Le Cordon Bleu Class Pastries and Cake Boss!!

I want to go there so badly!!! It's beautiful!!!!!


I am currently sitting at work and I thought that I would update my blog, since I finished my articles for the next newsletter. I just sent out the December and January newletter last week and corporate already "okayed," it!! Thanks to my awesome newsletter staff!

Even though I still have one article to to go, I'm still ahead of the game! :)!!! The one article I am doing it on Bakerella!!!! If you do know know who she is go here www.Bakerella.com and you will definitely know why I decided to write and article on her!! She's just awesome!!!

Next week (I believe Monday) I get to go see Buddy Valastro from The Cake Boss tv series!! I'm beyond psyched!! Hopefully I will be able to take pictures if so I will definitely post them up to share with you!! :)Here is his website http://www.carlosbakery.com/


For this entire week in the Pastry end of Le Cordon Bleu there has been a Canadian Chef here to instruct us. He has the Canadian French accent! It's really awesome, it makes me feel like I am in France and it makes me want to go there even more. The work that he does it just absolutely amazing!! We were lucky enough for him to teach us Puff pastry through out the week!!!

We started the week off with make the Classic Puff Pastry. It takes about 3 minutes to scale the recipe, but it takes about 2 days to roll of the recipe the right way. If you are in a hurry after when you scale out the recipe, mix the ingredients but do not over mix, and knead the dough (don't over knead, it's not bread!!) You have to put it in the fridge for 3 hours...NOT FREEZER! But the correct way and you will have a better result is if you roll out the dough over a 2 days, but the second day you bake it. I might have to do a day on how to make puff pastries because they are just amazing!!! You'll fall in love wit them!!

Recipe

1 pound 8 oz Bread Flour (Patent Flour), but All Purpose is fine to
.50 oz Salt
3 3/4oz Butter
12 oz Water
14.25 oz Butter for rolling in

Oven: 350 Degrees

Yield: 10 to 14 pinwheels or turnovers: which ever one you want to make

I did Pinwheels and Turn overs!



Here are two of my Pinwheels!! Once you have rolled your dough out over the 2 day, on the second day you get to shape your pin wheels.

Here is how to shape Pinwheels:

Use a pizza cutter (don't use scissors you will tear the layers) and cut 4 inch squares! Try to make the all the same size.


One you have cut your squares, take a small knife like a paring knife and cut triangles like how I have in the picture, but do not cut all the through the center. Then add some Egg Wash where it would look like all of the triangles would meet in the center.

THEN....


Take the LEFT corner and bring it the the center where the Egg was is. Rotate and always bring the LEFT corner to the center!! You will do this 4 times!! Then once that is completed. Put whatever kind of perservatives you want in the center,on top of the egg wash! She be about a quarter size. Then egg wash the entire pinwheel (not the preservative!). Put in oven, until goldent brown!

Caution: VERY HOT!!!!!!!





For the turnovers it is almost the same process. Cut 4 inch squares. Once you have your square cut fold in have take the bottom right corner to the top left and press lightly so you know where the center is the unfold it. Then put egg wash on the left verticle side, and the top horizontal side, then put whatever filling(about a quater size) you want sort of in the middle , not touching the crease and not the cornor.

Remember when I made you make the crease so you knew where the center was. You are going to now complete the Turnover by taking the bottom right corner to the top left corner. And seal it by pressing all around the edges of the Turnover! Don't be afraid of it, it's only dough! Really seal it!!!!! Egg wash it!!

For both the PinWheels and Turnovers after you egg wash it add sugar to the top!!

Breakfast Pastries!!!!

This is Strawberry shortcake! The biscuits are Orange Zest biscuits! The strawberrys really compliment the Orange Zest biscuit!! And a Mint sprig as the final touch!


This past monday,I started my 3rd mod at Le Cordon Bleu. I am currently in breakfast pastries and cost control and purchasing. The new chef that I have for the next several weeks is different than my previous chefs. First of all she is my first female chef that I have had, and she has more of a sweeter sense about her. She is very nice, and the strange thing is, is she is only about 8 years older than I am.

