Today is my mom’s 50th 35th birthday. I didn’t get to fly home to see her today, but I wanted to make her proud. She has taught me to buy things on clearance. As a kid, I would be told to clip coupons during my summer breaks, and we’d drive to Auburn, NY to go to the Wegman’s that doubled coupons to get a bigger savings.
I have been clipping coupons for almost 2 years now and call my mom to tell her about great deals. Today was no exception! Happy birthday mom, I spent TWO CENTS on all of this stuff.
I have proof. A SAVINGS of 103%! Darn taxes forced me to pay two cents. Oh well, I’ll take it! The sad thing is I never pay for anything with cash these days, and it was weird looking in the bottom of my purse for two lousy pennies.
Happy birthday mom! xo
I got home from work and found this mess that Paco created. He knocked his food bin off the shelf and had a feast. Notice how one piece made it into his food bowl?
I cleaned up most of it then called in the big guns. They were very happy to help!
Jen requested the puff pastry recipe and Lizz requested elephant ears, so here you go! Some of the pictures were taken in class, others were taken at my house so don’t call me out on continuity 
Quick Puff Pastry Dough
- 1lb all-purpose flour
- 1 to 1 1/2 C ice cold water
- 2 Tsp Salt
- 1lb Butter chilled and cut into 1/2″ thick slices
Once all of the butter has been squished, pour in 1 C of ice water. Hold your hand so it looks like a claw and stir the mixture with your hand in this position. You don’t want to squish it all into a soft ball. You just want it to look “shaggy” like the picture below. Add drops of water as needed to get the flour incorporated.
Flour the surface where you will roll out the dough and set the shaggy mixture on the floured surface. Shape it into a loose ball. Note: You will have chunks of butter. This is perfect! Don’t over-squish everything together. Roll it out into a rectangular shape about 1/4- 1/2″ thick. Now you will fold each side towards the middle.
Fold this in half and wrap in plastic wrap. Place in fridge for 20-30 minutes until cold again. You never want this dough to get too warm and soft.
After 30ish minutes take it out of the plastic. Do not un-fold it. Go against all instincts and push down hard with your rolling pin. If you were to roll at this point, it would be difficult and elasticy and bounce back. Go ahead and beat it down with your rolling pin even if it makes bumps in it.
After it is about 1/2″ thick you can start rolling it into a rectangle. Fold it again as it was in the step above. Cover with plastic wrap and put in the fridge again. Repeat these folding steps 4 times. This is what creates the flaky layers.
You can make many things with puff pastry dough. For elephant ears, roll it out unto a rectangle again. Sprinkle with 1/4 C of granulated sugar.
Roll the rolling pin on top of the dough so the sugar sticks to it. Curl up each side towards the middle.
Slice it into 1/4″ pieces and place on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper. Sprinkle more sugar on top. Bake in pre-heated oven at 400 degrees for about 6 or 7 minutes. When the edges start to get golden, take it out. Get a bowl with 1/4 C light corn syrup and water it down with about 1 Tbsp water. Brush this mixture on top of the elephant ears. Sprinkle with sugar again and put it back in the oven for about 5 more minutes, or until browned.
Mmmmmm Elephant Ears.
If you want to make fruit turnovers, roll the dough out until it is about 1/8″ thick. Use a cookie cutter to cut out desired shapes. Using a fork, poke holes in the part of he dough where you will be placing the fruit. If you poke holes, it is less likely to rise up while baking. Brush the dough with an eggwash and sprinkle it with sugar.
I placed cherries over the holes. The area with the cherries will stay flat because of the holes and the area around it will puff up and “hug” the cherries. Bake this in a pre-heated oven at 350 degrees for about 20 minutes, or until golden and puffy. Apples are ideal but I ran out and just grabbed cherries from a jar in my fridge. Use whatever fruits you want.
Chocolate, chocolate & more chocolate. That is what we made today. Krista and I started out by making a Hot Chocolate Souffle. We heated up milk and bittersweet chocolate until it looked like chocolate milk. I was already in love at this point.
Then I whisked egg yolks, sugar and cornstarch together and added it to the chocolate mixture. Next we added whipped egg whites and poured the mixture into ramekins to bake.
When the souffles were taken out of the oven they had to be eaten pretty quickly before they fell. They puff up tall and deflate pretty quickly, so it is an art to eat them while they are still puffed. We added a creme anglaise sauce to it as well as a raspberry coulis sauce. I didn’t get my picture before the souffle fell, but you get the idea.
Next we made chocolate truffles with amaretto in them. We did a simple mixture similar to a ganache- heavy cream, butter, bittersweet chocolate and amaretto liquor. This was heaven in a bowl.
We put the bowl in the fridge for a while to let the chocolate harden before rolling it into balls then rolling the truffles into chopped almonds. The chocolate was still pretty soft and kept melting in our hands when we tried to roll it, so they are not exactly round. Luckily they were still perfectly edible.
Lastly Krista and I made a pot of caramel sugar for decorations. We combined sugar, water and corn syrup in a pan and put it over medium-high heat. The hard part was NOT stirring it. Ever. We had to let it boil until it turned to a dark caramel colour. This took about 30-40 minutes. We let the caramel cook slightly and thicken up so we could make decorative strands of sugar crystals. Fancy eh?
