After six weeks of externship we gathered at the School one more time for our farewells and to receive our diplomas. I was selected to give the graduation speech. Here is a video of the speech I gave (5 minutes) as well as a short recap video of our 30 week experience.
THANK YOU for visiting my blog, for the nice comments and for sharing the experience with me through these pages.
The Time of My Life - Kitchen Academy Graduation Video by Peleg Top from Peleg Top on Vimeo.
The final moments of my time at the Kitchen Academy have now been successfully capped off! It has been an amazing 120 days, 600 hours, and 12,000 mouth-watering moans! Last week was one of our last introductions to a classic international food style. We had a Mediterranean buffet! I was in charge of the falafel station. I made close to 500 falafel balls for the event. It was especially interesting as it reminded me of the first job I ever had after moving to the US. I was a falafel cook at Amir’s Falafel and would spend hours a day frying up those Middle Eastern staples. I found it funny and amazing how things tend to circle back. Here I am, and the trail end of culinary school, and still making falafel balls!
This last week of school has been fairly smooth and easy. It started off with a visit from Chef Rick Jones who was substituting for our regular instructor. This was really great because we all really missed him. We spent the whole day on Monday learning to make sushi. Obviously you can’t really learn to make sushi in one day- its an immense world in and of itself. But it was still a lot of fun, exploring our creativity through an ancient food art.
After our sushi day we got ready for our tasting menu event set for later in the week. All of Tuesday was spent prepping. Robert was my partner for our particular dish contribution (salmon rolls). We made all the fillings, rolled the rolls, and made the complimentary guava sauce. All we had to do when we got in on Wednesday was set up and fire! The kitchen was set up just like a restaurant, complete with inviting decor. The 1st day of the tasting menu had me working in the back of the kitchen. It was very stressful, as I had to create about 40 plates in a half hour. Every plate had to look identical and served warm. It worked out quite well, though I didn’t really enjoy the pressure of it all. The experience also reiterated the fact that I don’t have much interest in working in a restaurant as a cook. Some people can thrive on that kitchen pressure but I know its not for me. On the second day of the tasting menu event I worked in the front of the house as the host, seating people and organizing the dining room.
Our final task as a class was cooking lunch for the graduating group and their guests. The school set the menu so all we had to do was prep, cook, and serve. The 2nd class was in charge of cleaning up, which was a great perk. I don’t think many of us wanted to spend the last day of school cleaning up.
Overall it has been an incredible experience. I’m so pleased that I went through with it. I feel so much more enlightened, stronger, and smarter. I know that these skills will stay with me for the rest of my life. Next comes my 6 weeks of the externship where I will apply my knowledge into the outside world.
Its unbelievable, but there is only one full week left to go! We started this week off with an Asian buffet, which was prepped last Friday. Since the food is mosty fresh and rather quick to make, there wasn’t too much preparation actually required. Nonetheless, the class was divided into groups of 4 for the task. Each group had to create their own dishes and interpret the recipes accordingly. This all had to be well organized and executed in a timely fashion. We pulled together and did really well! We made pad Thai, fried rice, chicken satay, and peanut sauce. We also served up a whole roasted pig! We cut up a fully intact, dead creature, and yet again I found myself somewhat disgusted by it. I think it was extra difficult because it had a face! A face that could stare at you. Moving on…! On Monday we fired up and unveiled all our Asian creations onto all 3 classes of students. Lots of raving moans and satisfied groans were to be heard…Today was spent prepping for our tasting menu event next week.
The theme that we are focused on is an ‘out of the box’ breakfast. So each team has to come up with different dishes based on what a tasting menu consists of: hot/cold appetizers, meat/fish/chicken dishes, vegetarian dishes, and dessert. All together it will be a 10 course meal. I was assigned to the ‘hot appetizer’ wing with my teammate Robert. We decided to come up with a Swedish-inspired dish: crispy salmon rolls with fresh fennel and guava butter sauce. We had all day yesterday to test out the dish and price the ingredients (right down to the salt and pepper seasoning.) Each team has to cost out their own dish and place an order for what is needed. Our entire class budget for the entire meal is $1500. Thankfully because our dish is simple and easy to make, it comes out to about $1.34 a plate. Normally that would sell at a restaurant for about $12. Its just amazing to see the high markup for these dishes. So finally we tested out the salmon crisp rolls and they turned out amazing! We probably made 4 different versions before we arrived at a final choice.
