Yummy dinner

Tonight was our group's night to eat in the restaurant.  We spent class time making up two cheesecakes for service and we got our puff pastry dough made up and our beurrage (butter block) started as well.  We got to the restaurant, and because it wasn't a busy night, we got to sit at a regular table instead of just at the bar, which was nice.  I had salt cod and potato croquette for a starter, a dungress crab salad for a, well, a salad, the mussels and clams for an entree, and the angel food cake with the sorbet trio for dessert.  The food was all great and it was fun because this time I actually knew a few of the students who were cooking the food!  There was only one waiter that night, and while it wasn't a packed night, Jeremy was running around because there was a large party of ladies who were drinking a lot of wine and kept him on his toes!  They were obviously having a good time, though one lady was really loud and was right behind me.  Still, they seemed to be enjoying themselves all the same.  

Today I went in to school (again) to finish laminating my puff pastry dough (where I carefully fold and roll in the beurrage which will make it puff up if done right) and make up and laminate my blitz puff dough.  There were consumer classes again, so I didn't get in until about 1:30pm, but I got it all done.  Tomorrow I am starting a small business class, which is every Sunday in the month of February.  It goes from 8am-1pm, and after that I am hoping to roll out my puff pastry dough and portion and shape it for 4 different pastries.  If I get time, hopefully I can also portion and shape my blitz dough for the 2-3 different pastries it makes, and that would make me real happy.  I am going to hopefully prep some stuff for Monday's bread as that is where our group will be.  Monday bread group is the hardest, because usually you can prep and pre-make some of the bread to bake fresh the next day, but when you have a weekend before your day, it rushes us a bit more since the breads take so long to bulk ferment and then proof.  I'll at least make a yeast start so we can make focaccia since it is a quicker yeast bread.

And now my laundry is done and so I am off to bed!

New dessert menu

So yesterday was the first day of the new desserts and today our group was in service.  Dan was not here today, so it was Carly and I in service again, but at least there were only 32 people in the restaurant and not 50 or so like the last two times.  Our new dessert menu is as follows:  Choice #1:  Chocolate Dream Torte - same cake as before (because it is the most popular dessert we keep it on all the time) but with different chocolate filigree on the plate.  Now it is a chocolate filigree filled in with a coffee sauce.  Choice #2:  Angel Food Cake - you get a slice of angel food cake with a little creme anglaise and a caramel bowl (it is a disk of caramel which we shape into a mini bowl) that has 3 flavors of sorbet in it.  Choice #3:  Rum Baba - you have a baba (a type of cake) that is soaked in a rum dessert syrup and served with a little whipped cream, fresh oranges, and fresh berries.  This one is still my fav so far.  And Choice #4: Cheesecake - you get a slice of yummy cheesecake with a graham crust with a mango and raspberry sauce swirl, a whipped cream, and a mint leaf.  They're all yummy and fun to plate, but it is hard to get into plating a new dessert when the old set is so ingrained into us already.  But I like these ones.  They're  a bit more colorful, though personally I think the dream torte needs at least whipped cream and a mint leaf to lighten the plate up a bit.

I still feel super far behind, but I don't think I am too too far.  Today we got only the things we were given for the restaurant done (2 dream tortes, 2 cheesecakes, and 16 caramel bowls) before we had to go to service.  It was kind of crazy, because the demo seemed really short but time went by really fast, so I think it was a bit longer than I'd thought.  Perhaps it is because Dan wasn't there, but I felt like Carly and I had barely gotten anything done before it was time for service.  By the time we got to the caramel bowls, I felt a bit rushed, but luckily they are a quick thing to make.  We have this caramel batter (not sure what is in it just yet as there was leftover from what was made yesterday), but you scoop a small amount that is maybe the size of a medium sized marble (?) onto a silpat type mat, though you can probably do it on a butter sheet pan or perhaps on parchment.  You bake it in a low oven for 10-15 minutes until it turns a nice caramel color and then pull it out.  Once it cools just enough to be picked up as a whole disc, you lay it over a brioche mold (which is fluted) and then put another mold on top of it.  It then hardens to the shape of the mold, making a pretty bowl to serve our sorbet in!  Tomorrow we should be prepping for bread on Monday by at least scaling out things, but then tomorrow is our group's night to have dinner in the restaurant, so that cuts our night short too.  Though tomorrow I will not complain because I know we'll be getting super yummy food!  :)

More snow & my first band-aid

So it snowed here over the weekend on Saturday night, but had melted by Sunday at noon.  I had known there was a prediction of snow, and it was fine, because I got to watch it be all pretty as it fell, but it did not cancel school.  Today I wake up - with no prediction of snow - and find it snowing.  Quite a bit.  I hope, hope, hope they don't cancel classes, we really don't have time for anymore snow days!

