Midterm Madness & Hazardous Challah

Hazardously yummy challah helped us start week 2 of breads. I never post on Facebook, but I did after eating Challah! “I ♥ challah and butter!”

Sticky buns finished us off in bread, in more ways than one. Not only were they one of our last recipes in the bread section of the curriculum, but they were also so deliciously soft, sweet, tender and scrumptious that at 2pm with no lunch none of us could wait and we all ended up stupid-silly on sugar highs. The giddy laughter wrought by the sticky bun was very contagious.

At the end of our 8 days of breads, we faced the midterm. Half a day on Thursday and all day Friday for the practical. I can still look forward to my 3 hour theory exam on Monday.

Stress prevailed today. I stood for 7+ straight hours, didn’t eat for almost 9, and ended up 10 minutes late presenting my practical exam products.

12 Croissants

125 ml Crème Anglaise

50 Checkerboard Cookies

1 Baguette

1   6″ Poppyseed Cake (European style)

No photos. I wasn’t that organized!

I was very teacherish, and aided by a peer, organized everyone in the class to follow a schedule for when we were making and baking what. In theory this worked well, and even in practice it came off fairly smoothly. The problem was we needed at least an extra 15 minutes or even half an hour for everyone to feel comfortable finishing their products for presentation to Chef Tim. Apparently no one has ever been late before, but about 1/3 of the class was late finishing today – primarily because we are slower workers, but also because in spots where we might have saved time, we waited for other class members, did people’s dishes, assisted etc. We get one percent deducted for every minute we are late, which doesn’t make me very happy.

On the up side, Chef said all I need is practice. Which I know. Making a perfect baguete while also producing equally perfect cookies, croissants and sauces plus a buoyantly risen flourless cake in 6 hours is meant to be challenging. I couldn’t have imagined doing this just two months ago, but now I have, and the baked goods were all decent. We’re talking about perfection here, and even as students we are measured to the bar of picture-perfect market-ready pastries. I guess to be upset that I am not a master baker after two months is ridiculous. Onwards!

As Peter Reinhardt says, “May your crusts always be crisp and your bread always rise.”

Plum Entremet Project

We had 10 hours over two days to actually make our entremet in class. I practiced mine on the Thanksgiving weekend, and then made some adjustments to the mousse recipes for the “real” cake. Unfortunately, the konnyaku powder I used as a plant-based gelling agent seemed to have a poor reaction with the wine in my top layer. It didn’t set properly, despite a huge amount of the konnyaku powder. I guess I should have experimented more just with the riesling mousse, or used gelatin. To stay true to one’s beliefs, or go for the high score … I guess personal integrity won out.

The main project work day was quite stressful. Twelve people making twelve different cakes that were each composed of at least four different aspects and in many cases required many more steps for the inclusion of flavours and poached or roasted fruit. We tried to plan out a schedule for the ovens, so people making like sponges could join forces for temperature and baking time. It worked, but the kitchen was still a mad-house. Functional, but very high-strung. We were all relieved when Thursday was over, and Friday morning’s garnishing proved almost relaxed.

My entremet was Plum-Chevre and Riesling; inspired in part by the William Carlos Williams poem “This is Just to Say”. I put a walnut nougatine sponge on the bottom, followed by the plum-chevre mousse, a candied ginger japonaise, the riesling mousse and then a decorative jaconde on the outside.

A sad and droopy tip to the slice, courtesy of the konnyaku powder and my lack of knowledge about gelling agents.

I was quite pleased with the decorative jaconde and the simple aesthetics of the poached plum garnish. Chef told me that partially submerging the plums into the mousse would make them literally part of the entremet, and be a stronger, more pleasing presentation. With the plums skating on the surface, mirror glaze was displaced and created thick patches on the cake. Also, the plum edges were slightly scraggly, no matter how carefully I trimmed them. Setting them into the mousse would have given a cleaner look. Of course, unless I’d done the whole thing on Thursday, setting the plums in would have been impossible. Also, I don’t know if the unset mousse would have held the plums up, or just engulfed them entirely. Chef had initially recommended poaching the plums on the Friday morning so that their colour would remain bright for adjudication. Technique and scheduling to consider for next time.

Entremet, Entremet

As a vegetarian, I was pretty disappointed to learn that entremets, or mousse cakes, usually contain gelatin. Without this gold standard of gelling agents (derived from pig skin) portioning a cake results in a sagging mess. Using gelatin is like a dance — how little is enough to make the mousse firm without being jelly-esque.