I have to admit that the next couple of weeks are going to be a little difficult for me to make something every weekend, because the holidays are coming up. But what I am going to do is, put some posts up of some of the items I make during the week. Plus, within the next couple of weeks my mom and I will be making a lot of Christmas cookies, rolls, and many other things. So I will definitely be putting many posts up!!!! Plus I can't wait for Christmast morning, because my mom makes great vegetable strata and french toast strata!!!! But I will still have my weekly posts!!! :)

Last mod when I was in my Breads class we made tons of bread, we made so much bread that some of the bread that I brought home went stale. There was one day when we had a lot of Brioche bread. Brioche was one of my favorite breads that we made, and what make it so great was the 9oz of butter it called for. Can you imagine? Eating bread that you can taste real butter throughout it and it had a little bit of a flakey texture??? It was like heaven! So, my mom made a stuffed chicken one day, and stuffed the chicken with the stale brioche bread!! It was the best stuffing I have ever had! So I told her that I want to make Brioche bread to stuff the turkey with this year. My mom stuffs the turkey, it sorta freaks me. Thank god I am in pastry, I can't stuff a turkey not alone bone a duck like a few of my fellow culinary friends are doing. I would just die. If you are interested on how to bone a duck youtube it, and you'll see why I it gives me the heebie jeebies!!

Anyways, getting away from stuffing a turkey and boning a duck in class this week we made blueberry scones (I love blueberrys!!!) pumpkin bread, lemon poppie seed muffins, strawberry shortcake, buttermilk buscuits, and orange- scent muffins, crepes with apple compote en flambe with homemade ice cream, and coffee cake and apple fritters. As you're read we were busy!!!!

Here are some pictures of some of the items that we have made this week:


Blueberry Scones! I absolutely love blueberrys, especially in pastries! If you ever make scones and want to add blueberrys or anykind of dried fruit to it, make sure you put your dried fruit in water(cold water) for a while. My suggestion is after when you preheat the oven put your fruit in water. Then you make your recipe. Then add your blueberrys. Futhermore, after when everything is mixed together make your batter into a circle a little more than a half in thick. Then cut your scones with a pizza cutter to however big you want them. BUT keep your scones in the circle do not place the pieces all over the tray keep everything in the circle. If you do not do that then your scones will dry out while baking. I also think cranyberry scones would be great as well!!




More blueberrys!!! Blueberry muffins with Pumpkin bread!!!!! If you want to achieve the sweet and salty taste with Pumpkin Bread, just before you put your bread in the oven add store bought Pumpkin seeds to the top!!! Believe me it a great combination!!!!!!!


Sour Cream Coffee Cake! This was really good!!! On top of the batter was streusel! If you add some streusel between the layers it just makes it melt in your mouth!!! ex: batter on bottom, streusel, batter, then streusel on top!! Always end with the streusel on top!!!!

Streusel Recipe!!
2.5 oz Brown sugar
1 oz Sugar
4 oz Pecan Pieces (optional)
1/2 Tbs. Cinnamon (you can always add more...I always do!!!)
2.5 oz Cake Flour (Or All Purpose Flour)
4 oz Cold Butter
.5 tsp. Vanilla Extract



Apple Fritter!! I've never had one before, it reminded me of funnel cake with something inside it. After when you deep fry the apple fritter add some cinnamon and sugar to the top!


Inside of the Apple Fritter! You can not tell what is in the center, but it apple!! It was good, but it is something that I would never make for myself.


What to look forward to! Some more projects with baking!!! Keep posted!

Have a great and safe week!!!

Rose and Pearl Birthday Cake!!

My Gumpaste flowers!! I love the colors!!!


My mom just turned 45 this weekend! So I made her birthday cake! I decorated it with roses and pearl sprinkles. I made the roses out of Gumpaste that I colored with Wilton Gel.



We had spaghetti which is my moms favorite food, with salad, and garlic bread! And her cake for dessert!!!

It was a really nice relaxing evening!!!!


Here is my moms birthday cake!!!!! Enjoy!!



All frosted and waiting to be decorated! I love to frost a cake...it's so relaxing!


All decorated with roses and pearls!



Top view!



Black and White photo! The while flower looks awesome!







All pretty with candles!!!!!




I hope you enjoyed my photos! I was really nervous about working with Gumpaste! If you never have worked with Gumpaste it is really nice to work with! Do not be afraid to try it out! Just got for it!!!!!!!!!!!!

Bakerella...little Cakes!!

