BUSYYYYYYYY!

Let me start off with an apology! Things have been very busy here but I'm finally able to update you on the happenings of culinary school and life in general. Last week was fast and furious, we were in the middle of bread block creating our own starters for sourdough breads and writing historical reports of the bread of our choice. I chose Challah bread (the photo on the right is a traditional star braided challah), a religious bread for the jewish faith that is traditionally eaten on Sabbath and special holidays. Most of you know this bread as the braided bread found in most bakeries. It represents the sacrificial bread that used to be offered to the priest by the commoners, but was later used in home ceramonies after some sometime in the fifthteenth century. The bread is never to be cut because this bread represents peace and harmony. Cutting the bread would represent warfare and bloodshed which would be inappropriate for such a sacred food. The bread has also come to represent the manna God gave the Jews while wondering in the desert after their exodus from Egypt. I really enjoyed reading up on this bread not only for the cultural and historical contributions it has made to the world, but to remember the importance of food in religion and how my soon to be profession help contribute to the memories of a peoples culture.
Needless to say, we sent a lot of time making these saymbolic breads. I also got a chance to make two very special cakes for my roommate Jennifer's sister Shelley. The cakes were for her Aggie Ring day and her suprise Engagement! I had a lot of fun working on them in the wee hours of the morning and I loved that I got a chance to help make her special day an edible memory!

When the weekend got here I finally got to partake in an activity I've been wanting to do since I moved here, I got to go to the down town farmers market! My friends Katy and Gemma accompanied me on this little adventure and although the market was small it was very entertaining. I purchased a fresh scone, locally made goat cheese and some Texas wild flowers amongst the general splender of local venders and knick knacks. I would highly recommend that anyone that has a chance to spend some time in a farmers market should. There is somehting about the simplicity of the whole atmosphere that makes you feel content with lifes little pleasures...like a good scone and boquet of wildflowers.

This week was just plain crazy! We finished up bread block with our usual written test, but we also had to present our bread portfolio and our own original recipe for a yeast bread. I really enjoyed this assignment because it gave me a chance to stretch my creative muscles. I Ended up making what I call a Wassail Bread with a Brown Sugar glaze! It turned out to be very festive and not to sweet just how I wanted it! Chef was also complimentary of my bread, which always makes a soon to be chefs day!I think makes a great companion to Apple Cider or hot tea and to close my entry this week the following is the recipe for my wassail bread and I hope you will enjoy it!

Wassail Bread


8oz Flour

1/4oz Dry Active Yeast

2oz Eggs

.8oz butter

3.2oz Apple Cider

.65oz Brown Sugar

.2oz Orange Zest

.2oz Shredded Apple

Pinch of Ground Cloves

1/4t Cinnamon

1/8t Nutmeg

.3oz Salt

Swirl: Glaze: One part Apple Cider, One part Dark Brown Sugar

Zest of one orange

2T of Cinnamon Sugar

1t ground red hots

Yield: 1 loaf

Instructions: Disslove Yeast in Apple Cider (Apple Cider should be warm but not hot!Combine all dry ingredients in mixer with dough hook attatchment ( or in large bowl). Add all wet ingredients; Apple Cider- Yeast mixture, eggs, orange zest, shredded apple, and butter to dry ingredients. Mix on medium speed for 10 minutes ( or knead). Dough should be wet nd sticky. Place dough in greased bowl and cover. Allow dough to double in size at room temperature. Once dough has doubled in size punch down and dust with flour to roll dough out to for a rectangle. After dough has been shaped brush with eggwash, then apply swirl ingredients: Orange zest, crushed red hots, and cinnamon sugar * Make sure to leave a clean edge around rectangles sides. Press swirl mixture lightly then roll dough tightly to form a log, pinch seam together and place dough seam side down in a greased loaf pan and allow to double in size.Meanwhile heat oven to 375 and prepare glaze in a sauce pan by combining apple cider and dark brown sugar and brown sugar has melted and glaze is hot. Take the glaze off heat and set aside. Once dough has risen, place in heated oven. Remove bread when top of bread is brown and makes a hollow sound when tapped on top. Remove from pan and immediately glaze. Cool slightly and then enjoy!

