Baking classes are much different than any other class. It was a very nice change of pace. There is actually downtime. We would usually lecture and see a demonstration during the first part of class, then we would scale our ingredients and have time while it proofed or baked. Everything would be cleaned up and we would get to relax a while before we were done with class. Plus, we worked in groups of two for most things. I love the girl I worked with. Anita helped keep me sane in this class. We had so many good talks and laughed every day. She is the sweetest little mom! (She's only little because she's 4'11" - she has such a big heart!) She is such a hard worker. She is definitely one thing I miss about being in Arizona. We had so much fun! Also, we got to sneak leftovers out at the end of every day. (We would bake 6 baguettes at a time and dozens of cookies. Who just throws those things away? Not me!)
The first thing we learned is that the only thing we could measure by volume were egg products, dairy products, and water. Everything else had to be weighed. For the first week we had to learn the old school kind where you had a weight on one half and your product on the other and you had to make them balance. After a week, you could use a digital scale. (So much faster!) After we were taught the importance of measuring and scaling ingredients, we were let loose on biscuits, muffins, and cookies.
I felt really confident in baking because I grew up with a mom that made rolls, bread, cookies, cakes, cinnamon rolls, cream puffs, etc. She would let us help so I knew the processes for all of those things. I'd worked with different doughs and batters. It helped a ton because not everyone had. The one thing that worried me was plating things. I am not very creative when it comes to things like that. (If you could see the rough drawings I did for plating in my notebooks, you'd agree.)
I will definitely share recipes from baking because they are delicious and much easier than you would imagine! Just to make your mouth water: chocolate torte, french bread, brioche, croissants, turnovers, pastry creams, buttercream frostings, quiche, lemon tart, cakes, sauces (chocolate, caramel, raspberry, blueberry, etc).
The head chef in baking didn't like me. I honestly don't know why. I did all of my work, was respectful, asked questions during lectures, and aced all of my tests. He liked the way my food tasted, but he was just rude. I am actually really grateful that I don't remember all the things he said to me because he made me cry just about every day. Except now, I wish I had an example so I wouldn't sound like such a baby. I was really hard on myself in the plating portion of this class because I wanted my plates to be perfect. He got really upset with me this day because I started to cry because I couldn't cut a pretty piece of cheesecake. (I know this sounds like not a big deal, but I was still working crazy hours, I was tired, and I already felt like he hated me at this point. I just wanted to do a good job.) He kicked me out of class until I could handle being in class. So I walked outside to cool down and decided I didn't have any respect left for him and that I was done asking and answering questions. I was going to do my work and only talk to him when I absolutely had to.
After I went back to class (I wasn't going to let him win.), I plated a different dessert, which happens to be the opera torte and tuile cookie pictured below. I know it is blurry, but I took this picture with a flip phone, and this is the only way to make it big enough to see. (Remember flip phones? I finally got rid of mine about a year an a half ago. I still have a slide phone though, don't worry.) Opera tortes are 7 layers of cake, buttercream, and ganache. It is smothered in ganache, and "Opera" is piped on with chocolate. The tuile is vanilla flavored with with dots of chocolate tuile on the corners. The sauces on the plate are raspberry coulis and carmel sauce.
So I was going to surprise you all by posting a recipe from baking today. Well, I still will, but as I was making it tonight, I remembered something about Baking I wanted to tell you about. When I would work with pastry doughs, it was important to keep the ingredients really cold so the butter wouldn't melt too fast. Well, the only problem with that was that my hands were always hot! Everything melted immediately. (I still joke about that today. Holding frozen butter in my hands is the fastest way to defrost it. Weird. I know.) That just wouldn't work in school. So every day before we would start work, I would get two produce bags full of ice for my station. The first would cool down my work table and the second was so I could keep my hands cold. (Let's be honest, when I wasn't doing something for class, I was standing in the walk in freezer, holding my bag of ice so I could stay nice and cool.) I wish I would have remembered that tonight as I baked. It may or may not have ended in a melt down (haha - pun intended!) and a lack of pictures. You'll see.
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