So earlier today, I posted a new blog stating that this weekend I was going to have two new posts. Well, I had to get started on the one project, because tomorrow I have to make my moms birthday cake. The project that I did today, is for tomorrow night. I hope I didn't confuse anyone toooooo much!


I made another recipe from Bakerella's Cake Pop Recipe. But I did it my way. To be honest this was a very fast project to do. I would say the most time consuming part was using the cookie cutter to shape the cake pieces.



The shape of the little cakes are cupcake. I melted candy mold chocolate for the chocolate base, and the colored top was also melted candy mold.


Here are the pictures



Here they are without the chocolate covering!! And awaiting to go into the fridge!!!




And the first base is dipped!!! Not so bad!



All done and looking cute!!!!!!



mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm



I love the Yellow!!!!









Well that was my Friday night adventure!!!!


Now tomorrow is, something I am alittle more nervous about! I have to make roses out of Gum Paste.....Lets pray that it turns out good!!!!!

UPDATES & CHANGES!!!

This past Wednesday, I finished my 2nd mod at Le Cordon Bleu. I took a breads class and math class. So far I am 12 weeks in at Le Cordon Bleu, and I can happily say that I made the DEANS LIST. And I recieved my first A in a math class ever!!

So, starting November 8th I will be entering my 3rd mod, and will be starting Cost Control and Purchasing (another type of math class ehhhh) and the French Pastries.
Which I can't wait because the Chef that I will be having for the next 6 weeks, everyone raves about! So I am beyond excited to have her!


I am going to be sharing with you my two of my favorite projects that I did in breads!

Furthermore, as for the updates, I will be having two more blog posts coming up this weekend. One is for a get together, that I will be making a dessert and the other is for my moms birthday dinner which will be held this Sunday. And I will be making her birthday cake.

Also, since I will be in a French Pasty class for six weeks I will be updating my blog as much as possible. At least 2 times a week. (class work + my work on the side= two times a week)


About a week ago my Chef had us do a project, it was to create your own bread plaque as if you owned a bread shop. It was one of my favorite things I have ever done at LCB.
Chef taught us how to make roses, and other little decorations that we could have put on our plaque. But I solely just decorated mine with the different kinds of breads that we made in class. Even though the roses were absolutely adorable!!

We had 6 hours to construct our bread plaques, which is two class periods. Then we had 2 hours to glaze our plaque. We used burnt sugar and oil to glaze them alone with any other products that we have in the kitchen. To get the different shades of brown, we would have as much or as little amount of oil to the burnt sugar. Then we would put it in the oven for a few minutes until the burnt sugar was dry. We repeated this process as much as we wanted to.




Here is my bread plaque, completely finished! It came out a little darker than what I wanted it to, but I still really like it. I received an A on it.



Here is my bread plaque before I glazed it on the last day.
It was by far one of my favorite projects!!!!


Furthermore, on the last day of my breads class we made Chocolate Cherry Bread. The title explains everything. If you just go by what the title tell you, you would think that it is a very sweet bread. But you would be really surprised.

Yes, it is considered a sweet bread, but the truth is it's a semi sweet bread. It won't give you a tooth ache I promise. I would go great with tea. Chef told the class the when he made this bread for a bakery one Valentines day he made 500, and charged 7.00 dollars for the bread. Two Valentines day later he tripled the amount of the bread and charged 7.50 a loaf. Once you see this bread you will understand why he sold it on Valentines day! This was one of my favorite breads that we made this mod, besides the Epi Bread and the Baguette!!!



Adorable huh?!?!?! I love the heart shape! I wish I would have learned more bread like this in my Breads class, but I do have some great ideas as for my own kind of heart bread!!



This is what the heart bread looks like cut in half!! There is pieces of chocolate and cherries all throughout the bread! Yumm!!


I am also going to add some of the bread that I have done along the way!!


Here is the 5 braid, this was my first attempt. It was a little big for the pan, that's why it is not straight! Now I can make a perfect one!!! When making this bread you have to be careful. But once you know how to do it, it's easy!!!



The Baguette and Epi bread!!!



The sourdough boules! They make good bread bowls!!!!


I hope you liked some of the breads I made in my breads class! Now onto more fun and exciting thing in the future!

Stay tuned for some more weekend projects!!

Random thought 364 days till I am a Pastry Chef!!!!!!!!

