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

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!