a lifestyle blog
Our last official week of curriculum is complete and it sure was a fun one. Our class time this week covered plated desserts, which was a culmination of many recipes and techniques we’ve learned over the previous months along with education on constructing a visually appealing plate and considerations for creating desserts in a production setting. Most days we spent…
What a week! This week was hectic, but one of the best yet. We focused primarily on lamination, along with some other bread-related things which further cemented the fact that I am in love with laminated doughs. The first part of the week was spent playing around with last week’s brioche in the form of bostock and tart tropezienne, testing…
Technically this week’s curriculum was supposed to cover laminated doughs, but our three weeks of bread and laminated doughs are all kind of blending together. We spent a lot of time on breads this week too, with more laminated doughs (croissants!) coming next week. The outstanding bakes from this week: kouign amann and baguettes. This probably comes as no surprise…
The time has finally come. Long before I even started the program, people asked me what I was the most excited about learning in school. My answer was always laminated doughs and breads. They’re some of the things I love to make (and eat) best, but I also know that there is so much expertise and experience needed to really…
Quite possibly my husband’s favorite food group – this week was all about ice cream. We covered different styles of ice cream, gelatos, semifreddos, frozen mousses, sorbets and granitas. I’ve played around with different ice cream flavors at home in the past, but they pretty much all used the same general technique. I had no idea how much there was…
This week was a little out of the ordinary because we did a whole bunch of different tasks and recipes, rather than being focused on a particular topic. The theme of the week was repetition and timed drills, which ended up being far less intense than it sounds. I was sort of looking forward to the idea of each day…
I wasn’t sure exactly what to expect this week, but in the end I was pleasantly surprised. It was a busy few days cranking out things in the kitchen and we made so many candies and confections that I’ve never made before. Honestly, it’s always exciting when we veer into territory I haven’t yet explored. I never thought I would…
This week was kind of a breeze so I’m not really sure if it felt super short or super long. There were no specific techniques to study and master or complicated bakes to manage. To finish up our study of pastry doughs, we basically spent the first half of the week cranking out cookies. We made peanut butter, chocolate chip,…
There could be an epic love story written about the way I feel about dough. Whether it’s pie dough, cookie dough, bread dough, or croissant dough – I love them all. I’m constantly amazed at how just a few identical ingredients can be combined in different ways to create completely different products. Nearly anyone can make a passable pie dough,…
What a week this was! From cake decorating at the start to our very first exam at the finish, this week was hectic, fun, and a little bit stressful. The first exam is always the hardest in any situation because you don’t know what to expect from the structure and just how deep your knowledge needs to be. Of course…