So tomorrow is a prep day for Friday, the last buffet of the school year! We’re doing a Mediterranean buffet. I’m really excited about it and it’ll surely be adding more elements to my Middle Eastern foods repertoire. I promised to bring my own falafel recipe, which will be fun to share with the class…
Welcome back to the Top Kitchen cooking diary! The work we have been doing in the kitchen is now becoming somewhat of a graceful routine. The dynamic of prepping for a day/serving for a day has been a relatively stable system. Different menus and different cooking processes are being explored within every new serving cycle. Although this week we had a slight alteration in the pattern, cooking and serving Spanish tapas all in the same day. Tapas can be found in trendy and traditional Spanish restaurants alike. They are usually presented as small portions on miniature plates and have a wide spectrum of flavor possibilities. We didn’t focus so much on the plating in our class, but created quite an assortment of little creations and ended up just eating the lot ourselves. This included empanadas, various shrimp dishes, and paella. I was put on gazpacho duty and had a successful run. I sort of gave it an Israeli twist, with ingredients like parsley and mint, flavors that don’t normally show up in gazpacho but add a surprisingly nice flavor to it…
Yesterday was game day. We cooked venison, pheasant, and ox tail. I was in charge of the vegetarian dish, another “mystery box” concoction. I created an Israeli salad with quinoa, served with a skewer of grilled vegetables marinated in pomegranate molasses sauce. Today was a complete lecture day, with no kitchen duties in the queue. We learned more about food costing; what budgets are like, how to price a dish, etc. This is something I’ve really been excited about diving into for quite some time. Tomorrow has us preparing for Monday’s service. It will be an Asian buffet. I’ve sort of been dreading this section of the course, as we’ll be roasting a whole pig! I’ve seen said lifeless animal perched up on the shelves as I’ve been walking into school. Now our moment has come! It really makes you wonder about the origins of food and how it applies to your daily life…
So we have only two more weeks left of school! And my six-week externship starts early next month. I ended up getting that part time job at Sur la Table cooking school. I’ll also be training with a company called CEO chefs. They setup cooking events for corporate team building. In addition to all this, I’ll be focusing developing a business and marketing plan to provide cooking classes for the rich and famous. This whole school experience has been nothing short of spectacular and I’m really sad that its ending. I’m really going to miss everyone!
I am really enjoying every minute of this new class. Getting some experience developing a menu and getting a sense of what its like to work in a restaurant kitchen is a lot of fun. Our routine is structured around bi-weekly meal services. The day before each service day is spent prepping, which has us learning the new dishes and techniques as we move along. Today we worked on fabricating rabbits! Not to delve too far into the vulgar, but a skinned rabbit looks exactly like a skinned cat. I admit, not the most appetizing thing to think about. We fabricated 12 rabbits in all and split into cooking teams. I was on the group in charged of making seared rabbit. I also made some pate from the livers that would have been otherwise unused. It was a complete experiment that turned out quite well! Its going to taste even better after it chills overnight. I’ll most likely serve it with crackers and maybe some pickles too…
Tomorrow we’ll be in the kitchen to start cooking and preparing for the service. After presenting the food to our patrons we will start all over again. We’re also still focused on getting ready for our tasting menu to be executed during the final week of class. As a class we decided to create an unusual breakfast, with all sorts of twists and turns on traditional recipes. Robert and I were put on the hot appetizer squad, and we’ll be creating these salmon-potato egg rolls, which we’ve coined “salmon clusters.” We’ll be serving them with a customized jalapeno guava sauce…So that’s it! The next few weeks will be spent developing the recipes, testing them, and costing them (something I’m particularly enjoying). Food and math do go together in the most interesting ways!
