Ice Cream is the New Peace Treaty

I just found out that is the coldest and most snowy winter that New York has ever had... ever. That is exciting for days like today when we wake up to over 15 inches of snow and have a snow day!!! This is our second snow day for the month of January, and although I would love to be in class making sorbet right now, it's kinda nice to have a day to simply walk around the city and, of course, blog.

In class, we have moved from yeast breads to desserts. I am personally loving every second of this pastry module, but my classmates are growing weary of the lack of savory foods and the slower pace of the class. At the beginning of last week, we made various forms of "petit fours." To most people that means a miniature cake, but petit fours are actually just a bite-sized treat of any kind. Our petit fours consisted of vanilla bean marshmallows, almond buttercrunch, biscotti, and macaroons. We spent a full day making all of these fun treats, while the next day we learned how to temper chocolate to dip the petit fours in. I have always heard the term "tempered chocolate" but have never quite understood the importance of it. It's amazing because by raising the chocolate to a temperature of 130 degrees F and then stirring it to cool it down to 85 degrees F, the chocolate is able to harden at room temperature into a shiny and appetizing coating. If you don't temper chocolate, it hardens in a dull, grayish color and melts too quickly in the hand. Many agree that tempering is the most important thing you can do with chocolate. After the tempering was complete, we spent the rest of class dipping and coating our petit fours in our chocolatey goodness.

*Vanilla bean marshmallows with a dark chocolate drizzle

*Almond Biscotti, Pine Nut Macaroons, Sea Salted Truffles, and Rose Marshmallows

*Almond Buttercrunch topped with Chocolate, Coconut, and Toasted Almonds

After petit fours, we moved to cakes. Now, if you want to see a group of culinary students become uncomfortable in the kitchen, just ask them to decorate a cake. Everyone in my class was having a very difficult time. I looked over and one guy had 3 finger cots on because he kept cutting himself trying to slice a cake horizontally. We spend one day baking various kinds of cakes and the next day preparing the frostings and fillings and actually decorating the cake. Chef Scott took us through the icing process step by step and showed us how to make a cake look perfectly frosted. His demonstration made me think back to all of the many cakes I have iced and how horribly wrong I was doing it. At home I would always get impatient and frost a cake while it's still warm- and I wonder why they always lean awkwardly?!? Although it tested our patience, made us angry, and took much longer than it ever should have, we all ended up with decent-looking cakes. I think it was the proudest my class has ever been of ourselves.

*My (not leaning) Lemon Coconut Sponge Cake

The latest kind of desserts we have learned to make are custard-based desserts. This includes ice cream, creme brulee, and bread pudding. The ice cream part was fun. All the partnerships got to choose their favorite flavor and make the ice cream base. The next day, Chef Scott rolled in this very large, very professional, and very expensive ice cream freezer that turned our liquidy bases into ice cream in minutes. My partner, Lindsey, and I chose cinnamon and it was HEAVEN. There is nothing like the taste of freshly frozen ice cream. I swear it has the power to turn cynics into optimists and solve world wars. All of us, including Chef Scott, were giddy and beaming as we tasted flavor after flavor. Other flavors made were caramel, coconut, vanilla bean, coffee, pistachio, and ginger. All of them were amazing (even though I am biased with my cinnamon). I think tasting all of these ice creams has been my favorite part of pastry. We also made very traditional bread pudding and creme brulee recipes that used real vanilla beans and the freshest of ingredients. I have never been a huge creme brulee fan, but the ones we made it class were really delicious. It was really fun torching the caramelized sugar topping on the creme brulee, once Lindsey and I figured out how to turn the torch on. Overall, it was a fantastic section of our pastry module.

*Chef Scott showing us how to properly torch the Creme Brulee

*Creme Brulee: the most fat-filled, high-cholesterol dessert you can find :)

*Bread pudding. It looks dry on top, but its very custardy and delicious once you dive into it

We only have a week left in Pastry before we move on to our final module with Chef Chris again. Time is flying by and my classmates and I only have a month left to finalize our externships and enjoy every last moment of class time. It's going to be fun to see where we all end up in this ever-changing culinary world.

Happy Eating!!!

A Fishy Morning

So it is about 9 am and I have already been up since 3:30. Today was my management class' field trip to the Fulton Fish Market!!! Therefore, please excuse any gramatical errors or confusing sentences.

Fulton Fish Market supplies 30% of all fish to New York restaurants. It is an incredible facility with sooooo many seafood goodies! It was very exciting to walk around and see all of the fish varieties. My management teacher, Steve, said that I looked as excited as Cinderella at her ball (that could be depressing that my "ball" is a smelly fish market, but I'm just gonna take it as positive).

