Red Velvet Bows

I'm so thrilled that I have a returning customer, Virna! Jeff's awesome cousin! She loves my red velvet cupcakes and that makes me so happy! 

She ordered so red velvet cupcakes from me for her daughters 14th birthday! She mixed it up and requested chocolate frosting on the cupcakes. I was having difficulty because I wanted to use a French Buttercream but my melted chocolate wasn't doing well with it- it wasn't picking up the chocolate flavor. 

So my friend, Adrienne, gave me a really simple chocolate buttercream recipe that I was really pleased with. 

Here is a photo of the cupcake I did (I did one dozen, all with the same decoration).

Red Velvet with Chocolate Buttercream

With Love, 

Adriana 

International Patisserie, Cake Formula and Assembly

Well, we just completed the first week of our third term! We are now in the "International Patisserie, Cake Formula and Assembly" class. I am having a lot of fun. This class requires us to make several components to a dessert and put them together. We aren't taking goodies home everyday like we were in our last two classes. 

My photos aren't as nice as before because most of our plated work is done in class and we make just enough to present our desserts and not much else to take home or LAST on my 45 minute drive home. Like the Gateaux St. Honore that we made this week. It involved sugar work that was almost all the way melted by the time I got home. 

So, here are the desserts for our first week!

Monday: 5.16.11

Today was our first day in class. Our Chef is really awesome. She's very organized, articulate and explains EVERYTHING in detail. I'm so thankful to have her as an instructor. I'm so pleased with ther teaching method. 

Today we made crepe batter that we held overnight to use the next day. 

We also made practice buttercream which is a pain in the booty to clean up. It consists of powdered sugar, shortening and hot water. That's why it's called PRACTICE Buttercream- it's not tasty at all. With the buttercream, we practiced piping rosettes, shells and reverse shells.

Tuesday: 5.17.11

Today we prepared Crepe Suzette. I had no idea what Crepe Suzette was before this day. It's very good and apparently a wonderful recipe to know as it's often used at brunches and often prepared table-side and restaurants because the sauce is flambéd (set on fire to burn off the alcohol in the sauce). We prepared the crepes for presentation. I had forgotten my camera so my awesome classmate, Emily, snapped a photo for me. I will have to make this again at home because I'd like some better photos in my white box. 

My evaluation by Chef Adrian was great, she said that there was nothing bad to be said about my Crepe Suzette. My sauce was a good consistency; any thicker and it would not have been appealing. 

Crepe Suzette 

Wednesday: 5.18.11

Today we made the components for our Gateaux St. Honore which is a cake made in honor of the Patron Saints of bakers and Pastry Cooks. We assembled our bases which were made with pate a choux and pate brisee and we also made puffs with our pate a choux. We made Pastry Cream as well. 

Thursday: 5.19.11

Gateaux St. Honore!

We assembled the cakes today. First we had to divide our pastry cream to make vanilla and chocolate creme diplomat to fill our base and fill our puffs. 

We also made caramel for the sugar work. 

Here is what the Gateaux St. Honore looks like!

Gateaux St. Honore

Kind of cool, right? Chef said next time to make sure my base doesn't show through the diplomat creme and to make the sugar on the tops of my bases more rounded and circular. Also, my base was slightly uneven. 

Friday: 5.20.11

Today we made Chocolate Pot de créme that we held over night in the cooler for presentation on Monday. 

We also made a really delicious bread pudding with a Rum Creme Anglaise sauce- so tasty!

Bread Pudding with Rum Creme Anglaise

The associate to Chef Adrian, Chef Cory, said that my bread pudding could have used a little more custard and that it was a little over cooked on top and under baked on the bottom. The consistency of my sauce was good. 

I'm really enjoying this class. It's something I have never done before and I really love learning new techniques, recipes and skills.

With Love,

Adriana 

Breads: Final Practical

Monday 5.9.11

Today we made Rosemary Potato Sour Dough Bread dough to makeup for the next day. Maggie and I also made Bagels. They turned out so delicious. My co-worker and I pretty much ate them all.

Plain and Sesame Seed Bagels

Tuesday 5.10.11

Wasn't feeling so great today so I stayed home. I was sad because it broke my perfect attendance record. But that's ok. The pressure is off now. I didn't get to make my breads, but that ok too. I think I got the hang of it. :) 

Wednesday 5.11.11

Today was day #1 of our 2-day final practical. We prepared our croissant and danish dough along with our frangipane filling and cinnamon filling. It went rather smoothly.

Thursday 5.12.11

Day #2 of Final Practical. We prepared the makeup of all our doughs. 

We were required to produce 3 almond filled croissants, 3 plain croissants, 6 round danishes, 2 voulavents, 3 square pinwheels, 3 round pinwheels and 3 danishes of our choice. I made 3 bear claws and added my epi looking roll for fun. 

I was very sad that I burnt my pinwheels in the upper-right hand corner. I was busy making my circle pastries and I completely forgot they were baking. However, I did also here that the temperature of the oven they were in was altered but I can't be sure of that. Other than that, Chef said my pastries looked very appetizing and that's probably the best compliment I've ever received about my desserts. 

Croissant and Danish Practical Final

I may remake the croissants and Danishes this weekend since I wasn't able to snap a photo of them in my white box. They were devoured so quickly!

Breads: over!

With Love,

Adriana 

Croissants and Danishes

I haven't blogged in a couple weeks! I feel so lost! Well, this will be super quick just so I can get all caught up!

Monday 5.2.11

Today we had our Puff Pastry Practical! Can you say, "Craziness"? We had to produce our puff pastry dough then do the makeup (shape and bake) all in a little over 3 hours. Combine that with 20+ students trying to get all their product in the oven- it was pure chaos!

But we all did the best we could. 

Here is a photo of my Puff Pastry final. I was pretty pleased.

Various Puff Pastry Desserts

Tuesday 5.3.11

Today we prepared our dough for our croissants. Not much else. :) 

Wednesday 5.4.11

Today we made our croissants. So delicious. Here are my products. Pan au chocolat is Jeff's favorite so I had to make them. 

Pan au chocolat 

Inside of pan au chocolat

Croissant filled with ham and cheese 

Thursday 5.6.11

Today we prepared two types of danish dough.  One was extremely difficult, the other was very easy to work with once we achieved the right consistency- the brioche style danish dough. 

Friday 5.7.11

Unfortunately, I forgot to egg wash the products I made with my brioche style dough so they really didn't come out appealing at all so I tossed them and didn't even photograph them. I promise myself never to do that again because I am not being true to my process if I only photograph my "pretty" stuff. 

Here is a Danish Pastry filled with Apples and Cinnamon. Made by using a lattice technique. 

Lattice Decorated Danish with Apple Cinnamon Filling 

 Not really sure of the exact name of this danish. It's style is achieved like making a epi baguette. You roll the dough like a cinnamon roll (it's filled with a cinnamon filling made with cake crumbs to give it body so it's not gooey like a cinnamon roll). Then you form it into a ring and cut the dough at an angle. I like how it turned out. 

These are bear claws. I wasn't too happy with the outcome. My bear claws have 6 fingers- doesn't make sense to me as to why I did that. :( I also filled them too much. 

Bear Claws

All the danishes were glazed with a flat icing (powdered sugar and milk). 

And that is all folks!

With Love, 

Adriana