Today was a great day. Ashley and I were placed on lunch service. That meant that we made lunch for the entire class at the end of our day with whatever ingredients we could find in the kitchen. I had the idea to make pizza for everyone. Not that I am a big fan of all the wheat, (and not that I would really eat much of it), but I really wanted to practice making pizza dough and getting more familiar with the process. The chef agreed to the idea and I went to work right away. For the dough, I used a recipe from our bread making class, a standard thin pizza crust dough. The baking class chef had some extra pizza sauce and toppings available from their pizza making day which made the process even easier...All I had to concentrate on was really perfecting my dough. We trippled the recipe and made the dough, let it rest and rise and then shaped it in half size baking sheets. I made 7 pizzas which all came out pretty amazing if I can say so myself!
Week 2 of the last term has encouraged us to think outside of the box. We are serving two meals this week, and although some of the menu is designed by the school, we had the opportunity to look into the "mystery box!" What that meant is that we got to create a dish that is made from whatever we can find inside the walk-in. I was selected to be on the pasta dish station along with my good friend Brian. We were told to make up a pasta dish based on whatever we can find in the kitchen. So we looked inside the walk-in and took out a bunch of onions, beef tenderloin, leaks and a bunch of fresh herbs. We created an onion sauce that was to die for. Carmelized onions with roasted garlic sauce was served in freshly made pasta with pieces of beef braised in red wine. And to top it all off, garnished with fried leaks. Yum yum yum!
Just when I thought it couldn’t get any better at school it got even better today! All the work that we’ve done in the last couple of days just came together as we did our first meal service as a group. But again, not before our daily quiz! Today’s questions also pointed us back to lessons past. The questions dealt with the risotto making process, different kinds of vinaigrettes, and the ingredients in pesto sauce. Its really great that we’re tapping into the old information again; its certainly helping to get it all lodged into memory. After our quick quiz, we all went back to our stations and starting setting up the meal service. With about 2.5 hours to get ready, we each got into our stations and started up right away...
Brian and I were in charge of the dessert station. We were given complete freedom to design our cake and ice cream in whatever way we wanted. Brian had the great idea of creating some different designs from tempered chocolate to stick on top of the ice cream. So we piped the chocolate out into all sorts of shapes and forms. I ended up doing the “K.A” initials (for Kitchen Academy!), which turned out really nice. The dessert was a huge hit! And aside from flexing our creative muscle, this exercise helps get us acquainted with the inner workings of a live restaurant atmosphere…
The chefs got us accustomed to responding to orders as they came in. We would echo back commands as they happened. We could hear something like, “3 pork chops, order in!” and we would know to start prepping the dish. The call to “fire it up!” would have us going through the final cooking steps and finally serving it up. Since my partner and I were on dessert patrol, there wasn’t much to be cooked. The call to “fire it up” meant we would have to assemble the dish on the spot. Each plate ordered has to be exactly alike! Consistency in presentation is a very important trait. At about 8:30am, the first class came in to be fed…
By 10am the kitchen filed out and we got to have some leftovers ourselves. Then we finished cleaning. One of the great things about his kitchen is that there is an industrial size dishwasher. It is so nice to be able to quickly clean hundreds of plates in one shot. Tomorrow we start prepping for the Friday service. We’re making pork cheeks and apple tarts…
Today was the 1st day of prepping for tomorrow’s service. It was a really fun day! But of course, nothing happened before we completed our daily quiz. Today’s questions were centered on our knowledge of beef. It was interesting to see how much I did or didn’t retain. I’m happy to report that I remembered quite a bit. After this quick written quiz, we took a special “practical” test. We were given some eggs and cheese and had to compose some quick omelets on the fly. If anything this was a way for the chefs to see what sort of level we are at. Then we started in on the production…
The chefs assigned various jobs to everybody in the class. Different teams were working on different aspects of the dishes. I was assigned onto making the chocolate soufflé cake and ice cream. (I’ve always wanted to make ice cream!) Milk, vanilla, and eggs were all cooked together and chilled. Then I ran the mixture through an ice cream making machine. It spins and freezes at the same time, until it hardens. Then it is poured out of the machine, frozen overnight, and served the next day! That was enormously fun. The chocolate cake was also quite a blast to create. I think that was about the 4th time I’ve made a flourless chocolate cake in the last 2 weeks! I pretty much have the whole process down at this point. They are intensely delicious, so the added practice is very welcomed…
