Mar25

Fancy Shmancy Plated Desserts

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Fancy Shmancy Plated Desserts

Wow, my third term is upon me already. Less than two months till summer and I feel like I’ve barely even been in Providence for very long. I can’t really wrap my head around where all my time is going, but I’ve decided to say it feels invigorating instead of scary. Gotta love how good a positive spin makes you feel!

I have to tell you all….Sophomore Labs RULE. They absolutely and completely dominate every other lab I’ve been in yet. Maybe it is because I actually enjoy the people I’m in labs with this term; man does it make a difference when you don’t have a pack of cliquey girls roaming the kitchen, and I can truly say that I really have fun with everyone that is in the kitchen with me. What a relief right?! I no longer have to avoid conflict at every turn, yay! However, it also the absolutely amazing material that I have the opportunity to learn with the super amazing chefs that has me falling in love with these labs.

    

The Chef that I had for plated desserts was really a talented guy. He always had really amazing constructive feedback for my plate designs and I believe that he helped me grow over the course of the nine days in class. I truly can’t believe I did this but….I forgot to take a picture of my final exam dessert! And it was so AWESOME. URRGH, you can’t even imagine how upset I was when I realized that my desserts had been sent to the dining room and I hadn’t taken a photo…..

*Deep Breath* It’s okay though because I got lots of other great photos, so I am happy. We got to make all kinds of things in class too! Lots of sauces and we got to play with sugar garnishes and tempered chocolate! Above is a poached pear and a molten chocolate cake. Can you believe that the round circle with the poached pear is a cookie! No right!? It took about ten tries to make four of those babies because you have to shape the cookie when it is still very hot, and they kept breaking on me, but it was worth every finger burn (and believe me I had a bunch of those at the end of the class).

     

I think the most thrilling part of the class was all the creative freedom we were allowed to have. We got to choose flavor combinations for the main items, sauces, garnishes, etc. And we had to create a plate design for each day of the class so each of the things you see above I came up with from my imagination! I have to say the only bad part was that we didn’t really get to eat anything in the class because it was always going out to the dining room and being served to others. What a bummer right? Oh well, I guess not having dessert for a few nights won’t kill me.

Plus, this weekend I went to New York City to see two of my friends and I had such fun! We saw the Hunger Games….guys you must go see the Hunger Games. I hadn’t read the books, but on my bus ride back I read the first one straight through and now I’m hooked. Anywho, right now I’m in advanced breads and I can’t even wait to share with you all how completely awesome this class is in my next post! Look forward to lots of delicious photos!

     

Feb24

Pies and Tarts: Heaven on Earth

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Pies and Tarts: Heaven on Earth

For the last two weeks I have been living the dream, and by that I mean I baked delicious pies and tarts everyday and got to bring one home every night! I’m not sure if you know this, but eating a slice of tart for breakfast, with a nice cup a tea, is really the only way to wake up in the morning. Truly, I suggest you get on my level and try eating dessert for breakfast as it really rocks.

        

I have always been a really big fan of pies in general. There are so many fillings and I have a not so secret weakness for pie crust. In fact you could liken it to my kryptonite because, though I can usually manage to resist other desserts, if a piece of pie crust is there to be consumed I most definitely will eat it….you know how some people take a fork and slowly consume a whole cake without cutting a slice? Yep, that is me except instead of cake (ew!) I eat the whole pie. I know; really bad habit Taylor, but I can’t help myself! I think I’ve been in heaven for the last two weeks. In fact I’ve found a video that correctly depicts just how my two weeks passed by….

Okay…maybe there weren’t tiny animals helping me bake  and I don’t identify with her terrified expression at the end, but otherwise I think the sentiment is quite accurate, and besides, I’ve always loved Snow White. Actually, now that I think about it; this was always my favorite scene in the movie!

What was really great about this class was the teacher. Do you remember the strict but lovable Swiss chef I had for Viennoiserie? He was the teacher for this class! He is really an amazing teacher and we were allowed a lot of time to experiment with how to decorate our pies and tarts, and it is always fun to play with sugar and chocolate. I even tried my hand at candying lemons and spinning sugar (which is crazy cool! You take a sugar before it caramelizes and fling it back and forth and it creates very thin strands of sugar that you can make into nests etc.)

    

Pies and tarts was probably one of the best classes I have taken while in school. I’m really sad to see it end, but now I’m on SPRING BREAK! I get to go home, find a job hopefully, and be home to celebrate my dear Dad’s birthday! I feel like time keeps passing very quickly and I’m not sure how I feel about this, but I know that next trimester I am going to be swamped with work. I can’t wait to take my sophomore labs, but I have to admit I’m always a bit scared to start a new class with all new people. Ultimately, it usually turns out for the best so I’m just going to focus on my excitement (I get to take a class called sugar artistry!) and enjoy my time at school.

     

 

Feb3

They are Classics for a Reason.

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They are Classics for a Reason.

Wow. I am in love with the world right now. Not only am I in the greatest baking lab, classic pastry, but it is gorgeous and sunny outside and my amazing friend is visiting this weekend! I’m not sure this weekend can get much better. You know that wonderful feeling when you have just done your laundry and everything is deliciously warm and smells like flowers and everything just seems super awesome? I kind of feel like that right now!!

(….okay, maybe that was a strange comparison and I’m the only weirdo that loves doing laundry, but I’m sticking to my comparison, so there. )

    Galette des Rois

Right now I’m half way through the lab ‘classic pastry’ and like the title suggests everything is so wonderful I’m not surprised everything is a classic. Overview of the lab: butter, butter, dough, butter, pastry cream, butter, whipped cream. Truly, I’m in love; not only are we baking with puff pastry erry day we also make a ton of chantilly cream. I don’t know about you, but I could seriously consume buckets of chantilly on its own…so I’m kind of in heaven. PLUS, WE MADE MY FAVORITE PASTRY EVER. The sun burst design galette is puff pastry filled with frangipane. I call it a galette des rois and it sometimes has a feve, or bean, in the center and a crown around the outside but it’s also known as a pithivier.

Basically, I used to have this cake every year for my birthday and when I attended Lycée Francais when I was a tiny tot. It was so much fun, because whoever gets the feve in their slice of cake gets to be queen or king for the day. Because I’m still such a kid at heart I obviously am crazy in love with both the galette and the game.

     Napoleon

One of the only teensy tiny problems I’ve had is that we had to coat our completely delicious mille- feuille a la creme (or napoleons) in fondant! Can anybody say that they actually enjoy eating fondant?! I seriously doubt it but maybe I’m biased because I hate the stuff and I really don’t see why we have to put it on anything. Yes, yes. It does look pretty with the black and white stripes, but I threw out the whole top layer of puff because I really wanted to avoid the fondant. SO, in my opinion I think fondant should only be used to cover cakes for decoration. Any other application is blasphemy!

Rant over.

Okay peeps. Hope you all have a chance to experience that fresh laundry euphoria! ..oh and also a super weekend!