So yesterday, I finally had my first "injury" in the kitchen.  I cut myself on my knife while cutting our dream tortes on my middle finger of my left hand, but not very deep at all - so quit worrying!  I got a bright blue band-aid and a bright blue finger cot, so it looked a little weird, but oh well.  So yay, my first - and hopefully the last and the worst - injury in the kitchen and I survived!  :)

Seattle fun and 50 more desserts

Well I had meant to get back into posting regularly on here again and I have definitely slacked off, sorry.  I will attempt to make up for it though and be better this week!  I got a loooot of pictures of my trip to Seattle, but unfortunately my camera is choosing now to stop working.  I can take more pictures but can't seem to get them off.  These pictures are from my friends cameras, but they aren't all of the pictures and I will try to get mine to put up soon as well!

So last weekend was our last "extra" day off that we get until the end of school, so I went up to Seattle with my friend Ashley from school.  We had MLK Day off on Monday, so we packed up my car with our overnight bags and two bags of bread EACH to give away to family and friends and left on Sunday morning.  With a stop at Voodoo Donuts for breakfast (mmm... best donut is the bacon maple bar still!), we were on our way.

The official "Voodoo Doughnut" though Ashley got a special 3 eyed one  :)

While not the best picture of me, it is a picture of the best donut ever, the maple bacon bar!  Mmm...  you know you want to try one!

We got to Seattle at noon and our first stop was the Space Needle.  While I love things like skydiving, the moving elevator up to the top of the needle makes my stomach all queasy, blah!  But once we were at the top it was great!  The weather was perfect for our trip - I guess it had been cloudy before that weekend, but it was beautiful and we could see the mountains and everything!  While it was a nice sunny day though, the temps were really cold, so we tried to stay in the sunlit side of the needle as best we could.  

We managed to get a shot of the elevator on its way up to the top.

The views from the top really were gorgeous!

Down in the gift shop, we had a great time trying on crazy sunglasses that we hope no one ever buys!  Unfortunately all the pictures of Ashley in the sunglasses are on my camera, so instead I have only embarrassing ones of me, yay!  We found space needle shaped cookie cutters, so we both got one and now have to figure out what kind of cookies are best in the space needle shape!  :)

These are THE sunglasses available for tourists.  Any takers?

Gorgeous!

Because we know all I care about is the money...

After the space needle, we rode the monorail.  We thought when we looked it up online that the monorail went all the way to Pikes Place Market, but we were wrong and it went instead only to the mall.  Since that was only a couple of blocks from the market, we got out there and wandered in a few shops and then headed to the market to meet Ashley's friend Ciara.  We wandered amongst some super huge yummy looking seafood and met Ciara next to a big bronze pig, which I decided not to wrestle this time around, though I did give it a kiss and Ashely and I tried to ride it!  Since the weather was so cold and the temps kept dropping at night, our butts were freezing on top of the bronze piggy!  Unfortunately that is another picture on my camera, so I will try to get it to put up as soon as I can!

Ashley - left, Ciara - right.

After we met up with Ciara and wandered the market some more, we left to meet my friend from high school, Patty, at a coffee shop by where she lives.  Unfortunately since it was after work rush hour and we weren't positive where we were going and were just following printed off directions, Ciara got on the freeway first and couldn't make it across all the lanes and missed the exit, but Ashley and I made it.  We then tried to give reverse directions with no map to get Ciara to where we were waiting for Patty, and after a lot of confusion, the four of us made it back together and went to get some coffee from a cute coffee shop and had a great visit with Patty.

