... Here is my second attempt at the Alhambra cake...

And here is a close up of the flowers... Chef liked them but said that I need to create a bigger difference in size...

So yesterday we had the choice to make either an orange chiffon cake or angel food cake and I chose the latter... It isn't much to really see, as you know, but I thought that I would take it to my pharmacist at Rite Aid because I see them oh so frequently (and she mentioned that she debated between becoming a pharmacist or a chef), but as I pulled my cake carrier out of the car, the bottom of it fell off and the cake landed with a little "pooft" on the wet garage ground...

Needless to say, I picked up my drugs with sticky hands and instead of giving the fine ladies at Rite Aid a cake, they got a very sincere smile...

Today we made the Feuille d'Autunm... Its four layers of meringue layered with chocolate butter cream and finished with a chocolate collar and chocolate curls and fans... It was our first time really working with chocolate and it was interesting, a tad more challenging than we thought, and very messy... But it yields a rather impressive result...

That is, if I do say so myself...

Thursday, February 4th

2010-02-04T19:52:00.000-08:00

T.G.I.T.!!!

Below is the Alhambra Cake: chocolate hazelnut cake layers soaked with a sweet rum syrup and iced with chocolate ganache... The cake is then glazed and topped with handmade marzipan roses (read: time consuming). We have to do this for our test on Monday so hopefully I will be able to get "Alhambra" piped EVENLY on the cake...

Close up of the flowers...

I'll give you one guess as to what type of cake this is...

No, Mom. It's not as good as yours!

Here is a close up of my handmade marzipan carrots. How cute are they?!!?

This was made today: A Dobos Torte... Layers of sponge cake with chocolate butter cream topped with a layer (the triangles) of caramel glazed cake... Tres time intensive... We have to do the Carrot Cake and this one for our finals at the end of next week.

Fancy, no?

Monday, February 1st

2010-02-01T20:42:00.000-08:00

Today: Pineapple Upside Down Cake:

I received some devastating news today. The talented, lovely, funny, sweet, tattooed artist Justin Mentell was killed in a car accident this morning. I'm reeling and still trying to process. He will be very very very missed by a lot of people, especially me.

Friday, January 29th

2010-01-29T19:38:00.000-08:00

Today, along with my racking cough, we had our first practical and had to replicate our Celebration cakes.

This is how we felt about them:

This is what we decided to do with them:

And this is how we dealt with our less than stellar grades:

Have a good weekend - and bottoms up.

Thursday, January 28th

2010-01-28T21:16:00.000-08:00

YAWN.

I forgot to mention that in order to try and accomplish everything that we need to in a day, we have been starting class an hour early... I went to meet the lovely Trina for dinner (if you haven't already, take advantage of DineLA! JiRaffe was AMAZING!) this evening and upon arriving early for a change, I locked my doors and reclined to close my eyes for ten minutes. I literally could not keep them open.

Anyway, yesterday we finished our dreaded Celebration Cakes. Tasteless and covered with American butter cream, they were intended for us to get used to cutting even cake layers, spreading frosting evenly, working with butter cream and piping. So here it is...

And yes, before you start making fun of me, we were required to pipe our own names...

But check out my roses!!! Chef said that I went a tad overboard with them, but come on! How could I not?!

Yesterday we also did a Boston Cream Pie. This was SO good. I mean... can we discuss the chocolate ganache oozing down the sides of the cake?!

Yesterday we got a head start on our cake for today, the Triangle Cake with Dobos sponge filled with chocolate butter cream... And just in case you had any delusions about how much butter actually goes into butter cream frosting:

So here is how my day went today... Below is a picture of the Triangle Cake... Its Vicki's...

And here is mine:

A picture is worth a thousand sighs.

Tuesday, January 26th

2010-01-26T18:52:00.000-08:00

Greetings from the capital of Complete and Total Exhaustion.

The Cakes module is totally kicking our cake loving arses.

Yesterday we started our Celebration Cake, and worked on it more today... And will finish it tomorrow. Hopefully.

Today we made our Black Forest Cake (below) which is comprised of Devil's Food Cake, cherries (on the bottom layer), cherry flavored liquor sponged onto the layers, and a cherry liquor flavored Chantilly Cream topped with maraschino cherries.

Today we also baked the cake that will comprise the layers of our Boston Cream pie which we are to assemble tomorrow.

This class is so crazy that the Chef called us around at the end of class to explain that in order to be successful in this module, we need to get lots of sleep, make sure to eat a good breakfast every morning, and to focus on being zen.

Zen?

We are a bunch of high strung OCD pastry students! I digress.

I was coming up to my apartment this evening in the elevator, weighed down with grocery bags, obviously in my school uniform, with a mother and her super cute 6 year old (or so) daughter.

The daughter gave me the once over from slip resistant steel toed shoes to frizzy rain soaked hair with her pink fur coat - hood up over her head, and asked:

"Are you a doctor?"

I smiled down at her and said "HA! No. (smile) I make cakes!"

She replied with large brown doe eyed interest: "You're a cooker?!"

Amazing.

Friday, January 22nd

2010-01-22T20:04:00.000-08:00

Happy Friday from rain soaked Los Angeles! It has literally rained everyday since Sunday and I have loved almost every minute of it....

Since I have neglected you this week, dear blog, here is a nice healthy dose of pictures and fun...

Apologies, Erin and Jesus... I didn't take pictures of the really good Tiramisu we made on Tuesday... Ill make it for you the next time I'm home!