Here are other group’s creations. Chocolate walnut fudge.
Vanilla cake with chocolate mousse, ganache and a sugar decoration.
My body has been pumped full of sugar and sweets this week, so I plan on having a major sugar crash in the next few days.
I don’t exactly love creme brulee but Bob does, so I decided to learn how to make that today. My partner was Martha, which got confusing because I answer when someone calls me Martha. I owe it to my aunts that gave me the name “Mini Martha Stewart” over 10 years ago. This means I don’t hesistate to answer to Jen, Amanda, Hailey or Martha. That must be some kind of identity crisis record.
First we added eggs and sugar to a bowl and I whisked away until the mixture was a very pale yellow. Have you any idea how long that takes? My arm was very sore and I don’t even think I could lift a skittle as soon as I finished whisking.
While I whisked for approximately 20 minutes, Martha was busy simmering the heavy cream and vanilla bean seeds. When both mixtures were ready, we combined them and put them through a strainer to make it as smooth as possible. It looked very silky.
We poured the mixture into small roulade dishes and baked it for about 50 minutes until the creme barely shimmied when shaken.
After they cooled off, we got to play with fire. We didn’t use any dainty kitchen torches. Oh no, our head chef brought torches from Home Depot. I sprinkled the tops of the creme with sugar and torched them until the sugar melted and browned into a hard crust.
I also made puff pastry dough. Most people buy this pre-made dough in the frozen food section but it is very easy to make. It is only water, flour, butter and salt. I combined all ingredients until it formed a very shaggy pile in my bowl. “Shaggy” is an official term the head chef uses. It looks like this.
I rolled the dough into a rectangular shape and folded it. Then I rolled it out again, and folded it. I did this four times. This dough is called the “pastry with 1,000 layers”. I think 1,000 layers is a bit much, but re-rolling and folding the dough does create several flaky layers when it is cooked. We were using the dough to make fruit chaussons but let’s just call them apple turnovers.
I cut the dough into circles and filled them with an apple mixture which was just cooked apples and cinnamon. I left some of them open and folded some into the shape of pierogies. Then I brushed them with an egg wash and sprinkled the tops with sugar.
The end result was a fluffy, flaky breakfast pastry.
Other classmates made Chocolate Pot De Creme. This was almost like pudding/ uncooked brownie mix/ custard. It was rich and amazing and worth every calorie.
Sweet. Soft. Nutty. No, I’m not describing Bob. The sticky buns from class would put Pillsbury to shame. In fact, Chef Deb had a plumbing issue at her house and was quoted $1,900 for repairs. The plumber showed up when she was making these sticky buns so she gave him one. The plumber said he wouldn’t charge a dime for repairs if he could take the entire tray of sticky buns home. According to my calculations, if a tray of sticky buns is worth $1,900 then I could sell these and be rolling in dough (get it?).
There was also Pumpkin Caramel Custard which was like flan. I’m not a huge fan of flan, but tried it anyways. It was ok, but not my cup of tea.
Lastly, there was bread pudding with raspberries and apricots soaked in brandy. I’m not a fan of bread pudding either. This was ok, too. I think it would be good if I liked bread pudding to begin with.
Tomorrow is chocolate truffle and souffle day so I am fully prepared to get diabetes and slip into a food coma.
I.Love.Ice.Cream. I don’t consider it a pastry to be made in pastry school, but since ice cream and I are good friends I was happy to learn how to make some. I worked with Wendy again and a lady named Krista and we chose to make Vanilla Bean ice cream and Eggnog ice cream. The eggnog ice cream was the same as the vanilla bean, but at the end we added rum & nutmeg.
We started by slicing two vanilla beans and scraping out the seeds. Ever wonder what the microscopic black dots are in your vanilla bean ice cream? Those are vanilla seeds and they are oh so tiny. If you get vanilla ice cream without the tiny dots, then it was made with vanilla extract and not the real thing.
We simmered half & half with sugar and the vanilla bean seeds for approximately 10 minutes. It looked like cookies & cream at this point.
Then we mixed in egg yolks and whipped them together. Since the mixture was still hot from simmering, it actually cooked the eggs a little (which is normal). Nobody wants eggs in their ice cream, so we put the concoction through a strainer to get out the scrambled egg bits and soaked it in an ice bath. We ended up with a scrumptious-smelling bowl of pre-ice cream.
We poured our mixture into the ice cream machine to churn for an hour. The machine did all of the work to get it frozen. I don’t have any pictures of my finished product because I gobbled it up as soon as it was put in front of me. I can’t resist. It was so creamy!
My favourite ice cream today was the coffee parfait. I do not like coffee at all. I thought I would be nice and try another group’s creation and I planned on saying I liked it even if I didn’t. By golly I didn’t have to fib. It was amazing. I tasted more of the Kahlua & Heath bars in it than I did espresso powder. It was served with a dollop of whipped cream and shaved chocolate.