So today was a fairly easy day! We got everything prepped for tomorrow, where we’ll be serving up all our creations. I’ll have to say, I really love the way this class is going. The energy is great, the kitchen is much bigger, and we’re working really well as a team. This is definitely the cooking school experience I’ve been searching for…
We started in on our 4th term today called “APC,” or “advanced professional culinary arts.” It is the final term before we start our externship! We were introduced to 2 new teachers, Chef Gielen and Chef Brown. They both have taught this class many times before and have a great chemistry between them. Today was the first time since the start of my schooling that we didn’t even step into a kitchen! It was a complete lecture day, which was actually kind of refreshing. We got a chance to sit down and have a lengthy chat covering the range of topics that we’ll be dealing with throughout the term. We were also given a surprise quiz! It covered a bunch of technical material that reached as far back as the 1st term. (Hollandaise anyone?) I’ll have to say, there was a lot of stuff I really had to reach for and just couldn’t recall. When concepts aren’t in heavy rotation they can slip through the cracks. If anything, the quiz was a precursor to the daily quizzes we’ll be having during this term. Which is nice because the material won’t have a chance to swim away…
We spent a bulk of our day discussing the major project for the term, creating a “tasting menu.” But before delving into too much detail, we got an overview of some different kinds of menus in existence...A static menu has the same dishes on it every day. A cycle menu changes daily and then repeats in a cycle of the same order. (Schools and cafeterias often incorporate this.) A la carte menus are ones where each item is listed separately (i.e. fast food). In the prefix menu, the price is fixed and you are allowed to choose selections from each course. And then there’s the tasting menu, which we will be presenting on last week of school. Its a special prefix menu designed to offer a sampling of the chefs creations…
It can have anything from 5-12 courses of really small portions. Ours will have 10 dishes. We won’t only be cooking the food, but also choosing a theme for the entire meal, which will determine exactly what the menu will be like. For example, we can go by holidays or different countries as our inspiration. And even though the dishes will be bite-size, the quantity will add up to quite a lot of food! Because of this, the menu has to be very well designed. We also had to start thinking about budgeting. The whole class has 1500 dollars to buy all the ingredients. I’m pretty excited about getting that part down as well; it’s a fascinating area for me. So this week we’ll start the planning process and get into some research for our tasting menus. It was such a great class today! I really learned a lot. Getting the opportunity to thoroughly discuss what we were doing in detail was really nice…
The last few days have been chock full of sweet things, with results ranging from delicate masterpieces to well-meaning missteps. There were 3 main dessert types that we covered: custards, cookies, and chocolate. As a side note, I’ll have to say that this segment of the baking course is so condensed that we are really only able to lightly scratch the surface of each subject. It is interesting to see the chefs maneuver within such restrictive boundaries. Ideally we would have a whole week to fully explore the depth of every topic! But alas, getting a small taste of each has its own rewards…
The custard day was quite interesting and a little challenging. I’m not a big fan of custards myself. Crème brulee is actually one of my most hated desserts! Its not much more than eggs and sugar. However, flan is something I do love, despite the similarities the aforementioned adversary. Perhaps it’s the consistency that does it for me; flan is a lot richer whereas crème brulee is a cooked custard with torched sugar on top. We worked in groups of 4 to create all these recipes. Cooking the desserts was quite challenging mostly because they had to be steamed rather than baked. The challenge with doing that in a classroom of 30 people is that students are frequently opening and closing the ovens to check on their product. This changes the temperature and affects cooking time. The flan turned out fairly good but the crème brulee wasn’t too pretty. It ended up being too eggy; a deranged cousin to a scrambled egg dish. Around the same time in the week that we worked with custard (I’m glad it was a short spell!) we also learned how to decorate cakes!