Wednesday we learned how to use our ice cream machine which was a serious departure from my Kitchenaid here at home. In teams of two we made vanilla ice cream (Vicki and Moi decided to add chocolate chips to ours), and then we got to pick whatever flavor of sorbet we wanted so we went with Raspberry...

Thursday we started our finals... As usual we began with the written which I received... wait for it... 106% on. Just saying. Then we made the Ribbon Sponge cakes again. Here is my finished product below (99%). This time I made a raspberry mousse instead of black currant.

Another pic...

This one is Vicki's. I love the colors she chose to use. Her mousse is mango flavored.

Here is a great action shot of Kim cutting her cake. She used a special stencil to get the circle effect...

The Russian Spy also used a stencil... I think hers came out great...

Here is JM's cake... Poor kid sprained his ankle last week and has been playing a mad game of catch up.

Then, as per tradition, we had yet another pizza party. I want to take credit for the below shot, but Monica took it of Henry showing off...

Today also happened to be Chef Gilbert's birthday so we surprised her with roses...

... and a piece of non-pepperoni pizza (per her request), with a candle in it that wouldn't light.... Regardless, she was touched.

Monica is the designated pizza cutter... Here, she is giving the camera what I like to call... some sass.

Here is Vicki taking a graceful bite out of her famous "suprima" (insert "Italian" accent) pizza.

Never a dull moment, I tell you. So Monday we being class with Chef Mushet again... "Cakes."

Friday, January

2010-01-15T19:09:00.000-08:00

Three Chocolate Bavarian Layer Cake: The bottom layer is a chocolate genoise cake soaked with a cocoa syrup. The first layer is dark chocolate, then milk chocolate, then white chocolate topped with a cocoa jelly and piped white chocolate.

And now I'm too tired to type anymore.

Thursday, January 14th

2010-01-14T20:13:00.000-08:00

Thursday: A day of Black Currant Mousse Ribbon Sponge Cake.

Here is mine:

Here is Erika's. She said that she didn't like the way her colors came out and I told her, quite appropriately, that she is down right crazy.

Here is Enrique a.k.a. Henry with his Ribbon Sponge. We had the option of putting patterns in as he has done (you can't see it that well... But read on)...

You can see the patterns really well here in Donna's cake. I loved the colors she used. We have to do this cake again for our final so I might gank her colors.

The entire cake is filled with the black currant mousse that we made and topped with a black currant gel. I think they look super cool.

Tomorrow we being yet another test... Brain cake, again.

As a side note... I hear my neighbors rumbling around and I suspect they are getting out their dusty treadmill as they, in broken English, told me to stop giving them the things I make in class...

Wednesday, January 13th

2010-01-13T21:16:00.000-08:00

Why, hello there!!!

A few things to catch you up on my week!!

Monday was a lot of preparation for the week so we did not have any finished products to present.

Yesterday was more preparation, but we also had the chance to make our first warm souffle of the module! Below is a chocolate souffle with a vanilla creme Anglise...

Yesterday we also presented our frozen souffle. We were allowed to pick any flavor we wanted so I went with Black Currant. It was really good, if I do say so myself. It is topped with a quenelle of chantilly creme.

Today was a big day. We presented the two Charlotte's that we have been working on all week... The first, pictured below, is called a Charlotte Royal, also known as a brain cake because of the way it looks. We got to pick the flavor of our inner mousse so I went with blood orange (very tart) and strawberry (very sweet). Super tasty when blended together. The white in the middle is vanilla Bavarian and it is surrounded by a raspberry filled jelly roll. It is covered with nappage for shine and taste and the bottom edge is coated with chopped pistachios. We will have to do this again next week for our final. Looks pretty cool, right?

View from the side.

Aaaand a top view for you.

Below was extra for anyone that wanted to give it a shot so needless to say, we did. This is a Charlotte Rousse. It is surround by lady fingers that we made and filled with the vanilla Bavarian, topped with chantilly creme and fresh raspberries and blackberries.

Looks tres fancy, no?

I thought that you might appreciate a little sneak preview for what lies ahead of us tomorrow...

I'll leave you with that quizzical look on your face until tomorrow!

Friday, January 9th

2010-01-08T18:26:00.000-08:00

Now, I don't want to brag.....

.............

But I'm gunna...

100% on both my practical and the written, bitches!!!!!

Here is the written - I thought you might be curious to see what these tests entail...

Page 1

Page 2

Page 3

Practical portion evaluation:

Here is the Brandy flavored Panna Cotta that we made on Wednesday and froze until today. I had great texture but I completely over decorated the plate (I couldn't help it!) with my fresh fruit coulis.

Here is an example of what Creme Caramel should look like... Notice the difference in coloring from Tuesday to today's...

Here is what is called a Paris-Brest... Pate au Choux, Praline pastry cream, and creme Chantilly...

Next week: Bavarians....

Tuesday, January 5th

2010-01-05T18:58:00.001-08:00

Happy New Year!

Sending all my friends and family in snow covered Cleveland some LA heat!

Yesterday we started PBK 141: International Patisserie, Custards, Fillings and Creams with the cute Chef Gilbert (who some of us call Mini Chef as I think she might legally be an L.P.... I digress).

Yesterday we started with a bit of a refresher with Creme Brulee, Creme Caramel a.k.a. Flan (a.k.a. feels-like-swallowing-snot), and Pot de Creme au Chocolat:

Chef said that I did a very nice job (even though I think that I over cooked it a bit).