After coffee, Ashley, Ciara, and I went to drop our stuff off at Ciara's grandparents boat where we were going to stay the night.  Once again, we were trying to follow each other and right at the last minute got separated, but luckily we could turn around quickly and met up at our destination, the Seattle Yacht Club.  We dropped off our things and started the heater up - since it was in the 30's that night - and I called my friend from college, Scott, who gave us directions to a restaurant by his house.  He gave us what seemed like good directions, but somehow - again - we got lost.  Reeeeally lost.  We wound up calling my dad - twice - to give us directions from two other locations (with addresses!) and still were lost, so we just started heading in what we hoped was the general direction.  Eventually we were in an area that Scott recognized as the right area and he directed us the rest of the way - with directions ending with "park near the big statue of Lenin".  Finally, 2 hours later, we got to Norms!  The food there was great - and not just because we were starving either - and it was a lot of fun seeing Scott again since I haven't seen him in about 4 years and getting to meet Jackie, though I forgot to get pictures with them.

On our way home from Norms though, we stopped to see this gigantic stone troll who is crushing a REAL Volkswagon beetle!  Scott had told us about it and so we decided to go see it while we were in the area (instead of getting lost again trying to find it the next day!)  It was crazy big and when you see it coming up the hill as you drive towards it, it is crazy - especially at night! 

There is this crazy smoke that was there in the beginning and then disappeared, but we can't figure out where it was coming from.  Kinda creepy...

Aww, he really loves me!

This was supposed to look like I was picking his nose, but obviously I was a little too short to do the job and now I just look weird with my arm sticking out.

Under the hand Ashley is sitting on to kiss the troll is a reall VW bug!

After the troll, we got heading back to the yacht club and after a quick stop for some munchies -we were still hungry - we got to the docks around midnight.  By this point, the temperature is freezing or below and we are tired and ready for some comfy PJ's and bed.  We get to the door at the end of the dock that our boat is on, and we had tried propping it open, but it was closed.  No problem, since there is a security guard there all night long, plus the lights in the club were still on so people were still in there.  We walked back to the club in search of the security guard to let us in, but could find no one.  No one answered our knocks in the building and no doors were open.  Okay, so we went back to the door at the dock and called security button.  Nothing.  We saw lights go off in the building so we ran back to find whoever was closing up shop.  Again, nothing.  By this point, it was 12:45am, and we were freeeeeezing!  No one seemed to be around, so we don't know what happened to Mr. Security Guard, so we took matters into our own hands.  [There were a whooooole bunch more pictures from this, but for some reason they didn't all get uploaded, so I will try to get them soon!  Just use your imagination though, I am sure it will be similar to what actually happened!  :)]  We pulled down a rowboat from the Yacht Club stash of them - specifically, rowboat SYC 5.  We pushed the boat into the water by the dock and Ciara and Ashley got in it, while I waited thinking any moment security would show up.  We never realized just how easy it was to get into a random boat, but obviously on nights like that one, it was.  So Ciara and Ashley rowed the little boat under the dock to the other side - which I was so glad at this point that I didn't go on the boat, because I can just imagine the big spiders hanging out under the dock, ewwww!  They made it to the other side, climbed up a ladder back onto the dock, and came around to open the door for me!  Whew, finally!  It was now around 1am and we were just now getting to our boat, yay!  We stayed up for a bit waiting for the other heaters to warm up the rooms and then went to sleep.  

And they're off...

They made it out from under the (probably spider filled) dock...

There is the saving boat, SYC 5, waiting just where we'd left it the night before.

The next morning was still super chilly, but we got up and going as best we could, though we were running a little late to meet my cousin Shannon back at Pikes Place Market.  We had a heck of a time finding parking and finally parked in a parking garage that we thought was closer to the market than it really was, but eventually we made it up there and met Shannon at the bronze pig and watched the market fish guys tossing big, BIG fish around like they were baseballs!  Crazy, but fun to watch!  We all went to have a super yummy lunch at Pike Brewing.  After visiting with Shannon, we said our goodbyes and about 15 minutes later realized that I hadn't given Shannon all the bread I had brought from home for her and her husband, so I called her to make plans to meet up and deliver the bread later before I left town.

