Pro Pastry Class Completed!

We finally had our rescheduled last pastry class the other week.  It was so nice to be back in the Gourmandise kitchen and everyone again.  I truly had missed going to class every Sunday morning.

Our final class was all about cake baking & decorating.  I chose the Carrot flavor to make my layer cake and the chocolate recipe for the cupcakes.

This recipe was by far my favorite carrot cake I've ever had!

Decorating is the one thing about baking that doesn't come naturally. And trying to frost a still warm cake doesn't make it any easier. :) But it tasted amazing!!

The Chocolate cupcakes were really good as well.  We made Italian Butter creme frosting to practice our decorating skills.  

It took a few tries but I finally started getting the hang of making the rose on top.

This was a fun one that someone did in class!

I had the absolute best time taking this Pastry Class. I learned some brand new skills. I learned some new tricks to old skills. And I absolutely loved baking around a group of people who like to bake too.

Pro Pastry 1 Class of Spring 2015

at Gourmandise School in Santa Monica

Lazy Buttermilk Biscuit Saturday...

It feels like forever since we didn't have some kind of something to do on a Saturday morning... So it was the perfect morning to make the Buttermilk Biscuit recipe I learned in Pastry Class.

Flakey Layer Goodness at it's finest!

Biscuit Ingredients

still getting used to my new scale

thin layer of flour for the dough

pressing dough into rectangle

then fold dough over

flakey layers in the making!

almost there

ready for the oven

look at those layers!

Voila!

Buttermilk Biscuits FTW!

Happy Green Day!

I'm a few days late for my St. Patty's Day post - it's one of my favorite days of the year for a few reasons.  I love the color green so it's a perfect day. And we were married on St. Patrick's Day - it was super rad. I wore a green dress and I asked that everyone have some green on as well.

So... a few weeks ago a friend from work sent me a link to a Guinness Chocolate cake from a blog and asked if I'd make it for St. Patrick's Day... Some others at work agreed with his suggestion. So I said I would do it.  Any excuse to bake!

I've haven't made a lot of 2 layer cakes (it's usually cupcakes) so this was a little bit of a challenge as the last time I tried a 2 layer, the layers were totally uneven and kind of a mess.

But this time I think it worked pretty well. Monday night I baked the cakes and I also did a crumb coat. And then covered it and put it in the fridge overnight.  This is was the best thing! No wonder I had so much trouble last time. It was so much easier to frost the cake on Tuesday morning.

I was so in the zone Monday night baking I forgot to take photos of my steps and crumb coat... Next time I would definitely add a little more frosting between the layers.  I wasn't sure how much I would need the next day so I was a little conservative.

I'm always a little nervous to share a recipe that I've never made before.  But this one was so good!  The Bailey's frosting was my favorite out of the whole thing.  I found a shamrock cookie cutter and made a little shamrock out of green for decoration.

Hope you had a fantastic Green Day!

Guinness Chocolate Cake

with Bailey's Irish Cream Frosting

Got Cheesecakes?

Once again we had an amazing time in pastry class this week.  The Sweet Treat of the day was Cheesecakes!  Now I’ve had my fair share of cheesecakes over the years. Some were good, some not so good… But I’ve never had any that tasted as creamy and smooth as the ones we made in class!

We made 2 different kinds… a plain more like a NY style and a Ricotta… And check it out - we MADE the ricotta! So simple. So delicious.  We also made the graham crackers for the crust.  It’s these little things, like making your own ricotta, graham crackers, or marshmallows that we’re learning in class that I find the most fascinating.  Of course you need some kind of yummy goodness to drizzle over the cheesecakes.  The choice was ours to make whatever we wanted to top them off with.  We partnered up and made a delicious batch of Caramel Chocolate Ganache with some sea salt added.

The graham cracker crust was super easy to make.  We just rolled them out and baked without cutting into shapes since we were going to grind them up in the food processor.  I did keep a little piece to try and it was delicious.  I didn’t add very much melted butter to mine in the food processor when grinding up and I think that was good. The crumbs felt like light wet sand for lack of a better term.  For each pan I did try to put some of the graham cracker crumbs up the sides a little bit.

Plain Style Cheesecake

check out that crust!

Making the ricotta was SO EASY!  Now I want to make my own ricotta every day.  In class one of the fellow bakers bought a loaf of bread during one of our breaks from a bakery down the way. We smeared ricotta on bread drizzled with olive oil and salt and pepper. It was so yummy.  I brought home the little bit left over from our batch and used it to eat with some pita chips as an appetizer while watching the Oscars.

homemade ricotta

The key things that Hadley (our master baker instructor for this class) said for making cheesecakes is that you want to make sure that your ingredients are room temperature and to beat the cream cheese mixture on low to avoid aerating the batter too much.  So we basically put the cream cheese into the stand mixer, set it on low and waited…. And waited… And… you get the idea.  The end result was a creamy, delicious, can’t wait to make this again cheesecake.  We also let the cheesecakes cool in the oven once they were done baking. She opened the oven doors and let them cool.  They were then put in the freezer for more cooling.  She also said to keep them in the freezer overnight to help them really set up. 

So the lesson learned was that homemade cheesecake is da bomb. And to make a day or so ahead of when you want to serve it.

Cheesecakes with caramel/chocolate ganache

I brought in the extra to my office the next day – they were both well received. But I think the ricotta cheesecake got the most ‘yum’ noises.  Also a friend from work said the crust was perfect!  Which is something because he is French and is my biggest critic (which I totally appreciate).  For the first time he actually had no criticism other than “Maybe a dash of whip cream would be nice.” 

Till we bake again!

Sweet Treats for Everyone!

This past week was filled with sweet treats and fun!