My texture came out great but I needed to let my caramel color a bit more (but it burns so quickly that I didn't want to take the chance!) Ill have to make the Flan again for our practical on Friday. The plates are garnished with little sugar cookies made from some pate sucree dough we made today for something else.

Unfortunately no ones Pot de Creme came out well - the fat separated (which you cant see without cutting into it), but we didn't feel too bad since the same thing happened to Chef. We also learned out to make our whipped cream look like that...

Today we made Bread and Butter Pudding (above) with a caramel sauce. I LOVE bread pudding but mine was totally undercooked even though it was in the oven for... oh, about ever. Boo. Looks pretty good though, right?!

We also made an Almond Tart with poached pears which we will present tomorrow along with Panna Cotta, Baked Rice Pudding, Fruit Coulis, and Paris Brest.

Im off to do homework: Discuss the history of Paris Brest and St. Honore...

Friday, December 18th

2009-12-18T15:08:00.001-08:00

Have I got pictures for you!!!

So since we finished our finals yesterday, we were ordered to clean the kitchen from top to bottom today. THE WORST. Luckily, one of the other classes that uses our kitchen at a different time did the bulk of the cleaning.

But before cleaning, we started class with a pot luck (hurrah).

Here is what it looked like at first...

And then Erika brought in some super cook Japanese food...

And our table just continued to grow. We had SO much food that we fed all the Chef's on our campus and still had leftovers...

At one point, Monica said, "I bet I could put that whole cupcake in my mouth in one bite."

It turns out that she could. And as you can see from Pharyn in the background - it was brilliant.

So Pharyn had a go, too.

And as a bonus, we got to keep the cupcake topper holiday rings (as well as bracelets that Donna made for all the girls).

The class next door to us was working on their final this week as well. They are doing the second to last module of the program - wedding cake decoration. Te students are required to incorporate hand made edible flowers and I thought some of them were awesome...

How pretty is this flower below!?

Under the doves the cake said, in shaky piping, "till death do us part" which we all found kinda creepy.

I like the concept of this cake.

Look how intricate...

Next module we are learning Bavarian creams and custards!

Until then, have an awesome holiday and a wild New Years!!!!

Thursday, December 17th

2009-12-17T21:38:00.000-08:00

Dear Friday,

Please CHOP CHOP and arrive already.

We finished our finals today and I am BEYOND disappointed in myself. My croissant dough was over worked so they were hard and totally unattractive. My Patavier and Palmier's came out well, though. So there is that....

I was visibly upset with myself when I went up to Chef to present my final and she asked what was wrong. I told her that I hated not doing well and she said something to the effect of "this is school! You did well the first time you made them! Stuff like this is supposed to happen so that you can learn from your mistakes and never do it again. Not only that but I would rather have you make mistakes here in school versus out in the real world!" Sigh. She made me feel SO much better. So I trashed everything but my Palmier's (the little cookies you can see in the upper left hand corner) and gave a few to Jessie who I met for a late drink tonight at BLD and the rest to the wait staff at the restaurant! They were totally thankful which made me feel great. Mitzvah = smiles.

You know what else ='s smiles? 100% on a product ID test!!!! HOLLA!!!!

Chef let us out of class early today so we (me, Pharyn, Jessi, Vicki and Monica) went to Frank's Famous Deli in Glendale which is owned by the Chef we had in our last module, Roger Frey. We got a bite to eat and he arrived and joined us for some catching up, gossip, and goo-gooing noises towards his new grandson, Noah.

Should you ever find yourself at Frank's - get the create your own sandwich on Dutch Crusted bread or the grilled cheese with a side of french fries and the homemade ranch dressing.

Wednesday, December 16th

2009-12-16T19:04:00.000-08:00

Two things:

1. There is a light at the end of the tunnel. We have been working on our final for what feels like an eternity but by 3:00 tomorrow, we have to be done. Awesome Chef Gomez let us bake off one of our doughs today, so I did my Danish. They are filled with chocolate pastry cream, apricot jam, regular pastry cream, apple filling, and a traditional lemon cream cheese filling and finished with a flat glaze. We had to present eight. Four shapes. Two of each. \

Tomorrow we bake off our croissants, pain au chocolat, Pativier and Palmiers. SIGH.

2. Happy early birthday shout-out to my favorite (and only, ahem) sister!! I love you, BLS! Geracie's night to celebrate when I'm home!!!!

P.S. How cute is this shot? It was taken by the bar tender on the deck of our cruise ship last year around Italy! Viva Gelatto!!!

Thursday, December 10th

2009-12-10T18:12:00.000-08:00

Two words:

STICKY. BUNS.

No further commentary.

Today was a busy day today, which was great! We used our croissant dough to make the following, which I immediately had to give away in order not to devour them all...

Bear Claws which are filled with a hazelnut filling:

Apple, cheddar and Bacon croissants... I mean, honestly.

The good old stand-by:

The best of the best, in my opinion, ham and cheese....

Pain au Chocolate. Need I say more?

(no, I need not).

Tomorrow we begin prep for yet another three day final. The day kicks off with my favorite of favorites - product ID.

2009-12-08T17:26:00.000-08:00

So, my pictures uploaded backwards, so I apologize!!!