Another group made blackberry sorbet & grapefruit & vodka granite. Both were very tasty and would be perfect for a hot summer day.
My group finished somewhat early so we made vanilla tuile paste & chocolate tuile paste. It is pretty much a very thin cookie that is used more for decoration & you can shape it when it comes out of the oven before it cools. We cut out patterns then scraped the paste onto parchment paper and baked it for only about 5 minutes.
As soon as it was out of the oven I had to peel the cookie off the paper and shape it into a bowl or curved shape while it was still hot. We didn’t do anything else with the tuile today, but I could have eaten it with the ice cream.
Cake day! Who doesn’t love cake? There were 5 types of cake on the class list today, but due to time limitations we could only make one cake per team. I was paired with a wonderful lady named Wendy today and she is a chocoholic so we made a chocolate cake with mocha buttercream frosting.
First we made the cakes, which were about 6″ round. Wendy and I made the batter together and divided it amongst 4 pans so we each could have a layer cake.
While the cakes were cooking and cooling we started the buttercream icing. The original buttercream recipe calls for vanilla, but we had options to modify it to mocha, raspberry, or hazelnut. We opted for the mocha icing. It started out as whipped egg whites & sugar until it looked like marshmallow fluff. It took about 20 minutes of being whipped in a KitchenAid mixer to get to the white fluff part.
Then we added a lot of butter and whipped it for another 10 minutes in the mixer. When it was stiff enough we added the mocha and melted chocolate for the flavour. It smelled divine.
By the time the cakes cooled we sliced them into layers. I opted to make a 4 layer cake and Wendy made a 2 layer cake. Piping the scalloped edge wasn’t on the class schedule but I knew how to do it from my Wilton classes so I decided to fancy mine up a bit. Not too bad, eh?
We also finished the cream puffs from yesterday by piping the filling inside and dipping the tops in chocolate. Mmmmm.
Here are some pictures of what my classmates made. This is vanilla roulade with lime curd and fruit compote.
Raspberry Hazelnut Genoise.
Coconut layer cake.
And now a class photo.
The culinary school offers a variety of classes including a knife skills class. The student make vegetable soup so they can learn how to slice carrots, taters, zucchini and a bunch of other stuff. Since they make a lot, we get to eat their hard work for lunch every day and it is quite delicious!
I signed up for a pastry bootcamp course at the Culinary School of the Rockies. The course is five days long and we have a lot to cover each day. Chef Deb linked students together and we worked in pairs today. My partner was Larry. There are ten students in the class and Larry is the only man. He is in his 50’s or early 60’s and has been in the restaurant business his entire life. In fact, he knew all of the terms and techniques we used in class today and is far too advanced to be taking this basic pastry class. I didn’t like how he would run ahead with the recipe before I had a chance to read the steps. Since he already knew how to do everything he was more of a dictator than a partner to me. I’m crossing my fingers that we can switch partners each day so I’m not stuck with the know-it-all for the entire week. Enough about Larry and on to the yumminess!
We started out by making two types of pie crusts. Pate Brisee is the basic pastry dough. We didn’t get a chance to use this today so it is wrapped up in the fridge for tomorrow. We also made Pate Sucree which is a sweet pastry dough and it is almost like a shortbread cookie. It is very crumbly when rolled out and had to be put in the pie dish in pieces and then squished back together. We used Pate Sucree in our fruit tart.
Once the crust was done we made Pate a Choux which is a fancy way of saying Cream Puff Pastry (hey I’m not French). We piped the pastry dough through a tube onto parchment paper and baked it in the oven. Here is what came out!
While the cream puffs were baking we made the Creme Patissiere (fancy for Pastry Cream). It is pretty much a more delicious version of Jell-O pudding. Sorry Bill Cosby, da puddin’ from da class was better than yours! This pudding has two purposes- we filled the fruit tart crust with it before layering fruit on top, and we will use it again tomorrow to fill the cream puffs.
Here is the fruit tart! Pate Sucree crust filled with pudding and some yummy fruit sliced on top. I did all of the fruit slicing and arranging. See how purdy it looks?
The best part about this class are the magical clean-up fairies. Whenever I set a dirty dish aside, a fairy swoops in to clean it and returns it to the proper shelf in the kitchen. I checked Target but they don’t have any clean-up fairies on clearance right now.
Bob and I have been watching the Olympics for the past few nights and I realized I could be Shaun White’s twin sister. Shaun is a gold medalist in snowboarding. People.com had an article about how he maintains his beautiful red hair here . I agree- my secret is water and whatever shampoo is on sale. I shower at night, sleep on it, and wake up looking like the photo below. Like the polka-dot pajamas? I got them for $8.50 at Macy’s. I’m still frugal, while Shaun has multi-million dollar endorsement deals.
I had a Capri Sun juice box on the nightstand next to my bed. It was about half full when Paco found it. He knocked it on the floor then stepped on it and squeezed out all of the juice that was left. I found Paco with all of the evidence.
Later that day he went into Wellesley’s cage and hung out there for a while. Bob thought it would be proper punishment for the juice box scenario if he were to get locked in. Paco didn’t care and sat in the food bowl for about an hour.