We walked down the entire length of the building admiring each fishermen's catch of the day. All of the men were surprisingly friendly to us and were excited to answer our questions. Here are some pictures that give much better detail of our experience:

Every fishing company had piles of freshly caught fish waiting to be bought, fabricated, and enjoyed

I have come to LOVE raw tuna such as this. My mouth may have started watering at the sight....

Look at all the scallop options!!! All of them were sooooo fresh!

There were all kinds of crab: live crab, lump crap meat, frozen snow crab legs, etc. This crab was particularly feisty. I think he will make for a delicious meal...

We couldn't go 2 feet without seeing various kinds of oysters and clams. It makes me squirm thinking about the unlucky individual who has to shuck all of those shellfish...

This is a new fish for me- Strawberry Seabass. I wanted to buy them just for the name :)

There was a room off to the side with all of these men just filleting fish. And let me tell you- they were so fast!!! I just learned how to fillet a fish this year, so I am still very slow. These guys were experts as they sped through about 20 fish each in the few moments we were watching them work. I was amazed.

There was this one fish I liked a lot with a bulging eye and the nice fisherman let me hold it with a hook for a picture!

My classmates and me as we came to the end of our tour. It was a fantastic experience that I am so happy to have been apart of. We left the market, boarded the bus, stopped for bagels (duh), and headed home to recoup from our early waking hour.

Happy Eating!!!

Baking My Way Through January

It has been soooo long since I have blogged which means I have too much to talk about for one post. Currently, our class has transitioned into the pastry module, so I have to start there (then I will backtrack on another post)! Baking is very near and dear to my heart because it is here that my deep love of food was sparked. I keeping saying that I am "baking my way through January," and I cannot think of anything that I would rather be doing. 


Our pastry instructor is Chef Scott, a man who is as chill and laid back as they come. The one strike against him is that he does not like college football, but his other qualities outweigh that negative :) On our first day of pastry, we dove in headfirst with learning the poaching and candying of various fruits that we later used for fillings. My favorite part of that day was at presentation time when we were getting ready for the tasting and Chef Scott pulled out two pints of Haagan-Daz vanilla bean ice cream to accompany the fruit (it was then that I knew I was going to love this module). After fruits, we moved straight into learning how to make the PERFECT tart. We eacgh made 3 small tarts and one big tart. We used a variety of doughs so we could learn the differences between flakey, cakey, and cocoa doughs. I made a poached-pear custard tart with a pate sucree crust. It was really good except for the piece of crust that fell off when I was taking the tart out of the pan (Ooops... something like that ALWAYS happens to me). Despite the slight mess up,  I am so happy to have at least seen how to make a perfect tart :)


Next, we moved into the dreaded puff pastry where we spent an entire class just making the dough. Now, I know that butter is a very common ingredient in pastry, but the amount of butter we used to make puff pastry dough is unbelievable. To quickly summarize how to make it, you start by making the "detrempe" dough with flour, butter, salt, etc. Then you make the "beurrage" which is 2 POUNDS of butter and a pinch of flour that you flatten out into a square. You then wrap the detrempe around the beurrage and pound it and roll it into a flat rectangle where all the butter is fully incorporated into the dough. This pounding and rolling process is then repeated 8 more times, taking a total of 4 hours. My arms got quite a workout that day. Once the dough was made, however, the next day was really fun turning this buttery dough into apple strips, herb twists, and palmiers. Even though I would never make this kind of pastry again, it was great to make it once to gain appreciation for the intensive labor and warning for it's nutritional content. 

* Apple Strip 

* Paillettes (puff pastry with paprika and parmesan cheese)

Yesterday was bagel and pretzel day! Bagels have always been a mystery to me because of it's unique texture. Turns out, that uniqueness is achieved by poaching the dough rings right before baking them. It is so simple but makes all the difference. So, we made the dough, formed it into even sized balls, rolled the dough balls out and connected the ends to form the traditional bagel shape. We then poached them in a sugary water, sprinkled sesame seeds on the wet rings, and baked them until they were a golden brown. So simple. So delicious. Pretzels are done in the exact same poaching/baking method. At the end of class, we busted out the spicy mustard and cream cheese and dove into our freshly baked treats. 

* New York-Style Pretzels

* Sesame Seed and Poppy Seed Bagels 


Although I only have a few more months in school, there is so much coming up. Tomorrow, we are having a 23 variety cheese tasting in my management class and we will be making fresh brioche rolls and croissants in pastry class. Also, the time has come to start interviewing and trailing at various restaurants and magazine establishments, so wish me luck as I embark on those experiences!


Keep warm and Happy Eating!!!