Today we had a practical exam (tomorrow is the written) and we made Brioche cut into Danish shapes and filled with our choice of fillings... I made hazelnut pastry cream, chocolate pastry cream, apricot jam and traditional Danish cream cheese filling....

We also made Danish (with the same fillings) and a flat icing glaze.

Friday was pizza day!!! This was a piece of meat lovers. And I love meat.

We also made cinnamon buns with a cream cheese frosting. As if that could be bad...

Thursday, December 3rd

2009-12-03T18:12:00.000-08:00

Today was a day of firsts.

For the first time, we made something savory in class.

For the first time, I touched a raw shrimp.

For the first time, I yanked the legs and body off of a raw shrimp.

For the first time, I de-veined and cooked shrimp.

For the first time, I ate shrimp that I cooked.

Below: Shrimp Newberg.

I took a little bite out of one of the shrimp and decided to give this dish a pass. Not that it wasn't tasty, but I have shrimp issues (Chef said that my sauce looked great). We baked the puff pastry and made the sauce from scratch, etc.

So as I do with most things that I don't want to keep, I give it to Kimberly.

She, in turn, decided that while the bread was good, she really just wanted the shrimp.

Below is a picture of both my discarded and her discarded baked puff pastry... Shrimp removed.

And here is Kimberly enjoying the spoils...

HI-larious.

Then we made Brie en Croute. Those of you that know me well know that I love Brie as much as a 9 course meal at an Indian restaurant. Regardless, this turned out well and was tasty. We could make whatever designs we wanted on top so I decided to do some lattice work. Vicki decided to make hers look like a gift, Pharyn crafted a crown out of puff pastry for the top of hers and Monica adorned hers with a robot.

Tomorrow, oh, tomorrow: Cinnamon buns. Sticky buns. Danish dough (to be frozen over the weekend) and another day of PIZZA!!!!!

Wednesday, December 2nd

2009-12-02T18:02:00.000-08:00

Happy Week After Thanksgiving!!! I, for one, can never seem to eat enough stuffing...

On Monday we started our Viennosierie and Laminated Dough module. This basically means making things with Puff Pastry which, let me tell you, is NOT low-cal. Our new Chef is Chef Jennifer Gomez who while soft spoken seems to sorta appreciate my table's humor... knock on wood... or butter, for that matter.

To get used to using the dough, we made it, and then made a fruit band with pastry cream which of course, is nothing new to us....

On Tuesday we made a traditional dessert called a Pithivier with the dough that we made on Monday. These had to freeze over night and got baked today. Inside the pastry is what you could call a dense almond cake.

We also made a traditional Tart Tartin which uses the puff dough we made and caramelized apples. The apples are baked in a skillet and then covered with the dough and baked in the oven. When its done, the tart is turned out onto a plate so all the yummy juices can spread around. Sweet, but hello, totally tasty. P.S. You can't see it in the picture, but there is steam rising from the cake...

Also on our list for the day was a Napoleon which is layers of puff pastry which are baked and then stacked in between layers of pastry cream and topped with poured fondant and chocolate...

My table took it upon ourselves to make, with our scraps of dough... well... basically dough covered with cheese. I would show a picture of the delicious mess we made but alas, there was nothing around long enough to take pictures of... except the grease stains on our tables...

Wednesday, November 26

2009-11-25T17:42:00.000-08:00

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

2009-11-19T20:11:00.000-08:00

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

2009-11-18T19:10:00.001-08:00

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

2009-11-16T21:12:00.000-08:00

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

2009-11-12T20:23:00.001-08:00

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

2009-11-11T21:16:00.000-08:00

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

2009-11-10T20:20:00.000-08:00

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

2009-11-06T07:42:00.000-08:00

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

2009-11-04T20:07:00.000-08:00

Dear God,

Thank you for having us invent Monkey Bread.

Fondly,

Maryn Stephanie Silverberg

...................

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... :-)
....................

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...

Tuesday, November 3rd

2009-11-03T17:52:00.000-08:00

Not too much to report from today. We made Brioche (which will be on our final on Friday):

And Baba / Savaran with this sugar-rum-orange and lemon peel-clove-anise-cinnamon stick syrup that NO ONE in class liked. But as Chef explained, we must be taught all the classics, and this is one of them. Pretty much the whole class donated their leftovers to Kimberly for her church group. I, for one, am hoping this gives me a free pass when I hit the pearly gates...

I'm off to do homework.

Monday, November 2nd

2009-11-02T20:17:00.000-08:00

Hurrah!!!! I am now officially certified by ServSafe in sanitation!!!!

Moving on.

Today we made bagels:

(cheese, poppy seed, black sesame seed, salt)

And pretzels!!

(and yes, I realize these look like a rather far cry from Auntie Anne's.)
(cheese, cinnamon sugar, salt)

As Chef came to my table for grading today, she looked at my pretzels.

Then at me.

Then at the pretzels.

Then back at me.

I told her that I had absolutely no idea what went wrong with them.

She said that the one at the bottom left looked good.

It would appear that my current career path does not lead towards soft pretzel making. I digress.

At least my pretzels didn't make it to the Sheet of Shame (at the end of the day, Chef chooses the worst of the worst to share with the rest of the class to educate us on what not to do).

Please note that there is also a Sheet of Success that my baked goods have yet to grace.... (ahem, Chef, if you are reading this).

Tomorrow: Mom's favorite: Brioche.

Thursday, October 29th

2009-10-29T20:22:00.000-07:00

The bad news: We were not able to log onto the website that administers our sanitation test this evening so we have to wait until Monday to attempt to take it...

