I don't know where to begin

MASS SCHOOL BAKED THINGS POST - Part 1
First Semester - weeks 4-8

This thing has way too many names. Listed as Three-Strand Braided Bread, Egg Bread & Rolls and Jewish Chalah. First time braiding bread and baking without a bread pan.

My first puff pastry. Formed into Palm Leaves.

Apple Strudels made with the puff pastry.

Italian Style Herb Bread. This was awesome! I ate most of it as toasted pizzas (bread with pasta sauce and cheese).

Danish Pastries. We made the pastry, rolled them, made custard and piped into the center, cut and arranged fruits then glazed.

Swiss Farmer's Bread. I don't know why it's called this, I assume Swiss Farmer's like this. First attempt at scoring bread.

More to come eventually!

learned things

I am in school for Baking and Pastry Arts as you may know or should know if you are a good blog follower. Do you even pay attention to the things I talk about? Whatever... Anyway, I've baked things and I'm proud and want to share them and you are going to enjoy the things I talk about because they are delicious and beautiful. Also, I made them so they are also awesomer because of that. Behold! My first Lemon Meringue Pie, also my first Basket Weave piped pattern!

It was so delicious. Made using regular pie dough or as the French would say, pate brisee. We only use shortening for the fat in our dough which I was opposed to at first. I have always used lard because that's what my Mom uses and it produces a very flaky crust. Being in class, I have learned that some people may have dietary restrictions and cannot eat lard making it hard to sell lard pies. The pie shells were made the day before, we baked them upside down on another pie shell after pricking the bottom (or docking) to prevent too much puffing. The next day we made the filling, poured it into the pie shells and piped the meringue on top. We used the Swiss method for the meringue. This involves whipping sugar with cream of tartar with egg whites on top of a double boiler until the meringue feels hot. Then the meringue is moved to a machine where it is whipped until cool and holds soft peaks. We were shown some piping techniques to use on the pies but I had my heart set on the basket weave. I had seen it done once before and I figured that I could do it, and I could! If you're interested in learning how, this website has a good explaination: http://www.pastrywiz.com/wedding/wedding6.htm

I also made shortbread cookies that were not very tasty. The fat was a mixture of butter AND shortening (bleh). I guess they wanted to keep the cost down (butter is expensive). It was, however, the first time I ever piped cookie dough. We made shells, rosettes and backwards S's. They did look really nice but they were really hard to pipe. The dough was so thick it gave me a hand cramp. Thinking back, I wonder if the fat was too cold to pipe. It is easier if the dough is a little warmer, around room temperature. I'm going to stick with my Mom's recipe though, it's so good! Last I am posting my brownies!

I've made brownies before lots of times so this wasn't anything new but I did get to use a comb on the icing! They turned out really well and one of my group members cut them into really even pieces. There, done my first school blog post. Lots more to come, and a lot more interesting things too.

butterflies that contain butter

And here they are, the promised butterfly cookies!

Aren't they adorable. I love that they all end up looking the same without me needing to try. Sometimes I have a hard time making my work all look exactly the same. I used one of the recipes that came with the cookie press kit. It's a sugar cookie that I added pink food dye to to make them pink. I've also made lemon cream cheese flowers and attempted a gluten free sugar cookie. The gluten free cookies did not do well in the press. They wouldn't stick to the cookie sheet and just spread like crazy. In the end I just balled them up on the sheet.

This is a picture of the cookie press I used with the butterfly dough inside it. I learned a lot about how to use the cookie press before trying this. Lots of information can be found online just by searching for 'cookie press'. I learned that you need to have clean room temperature sheets that aren't greased. The press is held directly on the sheet and you 'press' the dough onto it making sure that it sticks when you pull the press away. It kind of works like a caulking gun only instead of filling spaces in the walks of a house I'm creating sweet cookie shapes.

It came with about 20 different shapes to use. A bunch of them are holiday based (bats, pumpkins, Christmas trees) so I won't be using them for a while.

I also need to post some information on the newest pair of socks I knit.

My parents sent me this yarn for Christmas. I love the way the pattern worked out. It's so nice to have a yarn do the pattern work for me, especially since this is only the second pair of socks I've ever finished. (I have knit two other socks that don't have matches, they might never get one.) I'm hoping to get into more complicated sock patterns soon. Right now I'm working on a cardigan. I really hope I like the way it looks when it's done. Nothing is more frustrating than finishing a piece of clothing for myself only to discover that I don't want to wear it.

I have many pictures of things I've been baking in class. Hopefully they will get up here soon.

crafty Christmas

Behold the wonder that is the Newfie Mitt!

First of all I need to apologize for any spelling or non-sensical writings. I am currently in school part time for Baking and Pastry arts and working 29 hours a week! Needless to say, I'm a little tired. Rambling will occur, stay with me folks.

Oh, and I forgot to mention that a huge congratulations goes to me for being in school! I started early January and it's a lot of fun.

I am in love with this pattern, which is good because I made four pairs! The ones pictured above were for my sister. I also made a pair in a light brown with blue, yellow, dark brown in the 'bear paws'. I think the holes really do look like bear paws. The final pair was a repeat of the black and rainbow ones; I kept them for myself.

With the mitts given to my sister also went two pairs of legwarmers with matching yarn.

This is where I found this FREE pattern --> http://bit.ly/zHO3rH

I also baked Christmas cookies. These are the newest edition to my collection of coveted Christmas cookies... crazy!

Sugar cookies with a dab of vanilla icing and sprinkles. I got the recipe from a cookie magazine or something. These went really fast. Not that I ate them all, my roommates helped too.

Ok, so tired, need sleep. Next post will be pink butterfly cookies! Hopefully soon posting blog thing up go.

bad attendance record

Wow, blogging has not been a priority in my life, as you can probably tell. I've been working on so many projects but left myself no time to post them. Here's a little post to hold you over until I get some of my Christmas stuff up.

I baked a Pumpkin Loaf for my work's annual Christmas pot luck. The recipe comes from my Better Homes and Garden cookbook. It makes two delicious loaves, both very moist. Usually I bake them in rectangular loaf pans but I wanted to do something special so I used two Bundt pans.

The recipe called for about 475ml of canned pumpkin and I only had a 900-something ml can so I only used half of it. I wish I had just used the entire can because the pumpkin was barely noticeable. It was more like a spice loaf than a pumpkin loaf. Still really good but the title is a little misleading.

I wanted it to look nice so I put the one loaf I brought to work on a wooden cutting board and then dusted the loaf with icing sugar. Icing sugar is magic! Look how pretty it is.

That's all for now. Next post I will put up the things I made for my sister's Christmas present!