We spent a whole day learning to do this. We each produced a couple different creams and played around with some piping techniques to create our decorations. I created a completely pink cake! It was a lot of fun; I learned how to make little roses and leaves. The whole class seemed to morph into a virtual cake art gallery! People ran the gamut of cake designs. Baseballs, balloons, and Christmas trees are just examples of cake imagery utilized. It was really amazing, like being back in kindergarten finger painting class! Next up we were lucky enough to have a day of cookie making…
We also broke into groups of 4 for that, mostly because there was such a large amount of product. We had 9 different cookies to make in one day! Everything from chocolate chip, linzer, macaroons, shortbread, and citrus sable cookies were attempted. The cookie recipes were split between the students in the group, though I do wish there was time to tackle each one individually. The chocolate chip cookies (which are supposed to be relatively easy to make) were our weakest link. They turned out really flat and thin. We ended up just throwing them away! The student that created the dough for that particular cookie put too much cream in it, which contributed to the undesirable outcome. But overall it was a good experience and I learned a couple of really great recipes. The macaroon recipe from the book was not nearly as good or rich as the one Chef King handed me a couple weeks ago. I think ill probably end up going back to his when in need. And of course we had hundreds of cookies in class that we took home and gave away…
Today’s class consisted of learned how to make chocolate truffles! First off, we were given a lecture about chocolate and how to work with it. I made white chocolate truffles covered with toasted coconut and then made orange flavored chocolate truffles. Chocolate is such a vast subject, and a 4-hour class just doesn’t cut it. Nevertheless it was fun and gave me the inspiration to learn more about it. At some point I’m going to start looking into taking another course on chocolate alone…
I am also starting to think about my externship, which is slated to start in 6 weeks. I have 3 different pursuits in that end. One of them is working at Sur la Table, which is a cooking supply store/gourmet chef store. (They have one at the Grove) There is a cooking school in the back and I’d love to work there and help out in the kitchen. I actually have an interview there tonight! It sounded like they might give me a few hours a week. The second opportunity that I’m looking into is to work for a company called CEO Chef. Its a company that uses cooking as a team-building mechanism for corporations. This is definitely an area that id like to eventually start working in. They are actually based here in Los Angeles, and I’m having coffee with their CEO next week to talk about the possibilities. The 3rd thing that I’m pursuing is teaching private cooking classes for people at their homes. And I’m looking to spend that portion of the externship time developing a course outline. Eventually I’ll have something I can market and take around town. Tomorrow I have a meeting with the chef at the school who is in charge of externships. He is going to assist in shaping my curriculum…
So I’m really excited about all the opportunities that are lining up. Week 18 is coming to an end, along with the baking segment. Overall, I’m finding that I love to bake! I feel like a have a real knack for it. And I’m definitely looking to spend more time developing some of these recipes a wheat-free alternatives…
A recap is in order! I must start with mentioning my experiences with meringues that began last Thursday. I think I must have gone through something like 200 eggs in the last three days alone! It is amazing how many eggs we go through in this class. So there were a few different species of meringue that we fixed up. The French version, which is the most common style of meringue in circulation, is a very simple recipe. Egg whites are whipped with sugar and a small amount of acid. Swiss meringue is essentially the same thing but cooked over hot water. The Italian style calls for whipping the egg whites in the mixer and adding sugar syrup that’s been cooked. The syrup actually cooks the eggs, adding a very particular sensibility to the texture. All the meringues were a lot of fun to make, except for this one Australian meringue dessert called pavlova. I had to make it three times before getting it right. Initially it was quite a challenge to get the egg whites to successfully froth up. The last stage of the meringue odyssey found us making some little meringue ‘kisses’ rooted in the Italian style…
This was a lot of fun to make and was the first time I got to use the piping bag to squeeze out the little ‘kiss’ shapes. The challenge was to keep the kisses the same size and shape while churning out a large quantity. I think I made close to 150 of them! They cook at a very low temperature for about 2.5 hours. You could hardly call it baking, as it really is just a process of drying. I suppose you could just leave them out for a while and they would dry on their own. Anyhow, the results were nothing short of delicious. And the leftover egg yokes went into an absolutely amazing bittersweet chocolate mousse, one of my favorite things on planet Earth. The next couple days were spent preparing for some other sweet delights…