The good news: I got a 98% on my exam today! Baguettes (yet again) and my Challah!!! Sorry for the funky angle. You will also see the mini challah's I made with the left over dough as well as the Epi I made. We also piped for the first time in chocolate today.

I have scanned my test and posted it below so you can see what they look like, although I'm not sure you'll be able to see it... For the two breads we were graded on texture, flavor and recipe knowledge. The Chef makes comments to the right. Each catagory is worth 15 points.

Wednesday, October 28th

2009-10-28T20:10:00.000-07:00

Happy Lee Butcher's Birthday Day!!!

Thank you to everyone for expressing such sincere sadness caused by not getting to read my blog for the past two days (and when I say "everyone" I mean Sue... my sister). AHEM...

Before you start working in a "real" kitchen you are required to be certified by SafeServe in Sanitation so Monday and Tuesday evening were spent in a class room from 6pm-10:30pm (after a full day in the kitchen) of learning not to cut veggies on a cutting board that just had raw chicken on it, not to put your hands down your pants and then prepare food, and that if you have diarrhea, you shouldn't come to work because you could potentially give someone a very serious disease like jaundice... I have to stay after class again tomorrow to take the actual test which has 90 questions on it. To quote my mother "Oh joy. Oh bliss."

Monday we made whole wheat rolls with a honey wash which I found to be totally boring so I gave mine to Kimberly to take to her church group meeting that night.

Yesterday we made Ciabatta bread which was SO good. Its totally messy to make, but completely worth it. We also made a pre-ferment (part of a dough that must sit overnight or sometimes longer in order to obtain flavor) for our fruit and nut bread (with currants, raisins, pecans and hazelnuts) which we baked today.

After the fruit and nut bread (which I unloaded at Rhea's doorstep on my way home tonight), we made Pain de Campanion which I found to be boring as well so I gave that to Kimberly for her PTA meeting tomorrow morning (and she manages to be peppy and friendly EVERY DAY!)

And then we made what Monica HOFFBERG and myself, Maryn SILVERBERG (the only two Jews in the class) like to call Jew Day in the Le Cordon Blue baking program: we made Challah and Rye Bread. The rye bread wont be baked until tomorrow, but we did the challah (mine was a bit under-proofed which means that I didn't let the dough rise enough before baking it. The main sign of under-proofing is splitting which is what mine did down the middle). Tomorrow we will be tested, yet again, on baguettes as well as the challah. By the end of the day tomorrow, I will have taken three tests this week which seems like a lot...

Friday, October 23rd.

2009-10-24T14:49:00.000-07:00

Well, we had our first practical yesterday: baguettes and pain au lait. I won't know how I did until next week but I manged to unloaded all the bread on Mel and Julie because if I even consider eating one more piece of bread, Gail will fly out here and pull me out of school.

And while I managed to slice open my thumb on my right hand with a rather sharp serrated knife and singe the finger prints off my left pointer finger, Chef neglected to give us the equivalents test... P to the H to the E to the W.

Thursday, October 22nd

2009-10-22T19:21:00.000-07:00

So... black pepper and asiago cheese bread sticks aren't as easy to make as I thought they would be... But soooooooooo addicting. After making those, and receiving what feels like 18 degree burns on two of my fingers, we made a loaf of white bread and with the dough that we had left over, some rolls.

Tomorrow we have our first test of the module - baguettes and pain au lait. Oh, and Chef decided to add a section on equivalents because she doesn't think we know them. Aaaaaaaand shes right.

Who wants bread? Seriously. I'm almost on carb overload.

Wednesday, October 21st

2009-10-21T19:14:00.000-07:00

Dear Bread,

Two things:

1. I adore you.

2. Could you please not go directly to my arse? I would really appreciate it.

Love,

Maryn

Today we made wheat pita and Pain Au Lait which translates into "milk bread." Both were very good - the pita puffed up and was nice and crisp on the bottom and the pain au lait came out golden brown and shiny.

Tomorrow and Friday we have Chef "Cooking Vessels" Cook and I'm stoked not just because she will be our substitute, but because we are going to be making black pepper asiago cheese sticks. Jigga what?!

I have yet to meet a carb I don't like...

Tuesday, October 20th

2009-10-20T22:28:00.000-07:00

Happy Rosemary, Onion and Olive Focaccia day!!!!

In my haste to get out the door this morning to start making what I do believe to be the tastiest Focaccia ever made in the history of focaccia, I forgot my camera so please excuse the mobile photos...

Yesterday we had lecture and made our baguette dough. Today we learned how to cut it, measure it (each baguette is about 13 ounces), roll it out (too much futzing with the dough and it will tighten in which case you have to let it rest), then actually let the dough rest or "proof" so the dough can rise, cut the slashes in it (they must be long, not too deep, and done quickly with a serrated knife), flour it, bake it (20 minutes in a still oven), brown it (about 10 minutes in the convection oven), and take the breads temperature (it has to be at least 200 degrees)...

Yep. A thermometer... In the bread.

And you thought it was as easy as going to Ralph's and picking up a loaf.

In the picture you will see two classic baguettes and then Epi baguettes which I prefer because they are pretty and crunchy.

The Focaccia... Oooooh, the focaccia. I used more olives than I was supposed to and a little more olive oil we were supposed to and Y to the U to the M. Its almost indecent. After the dough is made, you have to let it rest in a warm area (but not too warm because at 138 degrees, yeast dies), form it in your pan, add the remaining toppings, let it rest again, then bake.