Some good friends of ours were married Friday the 13th! I got to be part of a wonderful bachelorette cocktail party for the bride to be & brought brownies.  I used the brownie recipe from class.  They were a hit at the party! :)

Chocolate Overload Brownies!

For our Pastry Class homework this week, we were to make a pie crust.  I made Apple Pie and it was perfect since Saturday was Valentine's Day.

Happy Valentine's Day Apple Pie

Can you say flaky crust?

This Week in Pastry Class we made some Fruit Based Desserts. They were all delicious but I think my heart belongs to the cobbler!

apple tart tatin before...

apple tart tatin after ....

zucchini bread (we added strawberry jam) 

to the mix

So I have to admit - Babe didn't really like the apple tart tatin BUT I thought it was delicious.  Though he did like the Zucchini bread more than I did.  It was good, but was missing something.

Of course both of these pale in comparison to the days winner which was a Strawberry Blueberry Cobbler with Biscuit topping.  This was Ah-MAZE-ING!  

Strawberry Blueberry Cobbler

with Biscuit Topping

And last but not least we actually got President's day off (this is something because we rarely get holidays). So I promised I would recreate the eclairs from last week.

I think my dough was better today.  It was definitely a little thicker than last week's and easier to pipe. So i think the shapes of my eclairs were much better.

Pate a Choux in the beginning...

Pate a Choux 

I made Chocolate Earl Grey tea infused pastry cream that I think is my best batch yet.

 One tea bag of chocolate earl grey tea 

while the milk begins to simmer

Stirring the cream till it thickens

Once the dough has been baked and cooled. Which sort of worked. The bottom rack was a little burnt on the right side but that's the oven is hotter on that side.

Eclairs are cooling

The chocolate ganache recipe came from my new Tartine cook book from the Eclair recipe for the book.

Put all 3 of these together and it is bliss if I do say so myself!

filling the eclair with pastry cream

Eclairs 

Eclairs close up

Presenting: 

chocolate earl grey tea infused pastry cream eclair 

with chocolate ganache

Desserts & The Super Bowl

I was out of my element in today's class.  But I loved every minute and I think everything turned out pretty good.  A lot of what today's class was about is technique and timing. Eggs are finicky!  

We partnered up & away we went!  What you can do in 4 hours!

Chocolate pudding from scratch - 

not as complicated as I had imagined at all!  It was pretty quick to whip up.

Creme Brûlée was a little complicated. 

Timing is what you really need for this one. 

Pastry Cream is all about technique and timing.  I definitely need to work on this one.  Which will be later this week as our homework is to make a batch to bring in. Can't wait to try it again.

Butterscotch Pot de Creme. This was by far my favorite of the day. I will definitely be trying this one again soon.

And we made Blondies for fun.  One group added the toasted pecans.  Our group chopped up chocolate.  They were so good!  

All of these are perfect to celebrate Super Bowl Sunday!!

Pastry Class FTW!

Happy 2015!

I can't believe it's already almost February!

So 2014 ended with me signing up for a Pro Pastry series at the Gourmandise School.  I've been watching the schedule for a long while and finally they listed the class series to be on the weekends. Yay!!!  

We had our 3rd class today and I am loving every minute of it.  We're 3 weeks in and it's my favorite 4 hours of the week.  The first weeks have been all about getting comfortable in the kitchen and baking some more of the usual baked goods. Cookies, bars, muffins, etc.  I've made a lot of these before and I learned so much.  Small adjustments in technique for mixing, whisking etc. They're all adding up each week.  And it's also good to know that I'm doing things the way I'm supposed to be and is a confidence boost.

The biggest lesson has been how to bake using a scale. I've been reading a lot about weight vs. volume measuring with baking.  I even asked for a scale for Christmas. But it was still in the box at the start of class because it seemed so complicated. But now that I know it's not complicated at all.  BTW you should get a scale.  Once you get the hang of it, it is SO MUCH easier and faster than using measuring cups.

The class is 4 hours long and it is amazing how much you can get done in 4 hours!  Weeks 2 & 3 have given enough recipes to make for our own bake sales.

Here's some pics of what we made for Muffins & Quick Breads

Blueberry Muffins

Whole Wheat Raisin Scones

(these weren't even on the agenda - 

we had extra time so we got into groups & picked out a scone recipe)

The loot 

Cheddar Thyme biscuits, Carrot quick bread, 

lemon poppy cake, blueberry muffins

We even have homework! This is by far the best homework I've ever had. :)

We were sent 3 different scone recipes and had to choose one to make and bring in. I chose the blueberry scone recipe.  While they don't look very pretty, they tasted pretty good & had a lot of flaky layers.  Though my blueberries were frozen, they didn't want to stay in the dough and blueberries were everywhere!

Blueberry Scones

This past week we focused on Cookies, Lemon Bars, & Brownies. It was heaven.

We partnered up to make the toffee which would later go into the cookies.

From scratch toffee (no candy thermometer needed)

Brownies are hit or miss for me. Now I know I've been way over-mixing my batters. This recipe was easy (technique learned - double boiler) to melt the chocolate/butter/sugar

Chocolate Brownies

We then moved onto making the dough for the Lemon Bar crust.  The trick is to press the dough up just a bit on the edge of your pan so that when you pour in the lemon mixture it doesn't get under your crust.

Lemon Bar just out of the oven

Cooled and ready for the meringue

Lemon Meringue Bar

toasting the meringue was a lot of fun!

Next it was time to make the cookies - chop the chocolate disks & toffee up!  These cookies spread quite a bit and were so chewy with the crispy edge.  

Toffee & Chocolate Chunk cookies

And the best part of Week 3?

We got our chefs coats!!

There are 7 weeks left of the class and the next few lessons will be learning things I've never made so now the fun really starts!