Rainbows and Butterflys... Lollipops and Sunshine

So there was a Gay Pride Day parade, on Father's Day no less, we had to make 300 rainbow cupcakes, and 200 rainbow cookies. After spending all day looking at the psychedelicness of all those rainbows started to take a toll on our sanity. We ended up singing every song we could think of that included the words; rainbow, butterfly, lollipop, and sunshine. Including both the movie version of "Somewhere over the rainbow" and the ukulele version.

And of course I had to make some extra for my Gators ... even though we lost. But as always, I'm still a proud Gator!

Its official... My life now revolves around cupcakes!

I just got a job as a baker in a cupcakery! Yes, I could not be more excited. I start bright and early tomorrow morning! And no worries, I will be posting pictures!

On top of that... As you all know I am in culinary school for baking and pastry, but there are a lot of others that are there fro culinary. So there is a competition every quarter called "Battle of the Blades" it is our schools version of Top Chef, but it is directed to the culinary side. In class the other day I was talking to my pastry chef about a cupcake competition, she told me to ask the dean about it. So I went to talk to him about it... His response "Do it," so I did. I went home and made flyers and hung them up around campus. So around Labor day my school will be having its first quarterly Cupcake Challenge! Woot!

This week we had a competition in class where our chef gave each group a picture of a gourmet cake, the group that made their cake look most like the picture won. The cake our group got was a Payard cake, it was pistachio meringue, pistachio mousse and vanilla spongecake. The trick about making this cake was the shape of it. So one of the guys in our group made a mold for us to assemble the cake in. Our hard work payed off because we won.

This is the picture we were given This is the one we made

I think we did pretty good!

Some Cupcake fun... or not

So every time I go anywhere cupcakes are served I have to try one... of course. I went to this adorable little shop called The Girls in Delray Beach. It is an ice cream parlor that has a shop similar to the shop at Cracker Barrel, filled with fun old fashioned and new fashioned toys, yummy candies, and fun trinkets. Out back there is a garden you can walk through that has tons of exotic birds, and a strawberry garden where you can pick your own strawberries. While inside I found a beautiful looking chocolate cupcake with bright pink frosting.

Although it looked fun and tasty, it was actually quite dry. And the amazingly bright pink icing tasted slightly of food coloring. Fail. Oh well. I will definitely be returning to this fantastic shop, although the cupcakes weren't very tasty, everything else was awesome.

thegirlsstrawberryupick.com

Also... check out the newest ink. I got it a while ago, but I haven't had a chance to post a pic yet.

Central Plains

Central Plains... this is basically the entire middle of the country. With foods like Kansas City BBQ and yummy macaroni and cheese.

Wild rice was in a couple of recipes, have you ever tasted wild rice? I'm not really a fan. I remember the first time I ever tried wild rice, my mom made stuffing for Thanksgiving dinner with wild rice in it. I asked her why the stuffing had sticks in it. It is a long grain rice that is very stiff, it doesn't soften when cooked like most rice. You will know when its done because it pops, but watch out, its hot. We made a stuffing with wild rice and corn and wild rice cakes. The stuffing I felt the same way about the first time I tried it, ugh. The corn and rice cakes were pretty good though.

We made pork medallions with a blueberry sauce. Once again, I absolutely love to make jellies and fruit sauces. They are so delicious and for some reason I feel a great deal of pride after each one. Macaroni and cheese is always a favorite. This particular recipe made for an extremely creamy mac and cheese. It only called for cheddar, but I can't resist changing things up, so I added goat cheese. It gave it an amazing little kick. We made Brussels sprouts, and it always amazes me that so many vegetables recipes call for pork. I know it adds a nice flavor, but come on, take the healthiest thing on the plate then add a ham hawk. Which, by the way, is a pigs foot. I just don't understand the consumption of pork. They say you are what you eat, which means you are what you eat eats too. Pigs eat garbage.

And last, but definitely not least, for dessert we made a sour cream coffee cake. It was pretty good, but not a surprise, it didn't have enough cinnamon. Plus I'm not a huge fan of dried fruit, which this was filled with.

Cajun and Creole

It is interesting that the Saints won the Superbowl one weekend, the following weekend is Mardi Gras, and the week in between we are covering Louisiana style food in American Regional. Coincidence... I don't think so. BTW... WHO DAT! I loved this week because we could finally make food really spicy, since before last week we were in the boring northeast.

Anyway... on to the food. We made Chicken and Andouille sausage gumbo. This was actually quite good. But it seems that the recipes we get from our book are always inaccurate, we needed almost twice the amount of stock the recipe called for to ensure the flour was cooked out.

Crawfish etouffe is a soup similar to the gumbo, but it more liquid. Very tasty, and spicy (gotta love the spicy).

Tomato and hericot salad was ok, I'm definitely not a big fan of mayo so I didn't really like it.