So far, I think this module is going to be the most dangerous. Cream Puffs? Meh. Eclairs? Okay. Devil's Food Cake? Sure. ROSEMARY OLIVE FOCACCIA?!?!!? GET OUT OF TOWN AND COME RIGHT BACK!! I think I have to make it again but this time with a little Asiago or Parmesan on top. I'm just sayin.

Friday, October 16th

2009-10-17T19:44:00.000-07:00

On Friday, my first module came to an end.

The past three weeks have been totally eye opening. Its been stressful, fun, different, and totally new, which has been strange, but completely awesome.

Friday we cleaned for two and a half hours straight. Gooooood times. Then, Chef returned all of our homework, practical final exams and written exams...

On both the written and the practical, I got a 94%.

Overall in the class, I received an A (they don't give A+'s at Cordon Bleu).

HURRAHHHH!!!

On Monday I begin the second module, PBK 111: Introduction to Baking Principles and Ingredient Function.... Mainly, we are going to be making different kinds of breads... Needless to say, I can't wait... We will be making French Baguettes, Focaccia Sponge, Rosemary Olive Focaccia, English Muffins, Pita, Pain au Lait, Sourdough, Black Pepper Asiago Breadsticks, Rye Bread, Ciabatta, Braided Challah, Bagels, Brioche, Cinnamon Swirl Bread... I meeeean.

Am I the only one drooling?

P.S. I have some CRAZY AWESOME news to share that had me crying after seeing Couples Retreat today in the middle of the Grove's movie theater lobby - but I'm not allowed to tell ANYONE until tomorrow, so stay tuned!!!!

Thursday, October 15th

2009-10-15T21:28:00.000-07:00

Finals. Are. Done!!!

After our written exam and finishing up our desserts, a few of us headed to Barney's for a beer and some snacks while Chef graded us, then headed back to class to clean. Tomorrow is clean up day and even though I'm probably the most compulsive and OCD person you know, I'm oddly not looking forward to it.

A few important notes on unrelated topics:

1. I was up at 7am, with eyes wide open, because I saw Paranormal Activity last night.

2. I can't decide what I love more:

A. So You Think You Can Dance hopeful Ryan Di Lello who looks very similar to my hilarious friend David Craze...

Or:

B. Vampire Diaries...."Crosses? Ornamental."

Discuss...

And since I don't have an injury of the day (thanks to the sickos who think its funny), I have a:
Purchase Of The Day: Clorox Bleach Pen (so I can attempt to get the chocolate and piping gel stains off of my uniform).

Wednesday, October 13th

2009-10-15T08:30:00.000-07:00

After all the studying and equivalents flash cards, we got to class all psyched up only to learn from Chef that the school... wait for it... was completely out of paper.

Yep.

So, we started our practical exam and got a lot done. Everyone finished their tarts for our fruit tarts, the Creme Anglaise, Lemon Curd and Sponge Cake and I think that everyone even got theirs rolled, which is great. So today we take the written exam, complete our two projects, present, take a piping practical exam (and we have all seen just how utterly brilliant I am at piping) then we have to leave the classroom at 3 to be graded, return at 4, clean, and leave.

Tomorrow is a deep clean day which happens every few months where we basically clean the kitchen from top to bottom - scrub the bottom of the ovens, wash down the walls of the walk-in, etc.

I. Can't. Wait.

Tuesday, October 13th

2009-10-13T21:53:00.000-07:00

Happy Tuesday evening from the fantastically rainy City of Angels! It hasn't rained here in what feels like months... probably because it has been.

So... Cardamom smells and looks A LOT like Nutmeg... Sigh. And did you know that heavy cream is called Manufactures Cream? Well... now you do... I wish I did before the test today. But I am pleased that I got all my white powders correct. After the quiz we made Devil's Food Cake with Chocolate Ganache (Y.U.M.) and Creme Anglise. We also presented our Genoise and Swiss Rolls. While Chef said that my Genoise was over-whipped (eat me), she said that my Swiss Roll looked great as did my Creme Anglise...

After class I walked with Pharyn, Vicki and Kimberly to Bucco for a bite to eat and some study time. After eating, while we were going over our notes, we were approached by a guy asking us to join his table of friends for "some female company and we will buy you dinner, or dessert, or a drink...... with no strings attached."

.......

Well that just made me giggle.

We didn't accept the offer, mainly because we felt crusty, sweating in the hot restaurant in our poly-blend butch uniforms, hat hair and stale make-up.

Our final exams begin tomorrow and will last two days. We begin with a written portion comprised of fill in the blank, multiple choice and short answer ranging from French to English translation "Bain Marie" = Mary's Bath, "Creme Patisserie" = Pastry Cream, etc., what are the three things needed to form gluten, list some acids that are necessary when making something with baking soda (lemon juice, buttermilk, honey), what are the steps to making Genoise (meise, then whisk eggs with sugar over a simmering double boiler, move mixture to mixer with whisk attachment, beat for seven minutes until indefinite ribboning, etc). Then we begin the practical portion and must make the dreaded fruit tart (pate sucree) with pastry cream and fruit as well as the Swiss Roll we recently made with lemon curd filling. And lastly, dreaded conversions which I am off to study now... three teaspoons in a tablespoon... one tablespoon in half an ounce...