Ciara, Ashley, and I wandered around the market some more and watched a bakery making something that would be similar to cinnamon rolls, but they weren't rolling them.  We weren't sure what they were making, but it all smelled good at that store!  We also watched a cheese shop making fresh cheese and listed to some street singers in front of Starbucks.  Eventually though we said goodbye to Ciara and went to my car to go meet up with Shannon by Seattle University.  We got slightly turned around after we missed a turn, but not too bad and met up with Shannon and delivered the numerous loaves of bread.  As we left the city, the sun was setting and was beautiful as we went down a hill to get on the freeway.  The drive home was crazy though, because as soon as the sun set some crazy thick fog set in and was like that for half of the drive.  We finally stopped to get some food at Jack-in-the-Box in a city called Tumwater (no clue where it is), but luckily when we got back on the freeway, the fog had cleared.  Unfortunately, I seem to have a problem with drink cups as coffee cups tend to pop off their lids as do soft drink cups tend to pop off their lids as well, while in my hand - especially in my car.  So about 30 minutes into the drive from getting food, my drink lid pops off and spills all over me and pools into a freezing cold pile of ice under my butt.  I take the next exit off onto some random road and hop in the back seat to change my pants to my PJs so I can have a warm bottom to drive the rest of the way home in.  Ashley thought the whole thing was hilarious - which looking back it was - but all I could think about is how I was changing clothes with a super cold butt.  :)

We did make it home though and it was a great trip all around.  We had a lot of fun and ate some super yummy food.  It was great seeing friends and we'll probably try to go up again next month sometime!

This last week has been pretty crazy.  While last week was busy busy busy with artisan breads, we seemed to keep up pretty well even with two days of only 2 of our group in class.  This week is another story.  We started on sweet breads, and for some reason all the desserts and breads we had to make for the restaurant seemed to take extra long so we seemed to keep getting behind on our sweet breads.  We only got doughnuts checked off (our third kind!) and did finally get a bee sting and panettone loaves made on friday for check off tomorrow.  For some reason our sweet dough, which is for both sweet rolls, sticky buns, the bee sting, and coffee cake didn't work our the first time, so we had to remake it.  We did finally get our croissant and danish dough made, but tomorrow we will have to layer in the butter (which makes it flaky) so we can make up bear claws and filled croissants and stuff in class.  We still need to make our babas (for yuuuuummy rum babas!) and brioche, but the brioche is temperamental so we are waiting to have Chef there to help us make sure we put them in at the right time.  

Friday we were in service again, and again with only 2 people.  Yet again, we got the night that the dinning room is filled with close to 50 people, but this time it went a little more smoothly.  Carly and I went to service and Dan would come to check and see if we needed him to help out, which we did in the middle when one extra dessert was called for while we were trying to get out the rest of the desserts, so it was good to have the extra set of hands!  This time, it actually went quite smoothly.  We had a lot of 2-4 person tables, instead of the 6-15 person tables of the last big service night.  Carly and I just went into the kitchen at 7pm and started plating up about 10 of each dessert.  At first we thought we had over prep-plated, but in the end we wound up with only one extra dessert made - the one that was called for midway through the evening - a diner had changed his mind on dessert and then changed it back - so that is pretty good!  We had a little problem with the chocolate sauce not being the right kind made, but Chef Cherif said he would make sure we had it ready for next time.  He is still figuring out what he needs to make sure we have made in class before service, but he is getting the hang of it.  It all went pretty smoothly though, and we got all the desserts out on time, yay!

So yesterday, Carly and I went into school to try to catch up on some of our doughs, but unfortunately all the kitchens were full with public consumer classes.  Last time I went in, there were classes, but the back half of the kitchen was empty, but not this time.  We decided to come back today and try again, and we finally got in.  Chef Hammer was nice enough to let us use the extra tables in her Artisan Breads consumer class, so we started in the T3/service kitchen.  We eventually moved to the T1 kitchen when the Knife Skills class was done because it is right next to our regular kitchen (that the weekend baking and pastry class was in), so it was easier to go back and forth for ingredients and such being closer to our kitchen.  We wound up only getting two doughs done and nothing made up, but that is okay.  Making things up is easier than making the dough up because a lot of the dough we are making requires a sponge.  This sponge then has to ferment on its own before being made into the full dough and then that dough usually has to be refrigerated before using, so it will be perfect when we get to class tomorrow.

Pics of breads and plated desserts

Okay, so I tried to remember to take pictures of all my breads BEFORE I either gave them away or froze them, and I did pretty well this time!  I also took my camera to school and managed to get a picture of a few of the desserts we plated last night, yay!

I accidentally had already eaten the half of my Ciabatta that I didn't already freeze, so this is what is left of the Ciabatta.  Usually you see the small square rolls for sandwiches at the store, but this is from a whole large loaf.  This is one of the yummiest yeast breads so far!