Our bread pudding was amazing! Chef Pam said it had too much cinnamon, excuse me, is that possible. I think not. I had never eaten bread pudding before and after reading the recipe I wasn't sure I was going to enjoy it. Bread pudding is essentially soggy, milk soaked, day old bread. Yeah, I know, sounds appetizing right. But it was actually awesome, I loved it, it was like warm, gooey french toast. It was topped with a whisky sauce that another girl in my group made. Apparently she was trying to get us drunk, I had to cook it down for about fifteen minutes to try to cook out the liquor, but the whisky taste was still really strong. Nice addition to the cinnamon though.

On the second day of Cajun and Creole we made yummy fried oyster Po'Boys. An interesting fact about Po'Boys is that they are sandwiches made from cheap ingredients for "poor boys". These Po'Boys have a spicy Aolle sauce. It was amazing.

For the second time in my life I attempted to work with sugar. Thank goodness this time it worked the first time. When working with sugar it is important to get it to the proper stages before adding any acidity to it, and also to remember it is EXTREMELY hot. So this time I made parlines, very similar to peanut brittle in that they are both sugar morsels made with nuts, but these are softer and closer resemble turtles. Our group was a little ahead of time this day so I went and bought some dark chocolate to melt down and drizzle on top. They were so good, and the dark chocolate was the perfect offset to the sweetness of the cookies.

A day of baking

Sunday I attempted yet another one of Martha Stewarts creations. If you couldn't tell I love her projects. In her last issue of Martha Stewart Living she had a recipe for "pear rasberry heart pies." They are a cute and very tasty mixture between a pie and a sugar cookie with a pear rasberry filling.

It was an extremely easy recipe to follow. Its important that the dough is rolled out to 1/8th of an inch, other wise they will be to thick and the dough will be a stonger flavor then the filling. The filling was awesome, the recipe said to cut the pears to a 1/4 inch dice, next time I attempt this I will put the pears throught the food processor so the filling mixture will be more like an applesausce then small chunks of pear. These cookies were absolutely delightful.

On monday, in baking class, we had a practical on bread, thank God for once our bread came out amazingly. I never though getting bread to rise was such a difficult thing to do, but if you dont get the ingredients exactly right, your bread wont rise. The dough was extremely difficut to roll out and shape though, so thy aren't perfect, but the chef said they had a great crust and great flavor.

I also learned how to make two different types of pie crust. In fact they were the exact same ingredients, just different methods. For both crusts all the dry ingredients are sifted together then butter is hand mixed in. For a flaky crust you add the water when the dough has a flaky texture to it, but for a mealy crust the water is added when the dough resembles corn meal. It is important that the water be ice cold so it keeps the butter from melting.

The mealy pie crust was used for lemon meringue pie. The pie is basically lemon pudding with marshmellow topping. The meringue was very tasty but also very tempermental. It is important to make sure the egg whites are completely whipped and have formed soft peaks before the sugar is added, then its just piped on top of the lemon custard and flamed. I got to use a blow tortch, it was awesome!

This is before the blow torch

and after

The flaky pie crust was used to make pecan pie. Not much to say about the pecan pie, mix the ingredients together then pour in the crust and bake. It wasn't set before we left class so we didn't get to taste it. Not that I was that bothered by that, I'm not really a fan of pecans.

Later this week I will be making food from Louisianna, appropriate since the Saints just won the Super Bowl and Mardi Gras coming next weekend. Also I will be attempthing sugar cookies on a stick for Valentines Day. Stay tuned

Floribbean Day 1

Today was a day filled with citrusy goodness, which my burnt fingers were not a fan of. We had hearts of Palm salad, the dressing that the recipe called for was almost completely mayo, needless to say it was disgusting. So we made a lemon vinegrette instead.

We made corn custard which from reading the recipe I thought was going to be gross, but it was quite enjoyable. A mixture of creamed corn and quiche. Quite tasty in fact, I don't know if I will ever make it again, but at least it didnt suck.

Our protien for the day was supposed to be pan seared grouper, but we didn't have any grouper available and pan searing things is not the healthiest alternative when cooking fish. So instead we had grilled tilapia with a tropical fruit relish. It was awesome! The relish called for a red wine vinegar dressing, but it was a little too sour compared to the fruit, so I added some honey for a little more sweetness.

And last, but definitely not least was my famous Key Lime Pie. Chef Pam said it was the best in the class. It better be, not only have I been making key lime pie since I was little, but apon discovering it in Key West on vacation one year I became obsessed. Pretty much where I found my passion for baking. Graham cracker crust made with brown sugar and cinnamon instead of the granulated sugar most recipes call for, and the whipped cream with key lime juice is the icing on the cake, haha.

it was gone in 10 minutes, the entire class loved it
Hope you enjoyed the first taste of the Floribbean!