Monday, October 12th

2009-10-12T21:24:00.000-07:00

Happy Birthday, Lauren!

Today we made sponge cake that is rolled with a lemon curd (mom's favorite) filling and a Genoise cake - both of which we are to present tomorrow...

As for the results of last weeks first practical exam, the comments on my blueberry muffins were, and I quote "great job!" As for the Creme Brulee, the texture was "dee-vine!" and my recipe knowledge was "a little dark around the edges" meaning that when I torched the sugar it got a little dark, but I'll take it! Our normal Chef did not grade us as she was out of town on a book tour last Thursday and Friday (our sub, British Chef Cook, called pans "baking vessels" and I loved her), so I'm more nervous for the THREE exams I have this week (mainly because our Chef makes me nervous and I'm way too eager to please and I don't think she really appreciates sarcasm... ahem...)

Our test tomorrow is product ID which means there will be between 20-25 items set up and we have to identify each one which of course looks fun and interesting on Top Chef... Not so much when its for real and I have to be able to tell the difference between cake flour, pastry flour, bread flour, baking soda, baking powder, corn starch, salt, sugar etc. which all, of course, are white. Then I have my finals on Thursday (written exam) and Friday (practial exam... again). I'm not gunna lie - I'm a bit nervous.

Sunday, October 11th

2009-10-11T15:34:00.000-07:00

Friday, October 9th

2009-10-11T15:28:00.001-07:00

Today we had our first “practical” test which means that we had to bake two things that we have learned so far… sour cream blueberry muffins and crème brulee. We walked in a little before noon to prepare and when noon hit, we were not allowed to speak except for “kitchen safety” i.e. “behind you”, “hot” etc. At 3, we were kicked out of the class for an hour so the teacher could grade us so nine of us took it upon ourselves to go for a drink at Kabuki where me, Vicki, Pharyn and Jessie did sake bombs and then we all sauntered back to class, slightly buzzed, to clean up. We won’t know our grades for a bit… sigh…

Thursday, October 8th

2009-10-11T15:24:00.000-07:00

Today: Piped the cream puffs and filled the éclairs. Sour cream blueberry muffins (when you make anything with blueberries, coat them in some of the flour that the recipe calls for and then the juices wont bleed) and pound cake (which I turned into a lemon pound cake that the Chef said came out nicely, but I thought it was dry. Injuries sustained today: a burn to the top of the pointer finger of my left hand. Important item on weekend shopping list: oven mitts.

Wednesday, October 7th

2009-10-11T15:21:00.002-07:00

Today was a 0 star day and as The Mammacita says, “you have to have the two star days in order to appreciate the four star days…” Well, Gail, what do you say to NEGATIVE star days?!!? On Wednesday we baked our Crème Brulee’s in ramekins that were placed inside a cake pan for a water bath (known in French as a Bain Marie translating to Mary’s Bath), then placed on a sheet pan. Evidentially, my sheet pan was dented because all three of my Crème Brulee’s came out slanted which really became a problem when we started to torch the top of our custards and the sugar on mine slipped to one side and proceeded to burn while the other side remained uncolored. I got yelled at by Chef for keeping the hard caramel part of my Flan on the custard instead of throwing it away and she yelled at me, in front of the class “I SHOULD MAKE YOU EAT THAT!” Today we were to make Cream Puffs and Eclairs. I had to make the pastry cream for my cream puffs THREE times. The first time, I neglected to put the corn starch in. The second time, the girl I don’t love in class messed my meise tray up so the corn starch I needed got shifted and replaced with the confectioners sugar that I didn’t need until later so I had to start all over, yet again. THEN the piped out batter for my cream puffs and éclairs didn’t rise, so I did it again and they didn’t have enough time to cool so I didn’t get to present them which means extra work for tomorrow (filling the éclairs with pastry cream and then dipping them in chocolate and then piping the cream puffs with Chantilly cream which is basically a fancy term for whipped cream (yes Mom, you were right)). THEN I got to my car and it had been keyed. As Lisa says: “Fuck the Flan.” Injuries sustained today: Three burns. One to my ego, one to my thumb on the left hand and one to the middle finger on my left hand: how appropriate.

Tuesday, October 6th

2009-10-11T15:21:00.001-07:00

Today we made the custards for our Crème Brulee and our Crème Caramel (aka Flan). After baking them, they were set in the fridge and that was that… Not a very eventful day…

Monday, October 5th

2009-10-11T15:19:00.001-07:00

Today I made pie for the first time in my life!! Using the dough that I made on Friday, I made two pies – An apple pie (which the Chef said had great color and pretty vent decoration which was enjoyed by me, Jeff and Pong as well as the girls at the table next to us at dinner tonight), and a blueberry pie with lattice work (which Chef said was done very nicely and uniformly, but should have been browned a bit more). Not bad, all in all, for my first experience with pies. Injuries sustained today: one cut to the pointer finger on my right hand.