I was also a bit despondent at the lack of proper cake. The ratio of mousse to sponge has got to be something like 3:1. However, over the last week, I’ve increased my entremet vocabulary and, with the help of some seaweed gelling agent, embraced my own entremet project (to be documented soon).

Pictured here is one of the first cakes we made in class: raspberry mango with vanilla sponge.

The decorative sponge on the lower half is made of two batters: chocolate cigarette paste, and vanilla jaconde sponge. Technically, the mousse is bavaroise, because it is sweeter and lighter than your typical chocolate mousse.

Seattle, Farmer’s Market and Colour Love

M and I went to Seattle last weekend, because he had a conference earlier in the week and I went down to pick him up. Of course the car was searched at the border because it’s missing the inside plastic panels on its doors and I didn’t know what band M had bought us tickets to see, but blithely said “We’re going to see an indie rock show!” Clearly I posed a threat.

Anyway, Seattle itself was sunny and grand. The Crocodile lived up to its reputation as one of Seattle’s prime venues for live music. I adored Visqueen and front woman Rachel Flotard. Foodie moments of note: lavender shortbread, spectacularly strong coffee with fancy latte art, and the black truffle gnocchi we had for dinner. However, the feast for the eyes came Sunday morning at the Capitol Hill Farmer’s Market. What veggies! What variety! I was stunned. Just look and see. If you make it through, there’s a funny treat.

Chef Tim is really good at cocktail party information (CPI). He tells us that elephants are so big their own weight will crush their rib cages if they lie on their sides; we heard that the sky is blue because of how the different colours of the spectrum are different lengths, and the beam that makes it through the atmosphere is the one that makes us see blue; and one day the CPI was about carrots. Apparently carrots used to be predominantly white. Everyone grew white carrots and ate white carrots and maybe got beta carotene from some other source, I don’t know. However, King William of Orange was served orange carrots one day, and of course he loved them. A divine gift for his divine right, one might think. Anyway, soon orange carrots were all the rage and we’ve never looked back. Does that make carrots Protestant?

Does anyone remember the Purple Potato Eater song? My grade one teacher sang it with us.

Magic fairy orbs, aka albino aubergines, or very uncommon eggplants.

Broccoli!

Little zucchinis to slather with olive oil and eat seared and hot off the grill with a bit of sea salt.

Warts can be beautiful. On squash.

American floral.

Just seeing if you looked at all those vegetables! These cats have nothing to do with food, except I saw them after breakfast. Maybe they’re die-hard Andrew Lloyd-Webber fans?

“A Slice of School” or “Random Moments of Kitchen Learning”

This is what we had to know for our midterm last Friday. It was fairly easy, but I definitely didn’t ace it. However, I am your girl if you want to know the equation for metric – imperial temperature conversions. ºC = (ºF-32) ÷ 1.8

a beauteous tart tatin by Chef Tim (mine looked like this too, really it did, but I didn’t get a picture of it)

cherry clafouti and walnut pecan tarts with two plated lemon sabayon tarts in the background

the short and sweet of yeast: 59ºC = dead, 35ºC = very happy, 2ºC = inactive

*all photos in this post courtesy of Spencer Butt

Visual Gluttony

Croissants

Pane au Chocolat

Sweet Bun sugar love, blueberry filled

Walnut filled Bow-Tie Danish

Blueberry – Cream Cheese Fruit Basket Danish

German Danish dough is 57 % fat

Danish Danish dough is 67% fat

Kopenhagner Danish dough is 70% fat

yikes

yum

Puff Pastry Decadence

Puff pastry is usually pretty dry and gross, at least to my taste. I don’t know what combination of shortening bake shops tend to use, but it coats the tongue, dries out the mouth, and is tasteless. Real butter pastry from the freezer section of the grocery store can be yummy and useful – no need to spend 5 hours making and rolling and laminating your dough, then cutting shapes etc. However, should you be so brave as to try your own hand at laminated dough, DO IT. You and yours will be pleasure-wrought pastry hounds, I guarantee.

The five shapes we made were: feuilletées, diamonds, windmills, turnovers and bear claws.

The diamonds are my favourite because they are not overly sweet, beautiful, fully puffed (my windmills were a bit flat) and shiny-shiny from the apricot glaze (aka népage) we brushed on top. Underneath the apricot, a dab of crème patissier lingers to entice the taste buds.

