Tradition

Don't laugh. I'm never arranging cannoli this way on a plate ever again.

Ok, now that you finished laughing, I'll explain. This is an actual recipe from the Professional Pastry Chef by Bo Friberg. There are three cannoli filled with rice pudding, ricotta cream, and chocolate chip ricotta cream. Chef Friberg cut rectangles for the shells, and I used a circle cookie cutter, my mistake. Oh, and the pool of blood is a cranberry coulis. They actually sold this in the student restaurant.

My second dessert for the restaurant, a key lime tartlet, turned out better. Traditional key lime pies are not cooked; the acid thickens the eggs in the custard. It's totally unhealthy if you have a compromised immune system, so use pasteurized eggs.

I've also made pita pockets.

And bagels.

Bagels are boiled before they are baked. It makes them chewy.

We lost our holes, and allowed the yeast to create too much gas. They weren't bagels by the time we were done with them. But cinnamon and sugar fixes everything.

If you've been to New York, you might have tried bialys. They're similar to bagels with sauteed onion. I didn't like them.

And we made PRETZELS! So soft and chewy and salty... if only it was covered in cinnamon sugar.

In the same night, we made naan (Indian flatbread, not Indiana flatbread as my Hoosier fingers automatically type).

That weekend, I made my "first" specialty cake. The bottom layer is white cake with caramel filling, and the top layer is chocolate truffle. It was for an adorable 5 year old's birthday, and she picked out a My Little Pony for a topper.

The next day, I made my second cake for a family baby shower. Congratulations Kate and Shea!

Can't Hardly Wait

The Fashion department at the Art Institute held their first annual fashion show, and I helped make the desserts for the event. I baked the spice cake on Wednesday, then Thursday morning started pumpkin praline tarts. After baking all day, we also served the desserts that night.

Then it was bread time. Most of the recipes we use are from Nancy Silverton's Breads from the La Brea Bakery andThe Bread Baker's Apprentice. The recipes are delicious, with detailed instructions and pictures. But there's a lot of down time, waiting for the bread to ferment, then proof after shaping.

We make focaccia with olives, peppers, cheese and herbs for the student run restaurant.

We also learned the traditional baguette made with a sourdough starter. The starter adds flavor and the developed yeast makes the dough rise.

The baguettes were very dark on the bottom and stuck because we didn't put enough cornmeal on the pan. But I've been assured that bread in France can be burnt without a raised eyebrow.

I tried a tiny piece of this jalapeno cheddar bread, because it had a crazy amount of peppers in it.

This looks like a loaf of white bread. Surprise!

It's marbled rye! Layers of a light and dark rye doughs are rolled together to make the swirl pattern, or a bulls eye.

This is a miche after it has been shaped and allowed to rise for the second time. "Miche" refers to the shape of the loaf, which may or may not mean "butt cheek" in French slang.

The loaf is topped with cheese and roasted onions, then baked.

The miche, baked and sliced.

This potato, cheddar and chive bread should have been shaped like a torpedo, with pointed ends. Instead, it looks like a salamander.

Until you cut it open and the cheesy goodness bleeds out. This bread is best when it's warm.

Then we have the life of the party, black pepper cheddar bread.

It's a tender bread with a kick of black pepper.

I also decorated my first fake cake all by myself. I covered styrofoam in colored fondant.

I would have liked to cover the cake in my little gumpaste flowers, but ran out of time. It also needs a topper, like some white doves.

Last Quarter

I haven't updated in a while, I know. I'm officially one week into my final quarter at the Art Institute. So here's the best of last quarter, and the beginning of this one.

Opera Torte, a traditional French torte with almond cake and coffee buttercream.

Cherry hard candy, which looks simple. You boil sugar to 310 degrees, pull it with your hands until it aerates and gets shimmery, then tell me it's simple.

Honey drops. Same story.

But you can make pretty flowers with boiling sugar. I recommend wearing gloves.

We made a pastillage replica of our building, with air-brushed windows and a royal icing logo. We made a stencil for each color of the logo and spread the icing on.

This is my favorite new candy, the Hot Chocolate. The top layer is a cinnamon marshmallow, then chocolate ganache. Then the marshmallows are dipped and decorated with white chocolate.

We played with isomalt for the last few days of class. It's a sugar alcohol that makes a more durable sculpture than table sugar. And you boil it. Luckily we played with molds to make shapes.

This is a hot-air baloon. Don't laugh.

This quarter is turning out to be much prettier. My final classes are Advanced Patisserie, Artisan Breads, and an Externship. These are gumpaste flowers that will go on a wedding cake.

Rye bread, and lavash crackers. Lavash is served as an appetizer at my family's favorite pizza place in Hammond, Aurelio's. It's just one more delicious recipe I have to make for Christmas dinner.

At home I've been making Cowboy cookies regularly. Weekly. Bakerella posted this oatmeal and M&M cookie recipe this summer, and everytime I make them they dissapear fast. I also made my first ice cream. Thanks Inger and Teresa for the ice cream maker!

Time Flies

Life has gotten in the way of the blog. Well, life and Bejeweled Blitz. Prepare to be bombarded with 5 weeks of cakes and candy!

First, we finish up the Sacher Torte.

Glazing the cake with apricot simple syrup, and then a layer of ganache.

Creating embellishments with tempered chocolate.

Caraibe Torte, another chocolate sponge cake.

Dobos Torte, a sponge cake with chocolate and caramel.

And now for truffles, bon bons and toffee.

Truffles and bon bons start with flavored ganache, then molded to the shape you want. Ganache can "break" easily, especially milk and white chocolate ganache. I had a lot of broken ganache in two weeks.

A true truffle starts as a blob, then is rolled into a ball and dipped in chocolate.

My first truffles! Lemon ganache.

Ganache may also be piped into little logs, and then dipped.

Blood orange logs.

Poodle curls sprinkled on black currant truffles.

It's a bit easier to make molded chocolate. The ganache is still temperamental, though.

Some chocolate molds have false bottoms to allow the use of trasfer sheets.

The leaves on the far right are lemon-mint bon bons.

Cinnamon bon bons, my favorite.

Passion fruit vanilla bon bons with airbrushed color.

Chocolate peanut butter bon bons.

And now toffee, dipped in chocolate.

Then cashew brittle.

I was feeling discouraged during the chocolate candies weeks. I messed up tempering chocolate and several ganaches, and made a mess of a birthday cake. I had to prove that dropping one career and going back to school for another was worth it. Raspberries and cream cookies did the trick.