Cookies for Dana!

At work friday a co-worker named Dana came over to me and asked me to make cookies. So I was inclined to make cookies this weekend. All those hours at work I totally forgot to ask her what kind of cookies does she not like. So hopefully she likes M&M Cookies, they are one of my favorites.

Where I live Halloween was celebrated on Devils night, I think that is because it there is a Steeler game tonight. When I was little even if Halloween was on Sunday, Trick-or Treating was always on Halloween. So this year it was a little different feeling. Halloween is one of my favorite holidays, but this year for me it was extremly boring, it definitely could have been a lot better. My sister and the kids stopped over, they looked cute in their outfits. I will have pictures up of them on this post.

Futhermore, this week I only have 3 days of class which is really exciting. So I have a four day weekend. So starting November 8 I will have new classes, French Breakfast Pastries, and Purchasing and Controlling. So the French Pastries will lead to more posts coming up.

Next weekend is my moms 45th birthday, so I will be making her cake, and I believe I am going to do something with roses since those are her favorite flowers. So I hope that it turns out the way I envisioned it to be. We'll see......

I have to admit, I was hoping that these cookies would turn out because they are considered a Sugar Cookie, and me and Sugar Cookies do not mix well. They usually sit the the pan, become hard and break off. What really baffles me is that I can make a perfect Chocolate Souffle, but can not manage to make sugar cookie to save my life. But today, I was able to make them, so I think this would call for a celebration.

So Dana these cookies are for you and I hope you enjoy them!!!!!




M&M's!! I think the bag that I bought was a little to big, because I have so much left over!! I really love the peanut M&M's more.



The batter! I was once in class, and appearantly I was smelling everything we were making, and another student commented on it. And I said I smell everything before I eat it. (I get the habit from my mom) And my Chef heard and said "it's good that she smells it before she eats it, I have fired employees for not tasting the batter." So now I am in the habit of smelling and tasting things a bit more. That's why I don't eat anything I make.

Here is the website in which I got my recipe for the M&M cookies off of!
">




Waiting to be decorated before going into the oven!


All ready now!!




35 colorful cookies awaits Le Cordon Bleu students!!



The little guy lost the battle. He would have made 36....



Savannah as Tinkerbell for Halloween!!



Timmy as a Dragon for Halloween!!



I don't know if anyone knows that, that sign is still correct. It is supposed to say Pizza Hut. But instead it says Za Hut. Alittle trivia, Za means pizza! I learned that while playing scrabble with John one summer! So even though the word Pizza is missing most of it's letters ZA still makes up for the missing letters.


Happy Halloween!!

Birthday Party Sunday!!!

This coming week is my brothers 19th birthday, on the 28th of October. We decided to do his birthday dinner this weekend instead of doing it Halloween weekend. So this blog post is a little more different than my previous posts.

My brother wanted Pumpkin Pie instead of cake, but we were afraid if some of our friends did not like Pumpkin Pie, so I made Chocolate Cake (We all know you can't go wrong with Chocolate!). As for dinner we had one my of absolute favorites; Fettuccine Alfredo,chicken, salad, garlic bread along with pop, wine, or water.

So I am uploading some pictures of my brother Patt's birthday dinner:


Four Pounds of Fettuccine Noodles!!!


ALFREDO SAUCE!!YUMMY!!!!


My brothers chocolate birthday cake! Patt actually decorate it!



Chocolate Cake and Pumpkin Pie!! yummy!



Getting ready to sing Happy Birthday!!!! It looks so pretty! You have to love candle setting on my camera!!



Patt's first cut into the cake! Make a wish!! I wonder what he wished for...!!



My mom and Mrs. O (the one in the Steeler Jersey....also Steelers one tonight) serving Pumpkin Pie and Chocolate Cake!!



Mr. O (the one on the left) and Michael (my stepdad) talking



My beautiful niece Savannah!!!!!



My nephew Timmy, with Reddi Wip on his face! He's so adorable!!



You can not go wrong with this stuff!!



My coffee and Pumpkin Pie!! Thanks Mrs.O for the gigantic amount of Reddi Wip!!



I got my brother The Nanny season 1 for his birthday! He loves this show!!!!



I hope you enjoyed everything!!! In two weeks it's my moms birthday! So another party coming our way!!!!