An "Ikey" Week

Well another week has come and gone! I just finished our first week of bread block that included: ciabatta, focaccia, fougasse, milk bread, pizza, naan, pan de mie, pan de mais, and baguettes! I wasn't sure how I would feel about the bread block- so much of bread making is about being exact and having a good sense of time and attention to details, but I think over all my work speaks for itself and I have enjoyed the creativity of forming interesting shapes for the milk bread class (milk bread is basically a dinner roll dough, its very soft and tender.... mmmm). We also learned how to make yeast for breads this week! Oh yes I typed it..yeast making! It's a very interesting process that involves grapes, flour, water and lots of time.

Chef Cara went over the process of making yeast and told us that making yeast was like having a baby- we must feed it, love it, and take care of it. She then assigned our groups the task of naming our "babies". My partner and I named our yeast baby Kaisy Dimber, right now she is growing rapidly and smells like a mixture of wine and vomit... like parenting, no one said it was a pretty job but Chef assures us that it has its rewards!

We also had a bit of weather excitement with Hurricane Ike this week! Since Austin was at one point considered in the danger zone people began to prepare for the worst, grocery stores had no water or pop tarts, Austin ISD cancelled school for the afternoon on friday, evacuates were streaming in causing traffic to back up, and many places of business decided to close because of the drastic weather that was expected to hit Saturday. The 'drastic' weather we were expecting - power outtages, severe rain and wind turn out to be a cloudy day with a strong breeze. I find this a bit amusing, but it was a blessing that Austin was spared any severe weather. My heart does goes out to those in the Houston area and my prayers as well. May all of you have a safe and blessed week ahead!

A few pictures from my first week in my bread block course I thought I would share! ENJOY!!

The End of The First Block!

Already the end of my first course is complete! Baking 101 finished with a smashing exam this past friday! The practical was blueberry muffins and jellyrolls, both of which I received a perfect score on! Earlier in the week, we finally got to dabble in some cake work and chocolate ganache, both of which I got noticed for. Although being noticed for my technical skills was a great boost, I wish my writing skills were on the same level, btu they'll get there. But whoever said writing in chocolate was easy, if anyone has ever said that must have been a seasoned french chef and not an American that chooses lemon curd over chocolate most days.

Everything else is going great , my job is going very well and I'm making more friends with every class gone by!

P.S. The pics featured with this post are my chocolate chiffon cake!

P.P.S Thanks to all that are keeping up with my blog and all your encouraging comments!

Quick Audrey Update

For the pet lovers out there that are curious about Audrey's adjustment to city life , she's doing great! Her house mate George an aussie cross is quite smitten with her and as you can see from the picture, Audrey always has a wink and a smile ready for George. They play, eat, and sleep together all day everyday. They even enjoy swimming together at the dog parks. So we're both getting along just fine!

The First Exam...

Already another week has flown by- my roommates started back to school wednesday just as I was preparing for my first test in culinary school. Our first test like any other professional school consists of a written exam, but the difference for us is following the written exam we have a practical in which we make products that show our knowledge of the different methods chefs use in patisseries. This test covered sponge, creaming, and cut in method. These methods were demonstrated by producing not only edible but attractive almond macaroons, chocolate chip cookies, and buttermilk biscuits.

I was confident for the written portion of our exams and very at ease about the practical part. We had over three and a half hours to complete and present our products which aloud plenty of time to re-do products if necessary. As I said before I was not nervous about the exams, but the tension in the room was obvious especially for my younger classmates who just graduated from highschool. We were not allowed to talk or help anyone during any portion of the test which was difficult at times especially when I saw one of my friends chocolate chip cookie batches turn into something resembling a hockey puck, but a las I kept my mouth shut.