We started mixing the ingredients together for a New York style cheesecake. As you can imagine, the recipe calls for an abundant amount of cream cheese. We also made chocolate and a caramel sauces to serve with it. Forging ahead on our cake-making path, we composed a simple butter cake. This is essentially a mix of flour, butter, sugar and eggs. It is a real common cake that you’d often see as the foundation for wedding cakes. Then we made an almond financier, which is a cake that is made from almond meal and doesn’t rise very much. It is very dense and sweet, and often served as a tea-time snack in England…
Today we unraveled the stored cheesecake portions from last week. Most students made larger cheesecakes that were in 8 or 12-inch pans, but I decided to make mine as individual dishes, in small 4 inch containers. This proved to be quite nice. Today was an especially great day also because we got make an amazing flourless chocolate cake! The cake has a lot of chocolate, butter, sugar, and no wheat whatsoever. It was really interesting to see what makes the cake fluff. The eggs get whipped up and folded into the chocolate to create that softness. In addition to all this baking we were given an extra recipe, poached pears in red wine and spices…
The sweetness level of this dessert was uncharted and I could hardly even partake in a taste! It is basically a pear that gets poached in a mixture of simple syrup, red wine, cinnamon and other spices. It’s a pretty common dessert that is often considered a main component dessert, plated as it’s own dish or used as a garnish and served with cheese. The very last thing we made were strawberry shortcakes, which were really fun to make. It is a very pretty looking dessert. And that’s about it for this epic baking sequence! Thanks for joining along!
The second phase of the baking segment has begun! This half of the term finds us mastering the sweet subtleties of pastries and tarts! We started the week off by learning how to make all different kinds of creams and fillings. Pastry cream is a very rich (and delicious) blend of milk, eggs, sugar, butter, and vanilla. We were primarily in preparation mode during the earlier days of this week. In addition to creams and fillings we learned how to compose the crumble that sits on top of the tarts. We also made dough for the tart shells. This is called pate sucree, which quite simply translates to “sugar dough.” It is very easy to make and freezes really well. We ended up making a lot of it in class and I got a chance to take some home with me. After we finished creating these building blocks we spent the rest of the week assembling and fleshing out our little masterpieces…
We made a plum crostata and a pear gallete. We also created an assortment of different fruit tarts using plums, strawberries, blueberries, and raspberries. But the cavalcade of sweet things did not stop there. We had a very productive foray into crème puffs, éclairs, and paris-brest. These were all made from this one basic dough, pate a choux. It combines flour and butter with boiling water and cooks until it stiffens. Eggs are then added to make a pasty consistency come alive. When hot, it is piped onto a baking sheet and placed in the oven. It eventually puffs up and becomes very airy inside. It is the ideal vessel for French cream to sit ever so lusciously. And again, a fairly simple dough to make! Another baking technique that will surely come in handy in the future…
This week we journeyed into the world of pies. We made a few basic pie forms, starting with an all-American apple pie. Different pies seem to utilize various dough types; some are made from flour while others consist of such things as graham cracker. The apple pie was one such recipe that called for the latter, resulting in a classically flaky texture. Earlier in the week our school was hosting an event and our pie-making skills were put to the test. We baked a small assortment of pies for all their guests. This included, in addition to apple pie, chocolate cream pie (with graham cracker crust), and lemon meringue. I haven’t historically been a huge fan of lemon-tinged goods but lately it has crept into my palate in a major way. Meringue is also extremely fun to make, especially the blowtorching segment at the end…
We also learned to make cobblers and crisps. Peach cobbler is basically like an upside down cake, with a layer of dough on top of the fruit. The crisp has a similar dough/fruit gravitational relationship. It’s topping consisted of old-fashioned rolled oats mixed in with flour, brown sugar, and walnuts. It has a very cinnamon-y taste to it. All the fruit that we used in these creations (except for the apples) were “individually quick frozen,” or “I.Q.F.” What this means is that after the fruit is cut and peeled, each individual piece is frozen separately. This way they don’t stick to each other in the freezer and create a icy brick…
