This is going to be a big one. It's been a little while since I last posted some photos, so I have plenty to make up for the lost time. These pictures are great because they're mostly...croissants! Everybody loves croissants - it's fun to see what the most popular items are among other students and chefs and administrators in the school are, and croissants are definitely one of them. Particularly ham and cheese croissants. And chocolate. Everyone loves a Pain au Chocolat. The days (this is our second day of making croissants in the past month) where we make croissants, we suddenly become everybody's best friend. Chef's are constantly lingering in and out of the room, checking to see if the croissants are out of the oven yet. The storeroom workers only give us the much coveted gruyere if we promise back several ham and cheese croissants. And students are constantly coming in offering us their goods for the morning. (Quail, at 10am...maybe not so delicious). The best part is that we've never seen most of the students before, but as soon as we have the croissants, they instantly appear, plated meat in hand. So fascinating! And we love it. I love to feed people, and give away most of my pastries each day (getting fat gets expensive - you have to buy new jeans!) and love to see how excited everyone gets about the things you give away. In fact, walking a tray of croissants and rolls downstairs to the staff that runs our school's restaurant, I got mauled - MAULED! - by the students in Kitchen 6. I don't even know where that tray ended up. As soon as I passed their door the tray was out of my hands. So, here they are - a montage of croissants. So, so delicious. Flaky, buttery, tender on the inside, fantastic. Ah.
Ham and Cheese - with a little bit of Bechamel. Delicious!
Plain - this si the shape for the exam, but I made the Ham and Cheese ones straight - so pretty.
Pain au Chocolat.
Ooozing Ham and Cheese.
Took this plate to my buddies at lunch - it was devoured in a matter of minutes - amazing!
My partner for this unit, Mari. She's awesome. (And a seamstress! She's always teaching me cool things to do to alter clothes, and where the best fabric stores are, and is going to let me borrow her dress form!) She's the best. And so happy from eating so many croissants. We make a really great partnership - on Friday we had an in class challenge sort of thing - we had 15 minutes to roll out a tart dough (9"), make an apple compote, and slice apples, and arrange the tart - which is not much time at all! But we finished really fast, and still had time to clean our station (we LOVE to keep our station spotless - partially why we're such great partners). Then one of our culinary chef's who used to own a patisserie in Florida came to judge, (without the names on the tarts) and I won, and Mari won a secondary prize for speed and immaculate workspace. She's the best hehe. And then I won an extra apron and she won an extra hat! It was a very fun Friday afternoon.
Oh this is dangerously good - a Brioche roll, stuffed with Alcohol and Orange Zest soaked Sugar Cubes, that melt on the inside. And then ooze out. So, so yummy. I think the standard is to soak the Sugar Cubes in Grand Marnier and sprinkle with Orange Zest, but I soaked mine in Disaronno Amaretto, and then topped it with Orange Zest. Orange and Almond is one of my most favorite combinations for bready pastries (like Bostock, Mom!). Then sprinkled with big Pearl Sugar - this thing is to die for. Eat it whilst drinking a cup of coffee. My oh my it's good.
Muesli Rolls! It was nice to eat something healthy after all the Croissants and Sugar and Booze - studded Brioche. These have all sorts of dried fruit, oats, millet, sunflower seeds, and some whole wheat flour. Quite nice with a big hunk of butter, hehe. (Kind of defeats the "healthiness - but so yummy!)
I did bring one Croissant home to make a Lettuce (Farmer's Market) and Fried Egg Sandwich. It combines my two favorite things! Fried Eggs and Croissants.
And we made bagels. They were. to. die. for. And I'm not even a bagel sort of girl. But fresh out of the oven, light, not dense and schmacky like ones from the grocery store, these had a beautiful crust, and a really nice malt flavor. The best part is that these would make a really easy homemade brunch treat. You have to make the dough and shape them the day before anyways, then, in the morning, you just put the bagels in boiling water for 5ish seconds, then bake them. Easy as that.
To wrap up this week, I made a wedding cake for some dear friends at church, that are actually about to move to Colorado. They're lucky kids - they will LOVE Colorado - the mountains (he rock climbs and skiis) and the beer (they brew at home) culture which is much more alive and happening in Colorado than it is here, shockingly enough. So, they had a gorgeous garden wedding yesterday afternoon, and I did the cake. You know that house that is in a lot of movies? The big white one with pillars? Father of the Bride...the one with Diane Keaton and Sarah Jessica Parker during Christmas...it looked just like that house. Beautiful. And it even had a huge yard, surrounded by trees and shrubbery to cut it off from the street - this is SUPER rare in San Jose. There are no huge yards here in town, so it was so special they found this place. The ceremony was really sweet - he cried, which proceeded to make the rest of us cry - he's a big ex-marine, so it was extra sweet. The Father of the Bride gave a great toast. The food and home brew was delicious. All around it was a veery special afternoon.
But, the cake always stresses me out. I have no desire to be a wedding cake baker at all. The stress of it all just really outweighs the fun for me. Yesterday after the wedding, I came home, crashed, and woke up with a fever and a super sore throat - I don't think wedding cakes are my calling. However, it was really fun to do it for these guys, and I got lots of solid advice from teachers at school. The head of the pastry department even let me take a turn table home! They are SO tight with equipment there that I didn't even ask to borrow one, but then he caught wind that I was doing a wedding cake, so he just offered to let me take one.
All the flowers are compliments of Trader Joes and Whole Foods - apparently you can really make people quite sick with fresh flowers on wedding cakes. There's the toxicity of plants to consider (which rules out a lot of gorgeous flowers, unfortunately) and whether or not they were treated with pesticides, which would directly touch the cake. So, yesterday morning I had a really lovely morning shopping around for flowers, in this little town just south of here, that is really similar to Aspen, CO, but a little more quaint. But nonetheless it was a good place to shop for flowers. She wanted all coral colors, so I chose some striped coral carnations, and these gorgeous coral roses. And to fill it in, I used waxflowers, which are just so cute.
Waxflowers.
I ran out of vases so I had to use my KitchenAid bowl, hehe.
In the fridge waiting to be flowered!
Finished!
Made it to the venue safe and sound. The driving is by far the most stressful part. I had extra Buttercream and an offset spatula in my purse in case of emergency.
I think it turned out nice.
Here's to delicious things and wonderful marriages!
Cheers.
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