This is our Focaccia bread that was topped with Proscuitto, basil, oregano, and garlic.  Very tasty!  Some pizza places use this for their deep dish pizza and as you can see it would be a nice thick pizza bottom to it.

This is the Burli bread, which we also did a second time yesterday, but I only took a picture of this one.

This is the Sourdough loaf with Gorgonzola cheese and walnuts in it.

This is the Pane Di Como bread.  This picture isn't the best but if you look at it right, the part that split open makes it look like a clam!

This is the Pane Pugliese. 

This is the Pain au Levain.

Here is the first batch of chocolate chip muffins.  I didn't bring home any of the purple chocolate chip muffins though, so no pictures of those.

So yesterday was kind of crazy.  Carly was sick, so it was just Dan and I in our group, which was fine, and we actually got all of our breads for the day out quite quickly.  We had to make two dream tortes as well, so I started on those (I swear I've made at least ten if not more dream tortes already!) and Dan started on our breads.  We had to make two loaves of one kind of bread each and one loaf of another bread as well.  We choose to do the Rye loaves for our double loaf bread and the Burli for our single loaf since those were the ones Dan missed on the day he was gone, so that way he'd be caught up.  We had to make two loaves of the Rye so that we could see the difference between using the regular straight dough mixing method and the autolyse mixing method.  The autolyse method should shorten the whole process overall by doing a little premixing action to start.  When it came time to make up the Rye rounds, we did notice that the autolyse dough did seem softer than the regular mixed dough did, and it did take less time to proof than the other dough as well.  We actually ran out of space in the ovens and wound up using the brand new fancy oven (with steam injectors!) in the T3 kitchen for our autolyse loaves, and they came out beautifully even if the oven did smell somewhat like plastic at first since it is still super new!  

Well, after we got all of our dream tortes made and baking, and all of our bread mixed and proofing, Dan and I were pretty much done and it was only 5:30pm.  Today was actually a catch up day for anyone who was behind on their breads, so it was okay for us to be done somewhat early.  We would have liked to make more bread, but we were unsure if we would have enough time to go through the whole process before we had to go to service and that was NOT the day to be late to service.  So we decided to find another muffin recipe to make the type of chocolate chip muffins we had wanted to make yesterday - pretty much a white muffin recipe with chocolate chips in it.  Once we found it, we scaled out and made our light purple muffins as we had wanted to before and they came out super yummy!  Chef yet again gave us weird looks for making colored food, though he did say that as long as we placed these muffins at the eye level of children, they would be good sellers!  :)  After the muffins were done, we just did a lot of chocolate filigree, trying to practice designs for the upcoming petit fours this term.  There is a really pretty swan design that I like and got down pretty well, though a little big for a petit four, which I will have to work on the size a bit.

So this term we are cutting down to only sending 2 people to the service kitchen so that we don't have so much down time over there.  Since Carly was sick, Dan and I were the only to two left so we of course were going to service (after we had a yummy Chef Hammer dinner of chicken pot pie!).  We have a new chef, Chef Cherif, who will be taking over for Chef Hammer down in the service kitchen Wednesday through Friday, so he came down with us today as well to see how things go.  Tonight though was the 50 plate night and as soon as we got in the kitchen it didn't let up.  We had some big tables - one was a birthday, one was a red hat lady dinner, and then some small normal sized tables.  We wound up plating so many desserts and it was crazy trying to make sure the tickets were all filled correctly and ready on time, but it was a lot of fun and we pulled it off!  Chef Cherif even made some fancy decorations for the desserts as well, which was nice to see what we will get to do later once we get into that stuff more.  We actually got to the end of the night at 9pm, got the kitchen all cleaned, and were just waiting for the last ticket to go out, and found out there were no more tables missing dessert.  Then where did this last ticket come from???  Haha, no one found out and so we gave the waiters and other kitchen people the last desserts that we had extras of, which they of course love!

This is our big bag of whipped cream to make rosettes with.  It had been completely full at the start of service.  In the front of the picture is a cornet which we fill with melted chocolate to do chocolate filigree.

This is the apple strudel dessert for the restaurant.

This is the chocolate dream torte for the restaurant.  Chef Cherif added the fancy chocolate "feather" on top and the suuuuper yummy coffee dessert sauce on the side.

This is the caramel nut tart.  Chef Cherif also added the caramel "feather" on this one as well.

The only dessert not pictured is the brownie sundae.  The brownies are in the back of this picture, but we had no more sundaes going out by the time I had a chance to take some pictures.