So the first three days of this week were solely concerned with pies. It was really fun, and I’ve learned some key tidbits of knowledge. Today and tomorrow are our finals, so there isn’t too much to report on that end. I can say that today was really tough. We had to make challah, blueberry muffins, ciabatta dough, croissants, and dinner rolls. We were not allowed to present our work after 10am and I was narrowly able to get mine in only seconds before the cutoff! I did pretty well! Though I did have some trouble with my dinner rolls. I’m still trying to grasp the whole process of fermentation; getting familiar with yeast and how the dough needs to look and feel before baking. For some reason the yeast in my dinner rolls didn’t activate well and they didn’t cook well. I wasn’t too happy with that! Next week we’ll be starting on pastries…
So this week felt like we were getting into some kind of a groove, in terms of baking. We’ve been spending quite some time preparing lots of different kinds of dough for future baking sessions. One particularly notable creation was making pastry and puff dough, also known as “laminated dough.” This refers to a process where a block of butter gets tucked inside the dough and repeatedly rolled out. Eventually the dough becomes laminated with the butter and the two elements are intertwined. The process is actually quite lengthy! I’m not exactly sure what we’ll be using the dough for as that secret has yet to be revealed. Though traditionally they are often seen in Napoleon cakes. One thing I do know for sure is that we made dough for Danishes and croissants. These, along with the laminated dough will be experimented with on Monday. And although they all have different shapes and purposes, one element remains a heavy common bond: the excessive use of butter…
It is incredible how much butter the school goes through every day. I’m going to be thinking twice next time I have a croissant. To put it plainly, the amount of butter used is horrifying. Though once in a while its okay to indulge ourselves and concede to the sinful pleasures that butter can offer…
Earlier this week we finished some more bread recipes including whole wheat, rye, dinner rolls, pretzels, bagels, and yesterday we made a date-walnut rye bread. It was really interesting to see how all the various types of flour behave. The reaction of the gluten in each of them is very different; it determines whether breads are more fluffy or dense. I also feel like my body is getting used to being around wheat all day. I’m still congested and stuffy but its alright, not as bad as it was the first week…
Next week we are getting into the world of pies, which I’m looking forward to. Hopefully we’ll be making one of my favorites, coconut-cream pie. We are still sort of figuring out the curriculum as we go. There have been instances where there has been extra time to pursue side projects. The other day Chef Kim gave me a recipe for coconut macaroons right out of his own personal recipe book. All his measurements were in grams, which was a different and welcomed variation on our typical system, one of multiple conversions. Working in grams is so much more precise and easier to work with. The macaroons had a very simple recipe- butter, eggs, sugar and coconuts, all mixed together at specific stages. I will be serving them this weekend at a cocktail party!
I’ll have to say I really love this baking class. I’m developing a good feel for the whole process and am a lot more comfortable making bread than killing lobster!
This week we continue on our bread-making expedition! This naturally finds us in a daily routine of prepping various dough recipes and baking. I probably won’t be documenting every day of this segment as to avoid repetition, despite the extensive and varied list of items on our production schedule. Today we concentrated on a few internationally inspired flavors. We made Mexican sopapillas (nicknamed “sofa pillows,” fried dough covered in cinnamon and sugar), Armenian lavash bread, sourdough baguettes, and breadsticks. We also prepped dough for pretzels and bagels that we’ll be making tomorrow…
An interesting thing that I’m finding out as we travel through this course is that I’m becoming more and more intuitive with dough. I’m able to really feel how it’s shape, consistency, and texture will affect the final product. This is something that you can’t really derive from a book; it takes direct interaction. You really have to experience the dough a number of times before this sense gets internalized. After all, it really is a living organism! The live yeast helping the dough to reach it’s predetermined (and potentially delicious) fate…
I’m also starting to realize that a lot of the bread recipes are following the same basic 12 steps. It’s virtually the same process across the board, only with different measurements and proportions. I want to get to a stage where I can just look at the ingredients of any bread and know how to bake it without looking at a recipe. I feel like I’m getting there pretty quickly…