Over all the results for both my test were A's -a great confidence booster in deed! The next day we moved onto a very excited item called pate a choux, this is a french pastry that is cooked on the stove that is a save all in the kitchen. It can make appetizers , keep your mash potatoes creamy after freezing and thawing and is the base dough of eclairs and cream puffs. We made elcairs and swans (yes the bird) and filled them with chentilly cream and chocolate pastry cream. They were quite beautiful and I was disappointed that I have no pictures of my swans to share with you because my cameras battery died! I promise there will be plenty more photo opportunities for pastry swans to come! I did however manage to get some pictures of the scones, bicuits and quiche loraine we made earlier in the week that are featured above.

I also started my new job this week, and its just wonderful! The people I work at remind me so much of my days at my dads animal clinic and I'm catching on to the inventory system fast. My boss even gave me a free cake today that someone did not pick up. I wished I could have sent it directly to animal care clinic when I opened the box to discover a big sparklely pink pig cake! Donna Preston would have loved it just as much as my roommates love my work benefits!

So, pressing on and enjoying every minute of it!

The Safest Cookie

WOW! It's hard to believe my first week of culinary school is already over! The first day of class like any, consisted of the usual hello's and short stories of peoples origins and explanations on their decision to come to culinary school including our Chef Instructor , Chef Cara who has an impressive resume that includes employers like Wolfgang Puck and the like. After the introductions were completed we dove into our first lesson on sanitation and running a clean opperation. This lesson continued for the first three days of class for all five hours of class and was happily ended on Thursday with an examination over our knowledge of running a clean kitchen ; and yes I passed the test so no worries with my food! You might be asking yourself what sanitation lessons at culinary school consist of, well basically sanition covers how to prevent and what causes food born illnesses. While this information is very necassary and perhaps a bit boring at times its also a little scary, not only are you learning about the causes of food borne illness but what it can cost you as a business owner. But of course the good always comes with some bad and thats that.
After our test Thursday night we finally got to sink our teeth (literally) into our first food course: knife skills. We had a demonstration by the talented Chef Jason on how to properly sharpen knifes, segment oranges, and chop onions. Chef Cara let us eat our oranges, which was a nice healthy alternative to all the free cheesecake and truffles we had been getting from the class next door.
I should probably mention at this point an interesting trading system at school:My class meets in the evening from 5:30 to 10:30 pm, there are of course both patisserie and culinary students that meet at this time so dinner isn't exactly an easy meal to come by. Some students pack snacks to eat during breaks but as most of us have learned dinner is not necessary if your patient. You see as patisserie students we make all the breads and sweet things that the culinary students want, while the culinary students make all the wonderful soups and meats we want. So classes trade off with eachother in a kind of bartering system so you can pretty much count on getting a decent meal every night! A good example of this would be Friday nights class. The patisserie students made peanut butter and chocolate chip cookies while the culinary students made french onion soup. Chef Cara was kind enough to provide us with some milk for the cookies and all the students had a good meal that night!
Our cookies were a big hit with the culinary students and our first taste of a real class. We watched Chef Cara demonstrate the proper method of making cookies , a particular method known as creaming method. After the demonstration,we went to work measuring ingredients by scale and mixing our cookie dough by hand. We also got a chance to practice our safety lessons by wearing latex gloves and cleaning the whole kitchen. The whole experience of Friday night, was very fast and fun- it helped re-emphasize that this was the right choice for me. So another week gone by and another to come!
On the job front I was incredibly blessed to get three job offers in the end! One was a tutoring job at school, another was an office assistant at school and the final job offer was
a sales associate position in a professional supply bake shop in Austin. I ended up taking the job as the sales associate at the bake shop and I couldn't be happier about it! I get benefits like a 25% discount on any merchandise, free classes on cake decorating ( yes my school will cover cake decorating as well but I can get extra practice and more detailed instruction in this field this way), and free lunch on Saturdays! The owners are a husband and wife team and very sweet people. In fact some of you that are familiar with the food network challanges and know of Brodwin Weber (the Gingerbread challange winner) might have seen my boss on the foodnetwork with brodwin. My boss was her assistant at the gingerbread challange you see and they are very close friends in addition to that! Work starts tomorrow and I'm very excited to see whats in store for me. My job will basically consist of me helping customers, knowing what to recommend, and the like. Everything else is coming up roses and I continue to enjoy getting to know my new roommates and city immensely. Stay tuned!