Friday, October 2nd

2009-10-11T15:07:00.000-07:00

Today we designed our tarts. I was NOT thrilled with the outcome of mine – mainly because I used too much nappage (the shiny apricot flavored jelly that covers fruit tarts) because it is very important not just for aesthetics but because if you don’t place the gelatin everywhere, the fruit will rot very quickly. I wanted to challenge myself so I used a lot of berries which are tough to cover because of all their little nooks. After that, we made a flaky pie dough for our apple pie that we will make Monday. This was the first time we had to kneed a dough. You cant kneed it too much or else you start to melt the butter with your hands which completely changes the consistency of the crust. So after completely task two, it was on to making scones. We were told to make scones OR buttermilk biscuits – so, I made both. J We were supposed to make chocolate orange scones, but I don’t like chocolate and orange together so I made mine chocolate and lemon. Chef said that they came out nicely and was impressed that I was able to get both tasks done. I thought, after taking my second batch of scones out, that I completely singed all my eyelashes off… I had Pharyn check and she said I was fine so I made her confirm three more times at which point she stopped taking me seriously. Chef asked what was wrong and I told her it was imperative that I have all my eyelashes. She said that sometimes when you get too close to heat, it will fuse mascara together… PHEW. She said my biscuits were amazing and I have to say that they are what I am most proud of for the week. They puffed up beautifully. I should have taken a side picture and not just one from the top so you could really see how high they got. My commute to school takes about half an hour depending on traffic and to get home, about an hour. Im pretty tired at the end of the day, as you can imagine, since we are on our feet and running around for five hours straight without a break – Its like working at CAA! So that was the end of week 1! Monday is our apple pie and a frozen fruit pie… Stay tuned and let me know if you have any questions or comments!

Thursday, October 1st

2009-10-11T15:05:00.000-07:00

Yesterday we prepared to create our fruit tarts so there is no picture for Thursday. This meant that we made our dough for the pie crust (pot sucree) from scratch (after making the dough, you chill it, put it in the oven covered with a weight, remove the weights, and bake the dough until golden… Its tedious because you have to constantly check on what you are making while watching the clock. During this time, we also made our crème patisserie which is the pastry cream that lines the tart. All of these things must either chill or cool so we didn’t have the time to finish them. I think, on an up note, that Im getting a great work out from the 8 pound shoes I hoof around in all day… Pic attached…

Wednesday, September 30th

2009-10-11T15:02:00.001-07:00

Wednesday was our first day baking two things at once: peanut butter chocolate chip cookies and Straussburger cookies (pictures attached). My cookies were just okay, and my Straussburgers (which are kinda like the Madeline’s at Starbucks) came out great. We make those by using a piping bag and a star shaped tip. It is super important to use the right amount of butter (or “fat”) so that the batter is thick enough to pipe. When baking cookies, you are looking for a golden brown edge and a whiteish center. J I had been giving things away to other classes as I don’t want to take what I bake home, but want you all to know that should you want to try what I make, bring me some tupper wear and I am happy to put aside a little bit of what I make everyday and you can pick it up whenever you want.

Tuesday, September 29th

2009-10-11T15:00:00.000-07:00

Tuesday was our first day of baking. When we walk in, the first thing we do is set up our work stations. This means sanitizing our station, getting out our mixers, writing down what the Chef has assigned us for the day, getting out our tools and our ingredients. Then, the Chef does an hour or so demo (depending on how difficult the recipe or how many things we will be making for the day). Our very first assignment: chocolate chip cookies. We learned one of the EIGHT methods to making a batter – the first of which is the creaming method. So after the demo where we are allowed to ask questions, we are released to begin on our own. After you make your project for the day, you have to sanitize your station again and “present” your project to the Chef (pictures attached starting with day 3) who comes around from student to student to analyze your work. Day 1 was great. J Another part of our day is “meising” for the following days projects. Mise en place is organizing things that you will be using to create something. This means we measure out (NEVER using volume measurement – only weight) our butter, sugar, etc. for the next day. Baking for the day stops at 4 which is when Chef grades us and then starts clean up. Each table is assigned a duty and the tasks rotate tables daily. We have to do a number of things like cleaning out the walk in fridge and freezer – juicing fruit that has been zested, condensing things like egg cartons and packages of butter, etc. We have to sweep, organize the shelves, fill up the bins of dry ingredients, wash all the dishes, clean all the stove tops, check all the appliances to make sure they are clean, etc.

Monday, September 28th

2009-09-28T14:54:00.000-07:00

The first day of class we had a five hour lecture about school encompassing everything from our syllabus to our tests to our very particular uniform (points will be removed for a missing name tag, out of place hair that should be under your hat, wearing your apron out of the kitchen, not wearing your kerchief, wearing a shirt other than white under your jacket, wearing socks that are not either white or black, wearing jewelry on your hands or arms and earrings that are not studs – NO hoops allowed) . Our day is based on 200 points consisting of keeping your area clean, your final product (what we bake in class that day), participation, etc. There are about 13 kids in my class – give or take. We are taught by Chef Cindy Muchet (pronounced Moo-Shay) who has published three cookbooks (one of which I happen to own – crazy) and yes, we call her “Chef” so everything is “yes, Chef” or “thank you, Chef” as it is important that we acknowledge that we have heard what she has said. The students range from people like me who have decided a new career course, to recent college grads (a few 21 and 22 year olds) and a few parents in their early 30’s as well as a mom who is 43 and a Jersey native know-it-all who is 54. My table is comprised of three other girls (there are only two men in our program) – Erika (who takes all her notes in Chinese and who’s her father is from Europe), Vicki (who admitted today that she is good at figuring out our equations homework because she is Asian – so obviously, I adore her) and Heidy (our youngest classmate who is 20 and has just completed the culinary program). We all seem to work at pretty much the same pace, which is great because we pace each other. Oh, also, I have a classmate named Pharyn. What?! So that was day one…