I was pretty busy this week. At work, my work load has practically doubled and I only get about 2 more hours a day to get it all done. I like the pace, keeping busy and all, but a little help on the little jobs would help out a lot. But that's for me to tell my boss, not you. Then, I had two cakes to do. One was originally scheduled for last Saturday but we got snowed in. We never get snowed in. Normally, flurries and a dusting shuts everything down. But this was at least 6 inches and that's unheard of here. So that cake was rescheduled for Thursday. Then the other cake was for this past Saturday. But I also had 40 purse cookies to decorate.

I didn't sleep much last week.

So here are the labors of my love:

I still need to get a picture of the snow day cake from my mom. If I don't post it here it will definitely be on flickr.

Coffee Profiteroles

So, I was being mopey yesterday. A don't get outta my pjs all day and I don't wanna do anything kinda day. But to try to get out of my blah blues I wanted to do something and that something is almost always baking related. So I pulled out my old friend, The Art and Soul of Baking. For some reason I've been wanting to play around with pate a choux so that right there narrowed it down. And it had to be sweet. But profiteroles or eclairs. Hmmmm. I decided profiteroles. (And you would know this if you read the previous post).

I didn't want to make just plain old profiteroles though. Not a big fan. Well, I have a lot of coffee and coffee related products lying around so POOF! coffee profiteroles. I made a basic pastry cream and instead of vanilla I added 3 T kahlua. It tasted like heaven! If you like coffee.

Then for the ganache topping I added 1 t kahlua to the milk right after it came to a boil. But it threw off the ratio of milk to chocolate so I ended up adding a lot more chocolate than I thought I needed. Thank goodness I had that lying around too. Unfortunately I didn't keep track of how much I threw in because I just started adding whatever I had. Let's just say I did a lot of finger crossing and praying for it to turn out.

Then for the last touch I sprinkled it with gold sanding sugar. Again, cause it was lying around. I was gonna sprinkle it with cocoa powder but I was trying to get rid of the sugar. Anyways, it all makes for one very good profiterole.

Sometimes the blahs are good :)

Pate a Choux (this recipe is Art & Soul's but the method of prep is in my words)

1 cup water

1 stick butter or 1/4 cup butter

1 cup flour

4 eggs

Preheat oven to 400*. Cube the butter and put in saucepan. Add water and bring to a boil. As soon as it starts to boil add flour all at once and beat the flour until it is well incorporated. Put into bowl of stand mixer and beat with paddle attachment till bowl is warm to touch. Add eggs one at a time until it reaches the right consistency (this part is about the hardest part since it's hard to describe, but the batter shouldn't be really thick but it shouldn't be slack at all either). You may not need all the eggs called for in the recipe. Use your best judgement. Continue beating until the gluten is developed. To check for this pinch some batter off with your forefinger and thumb and try to stretch the dough. If it breaks it isn't ready. If it stretches without breaking as you pull your fingers apart, it's ready. Another thing to look for is the "wagon wheel", a chef instructor told me that as the paddle is going around it will leave a wagon wheel pattern in the dough. You may say "Huh?" now but if you try this and look for it then you'll say "OH! Wagon wheel! I get it!". On cookie sheets lined with parchment, pipe desired shapes out: rectangle for eclairs and rosette for profiteroles. I might actually try to demonstrate this one day but until then, I apologize. Bake for 20 minutes at 400*, drop temp down to 350* and bake for 20 minutes, drop temp again to 300* and bake for 20 minutes. Let cool before filling. Can be frozen and stored for later use.

I'm doing these again soon since apparently they were rather popular. And the guy that fixed my computer is taking payment in eclairs. So I will fill you in with the recipe for the pastry cream when I make then again. I'm playing with flavors so tune in!

Fun With Pate a Choux

Right now I'm working on profiteroles. In fact they are in the oven as I type. I'll post again when they are all done but I thought I would share a funny story about these first. I once had a boss that thought these were soooo difficult to make. In fact she kinda made it a test to see how good you were. I never got to try them out with her because I was just a cake decorator there. But, and this is the funny part, these are soooo easy to make. She was just one of those people that thought too highly of herself and made it seem like anything she did was to much for anyone else to do. And something else that was funny about her: she called her profiteroles eclairs. Eclairs and profiteroles are basically the same. But if they are long they are eclairs. If they are a ball they are profiteroles.

Anyways, didn't say this was going to be an enlightening post. Just wanted to share something amusing before I shared my work.

Do You Remember Me?

Yeah. So ummm. It's been awhile. How've you been? Whatcha been up to? Oh really? Wow. Very interesting. Oh. Me? Well, not much. Just school, work, kid. Same ole same ole.

I've been keeping busy in the dessert and pastry world. Not so much in bread. Which is a shame. I meant to make challah for Thanksgiving but I ended up pretty much doing everything for that dinner that there was no time for that. Instead of going through a whole essay of work I've done I'll just share the pics:

My turkey. Isn't he pretty?

Orange tartlets.

Bunny groom's cake. Not my work but my friend helped out for this wedding.

Wedding Cake. This ended up being pretty tall. Or taller than I'm used to dealing with. It was a nightmare getting it set up.

P.S. Cassie, you happy now? :)

WOW!

Just realized I haven't been here since August. But in my defense my computer's been sick and I haven't been able to upload pics. I could use my mom's mac but we don't like each other (the computer and me that is). I have been busy. I've finished almost all my culinary classes, I'm finishing up my gen ed right now, and I have a wedding cake this weekend and another possible job later. I've been taking pictures, so when I finally get around to uploading them somewhere I'll post all of them.

Hello... Again

To my few followers, I've missed you. I've been busy busy busy. I started one job and then ended up taking another job somewhere else. A steadier job with a possible future. Say it ain't so! It can't be true.

So anyways, I haven't had much time for anything. In my free time I sleep. I'm one of those now lol. But I just started my pastry class (and my last lab class for school, YIPPEE!) so whatever cute things I make there I'll try to take pictures and show it off. I am also entering a cake competition so there will be pictures from that. And I've been comissioned to do a couple cakes coming up so there will be pictures from that too.

And lastly, very certainly not least, my last chef instructor suggested I try getting into this pastry school down in Orlando. He says with a letter from him I'm as good as in so I just need to find the money to do it. Anyone willing to make a contribution? :) But that probably won't happen til next summer at the earliest.

I hope to get back on here again real soon with something worth talking about and showing off. Later.

Blueberry Buckle From Cook's Illustrated

Wow! Long time no see. This will be super short because I'm coming from one appointment and getting ready to go to my job and really I should be spending this time with my little girl. But I made blueberry buckle the other day and I just had to share this pretty picture of it.

Buckle is a kind of coffee cake, so Cook's says, and it is, but as they also say it is mostly fruit. Like 2 parts fruit to 1 part batter. Hopefully tonight I'll sit down and add the recipe to this post. Be patient to the few of you that actually read this and haven't given up on me. :-P