Under Baked?

Happy Saturday everyone!

I just finished watching the movie "Julie & Julia". I bought it on Black Friday last year and forgot to watch it until my friend, My, reminded me that it's a really good movie! She was right! It was such a great movie. I can totally relate to Julia's passion for creating wonderful dishes and also relate to Julie's frustration when something wouldn't turn out right. It was a really good movie for me to watch. It kind of made me feel better with my school situation. The first week of school was rough and now I am getting the hang of things and it's starting to get a little easier. The recipes aren't getting easier but learning to manage my time and organization in the kitchen is getting easier. 

This week we started off with our last "easy" recipe and got into custards, pastry cream, pate a choux and cheesecake. YUM!

I am halfway through the first term. This means three more weeks until my ServSafe test so I can be ServSafe Certified. We took a practice quiz yesterday and out of 66 questions, I only missed 4. I think the test will go ok, yet I still have to study because I always freeze up on tests!

We have our second Practical Exam on Monday. We have to display the Biscuit and Muffin Methods. I will be baking Blueberry Muffins with a Streusel topping and some type of Scones (which uses the biscuit method).

Now here are my pictures for the week.

Monday 2.28.11 (bye bye February)

The picture below is a Blueberry coffee cake with a Streusel Topping. So YUMMY!

The picture below is Blueberry Muffins with a Streusel Topping.

This is our Pumpkin Bread.  We took it out too soon. When you cut the bread in half, the coloring should be even throughout. Ours was a little dark towards the bottom, indicating that it wasn't completely baked. 

This is a photo of all three of our products baked on Monday:

Tuesday 3/1/11

Today we made Pate a Choux. Pate a Choux is used to make cream puffs, eclairs... all that yummy stuff! We also made Pastry Cream and Diplomat Cream (which is Pastry Cream mixed with Whipped Cream) to fill our Pate a Choux. Our pastry cream didn't thicken correctly so it was really difficult to assemble the pastries without them being all "floppy". 

On the top left corner are our profiteroles. These are filled with the Diplomat Cream and topped with Chocolate Ganache. The middle row are our unassembled Eclairs, also filled with the Diplomat Cream and topped with Chocolate Ganache.  The bottom row are cream puffs filled with Diplomat cream and sprinkled with Powdered Sugar. On the right hand side are Swans. 

Our Pate a Choux looked nice on the outside but when we cut them open, they were under baked! I'm overcompensating now. At first I was burning everything and now I am not baking it enough.... breathe.... lol. 

Here is a photo of our swan a little more close up. We didn't think they came out very well, but Chef said they looked nice because everything was in proportion to each other.  :)

Wednesday 3.2.11

Today we made Crème Caramel and Crème Brûlée. The Crème Caramel is the lighter colored custards (whole eggs are used) and the Crème Brûlée are the yellow colored custards (egg yolks are used)

We had to work with a person we had never worked with before. I worked with a girl named Martina. She was awesome. 

We only made the custards today. We plated them on Thursday. We were told that we could melt some extra sugar to decorate our Crème Caramel, so we did. However, the next day it had become sticky since it was left out overnight and not used immediately so we didn't end up using it. But here's a photo of it! Maggie overheard another student from a different class saying our color for our sugar looked nice :)  

Thursday 3.3.11

Today we made Cheesecake. We were given the option to make different flavors but Maggie and I really like plain-original cheesecake so we decided to just do that. Again, we only made the cheesecake today and plated them the next day.  Here is our cheesecake:

We plated our Crème Caramel today! :) Here it is!

Chef came around and tasted all of them. I know right? Worst job ever...not! lol. Chef said mine looked really nice. I didn't curdle the eggs! Yay! If I had, there would have been small holes all around the edges. No bueno... it would have tasted like scrambled eggs. She said it was really nice but could have cooked a minute longer. UNDER BAKED! GRRR! 

Here is my Crème Brûlée:

Chef said it looked good. The top could have been brûlée'd (burnt) a little more. The custard also could have used a minute longer in the oven. UNDER BAKED! GAH!

Here is a photo of both my custards together. Oh my lord, they were so delicious!

Maggie and her partner, Yadira, had really nicely baked Crème Brûlée so I took a photo of mine next to theirs so I could study it!

Mine is on the left. You can notice that their custard looks more firm while mine looks a little more.... pudding like.  You can see the edge where the spoon was inserted holds an edge better in theirs. 

Friday 3.4.11

Today we plated our Cheesecake and made sauces. Maggie and I made a White Chocolate Ganache and Lemon Curd.

Here is our Cheesecake after being removed from the pan and before being sliced. I don't know why our edges came out slanted. We probably had the knife angled when we ran it around the edge trying to get it out of the pan. 

See those scraps in the back? Yeah, I ate those. haha!

Here is one of our "test runs" I did. I was just experimenting but I actually think it's kind of cute. When I think about plating a cheesecake I just think of a couple sharing it after a romantic meal. So that's why I did the hearts. 

The hearts are outlined with Chocolate Ganache and filled with a raspberry sauce that the teacher made and the cheesecake is drizzled with the same raspberry sauce and our lemon curd.

Here is the plated cheesecake we presented to the teacher. The zig zag is chocolate ganache, the hearts on the right are created with our white chocolate ganache and raspberry sauce. We added a layer of Lemon Curd on the cheesecake along with a whipped cream quenelle and fresh raspberries. Chef said our cheesecake tasted good! :) 

So now, I have to study for my written exam on Monday (written AND practical exam on Monday!). Jeffy and I are going to San Francisco today to work on his Photography project and eat ITALIAN FOOD! 

Have a great weekend everyone!

With Love,

Adriana 

(originally posted 3.5.11)