Bear claws are fun, but extra sweet from the fondant. I think they should be polar bear paws, since the fondant and icing sugar dusting makes them arctic white. There aren’t any bear claws in my photo because M and I ate them for dessert.

Falling for Fall

It can be hard to transition from summer into fall. One wants to lean back into long soft nights and keep revelling in the golden hues of sun-kissed skin. Skirts, sandals, grab your bag and off you go. That’s summer. None of this do I need a coat? or, where are my rubber boots? when the autumnal rains descend. Since this weekend pretty much marks the official start of autumn 2009, I’m glad to have the sun shining but be engrossed in what feel like fall pursuits. Once the idea of tea, crisp leaves and cozy sweaters takes hold, I’m happy to let summer pass until next year.

Yesterday saw us venture out to pick mushrooms. This is a somewhat illicit activity, in that we go to a local park, but what else is an urban mushroom hunter to do? Although it is very early in the season, we were blessed with just enough finds to make a delightful chanterelle & gruyere cheese choux pastry appetizer. Yum. I think I’ve found the best way to eat chanterelles!

Of course we gobbled all the puffs up before I thought about documenting there existence, so you’ll just have to imagine the glory. The components are simple: choux pastry piped into cream puff size and baked fresh, chanterelless sautéed in butter and garlic, and grated gruyère cheese. Once the puffs are baked, slice of a wee bit of the top, stuff with cheese and mushroom, and EAT. Upping the ante would mean returning the stuffed pastries to the oven for a few seconds of broil, to brown the cheese, garnishing with parsley or chives, inserting the lopped off cap at a jaunty angle, arranging on a plate, and then eating. More work.

Falling for fall also means I am happy to spend half my Sunday baking without jonesing for outside literary langour. (Not that I manage summer reading that often anyway, but it is idyllic to think about.) M has also made ginger beer and brewed pale ale this weekend with our own hops!!! It’s soothingly domestic to have us both working in the kitchen, and very much an autumn feeling.

Hopefully this week I’ll get some pictures of the pastry school creations: croissants and Danishes. Last week we made pot de crème, crème caramel and crème brulé, and started our puff pastry as well as making eclairs, Paris-Brest, and choux swans. I also made a choux turkey, which was documented but I don’t have the photo yet. Just wait. He was cute!

First Week, Cookie Week

My first week at NWCAV was fabulous, scary, overwhelmingly busy, inspirational and of course, tasty! By Friday at 5pm we had baked and mixed batter for 11 different types of cookies.

Cookie madness: drop, roll, mold, stencil, bar, sheet, press, icebox.

Words of wisdom:

*Always make a homogeneous mixture, so have your ingredients at room temperature unless otherwise stated, cream thoroughly, add eggs one at a time.

*Gentle hands.

*Listen to the cookies calling to you from the oven.

*Rotate! -all ovens are uneven unless they spin.

*Work fast.

*Label your resting doughs.

*Always use large eggs and unsalted butter.

Ruby red jam in a Linzer is stunning in the sun, but yon coconut mac’roon is cunning in the tum.

Sparkling sanding sugar makes a sablé rise to perfection.

Pastry school promises to be a lot of work and a lot of fun. If I just had a few more hours to practice my knife skills and get even with the checkerboard cookie…

With leftover Linzer cookie dough one can make fast and easy vanilla raspberry tartlets. Use yummy-scrummy thick Liberté French Vanilla Mediterranean yogurt to fill the baked tartlet shells, and top with fresh raspberries.

Labour Day Weekend Fun at Galiano’s Aunt Farm

My friends on Galiano Island hosted a Labour Day weekend party. It was very relaxed and pleasant – exactly what one needs before the back-to-school frenzy.

Because of the ample quantity of transparent apples on offer on the farm, it was decided that an apple dessert was a requirement. I used a recipe from a cookbook I’d never heard of before and don’t recall the name of — but it was good! I used the rich tart dough recipe and formed a rustic galette.

1.5 C flour
2 Tbsp sugar
1/2 tsp salt
10 Tbsp cold butter
2 large egg yolks
3 Tbsp ice water

Follow pastry method, and mix in yolks after cutting in the butter but before adding the water. Dough will be very sticky. Refrigerate for at least 30 minutes before rolling out.

The 9-yr-old boy present tried to convince us that the “leftover” pieces of galette should be for him, but we managed to stave off his hops of hopeful apple pie glee and welcomed two more guests with dessert love. One pronounced it so good, he didn’t see the need for me to go to pastry school!