I thought I had taken a picture of Chef Hall, but it wasn't on the camera for some reason.  But this is our new instructor, Chef Cherif.

This is Dan with his hat illegally backwards trying to figure out if we have anymore desserts that needed to get plated or not...

Overall the service tonight was crazy with sooooo many desserts going out, but Dan I felt pretty good that we managed to get them out without too much help.  Chef Hammer had to leave early, so while Chef Cherif was there tonight, we were kind of teaching him out the process goes of getting the dessert numbers, plating the desserts, waiting for the tickets to be fired, and sending them out at the right time.  It went pretty smoothly, and Chef Hall would come to check on us, but I think Dan and I did a pretty good job on our own.  It was fun to be under a little more pressure like that, but I am glad that it is over now too.

After class I went out with Ashely to get some food and we stopped by Voodoo Donuts., which was really busy by the time we got there late at night.  Everyone must have had the same idea to get some donuts.  I had a maple bar with bacon on top that was really good and took home a chocolate cake donut with chocolate icing and cocoa puffs on top of that, which was pretty good, but I liked the bacon maple bar better.  Mmm... Voodoo Donuts are yummy...

Part way through the week Ashley and I decided to go to Seattle this weekend.  We have Monday off for MLK Day, and it is our last day off until graduation, so we are going to stay tomorrow night and come home Monday evening, but I'm going to get to see my cousin Shannon and hopefully my friends Patty and Scott, and Ashley has some friends we're going to meet up with as well.  I'm excited about going to Seattle since I've never been (or was to young to remember) and so we are going to try to go by the Space Needle and take an underground tour that sounds fun.  The weather looks pretty nice so it should be a nice trip!

Desserts for 50 tonight!

So yesterday we made more and more and more bread!  Okay, maybe not that much more, but it felt like it!  I made Pain au Levain, Pane Di Como, and Pane Pugliese, all which are yummy and hopefully pictures will be up soon!  We lined all of our Pane Di Como up and they looked like a bunch of little clams!  I also got my Sourdough with Gorgonzola cheese and Walnuts checked off, though our loaves came out gigantic!  They are usually about half the size, but for some reason when Carly and I made ours on Wednesday, they proofed up extra big and seemed to just keep expanding, so we had extra large loaves!  We actually (wow) ended up with some extra time on our hands at the end of the night, so our group made some chocolate chip muffins, which we were going to color purple, but then realized there is cocoa powder in the recipe and so that would cancel out any coloring we had, so they were just normal chocolate chip muffins instead, but still yummy.  We traded with the other two groups who had made some cookies though, and they were yummy as well.  With all this bread though, my backpack is suddenly feeling very small!  Everyday it feels like I have less and less room!  I need to find a small, small back that can pack up very small until I need it, because our lockers aren't all that big either.  I saw one somewhere when I was Christmas shopping, so I will have to go wander again and find out where I saw it.

Today our group is in service and this term we are cutting down to only two people in service, because if not there is just too little to do for a group of 4 and so too much waiting around, so with only two people it will keep us busier.  If all goes well, then next term we will be down to just one person in service by ourselves - since we'll be pros at it, right?  :)  While only having two in service is all fine, tonight we have a laaaarge party of 50 people scheduled, so we are trying to convince Chef to let our smaller group of 3 have all our people down there, but we'll see what happens.  Probably depends on if all of our bread is done by the time service comes around or not.  50 desserts sounds a bit daunting, but it also sounds like a challenge, so I think it'll be okay.  I just hope we have enough dessert for 50 plates!  That is a whole lot of dream tortes, caramel nut tarts, brownie sundaes, and apple strudels going out!

Term 2 has begun!

Well, my first term ended on Monday with a test.  I studied a lot and think I studied too much stuff, but I felt pretty good about it going in and I got an A on the test and an A in the section, so that was good!  I got all my products checked off on my sheet that night (the last was bagels and pretzels) and even had time to make raised doughnuts, though I think we didn't let them proof the second time long enough.  Natalie and I glazed them with a blue-purple glaze that make Chef just shake his head in amusement at us!  :)

So the second term started the next day and we got placed in new groups.  I am in a three person group with Dan and Carly since we only have 15 in our class instead of the usual 16.  Our dessert menu in the restaurant changes next week, so I will have to let you know what new yummies we are making for it once I find out!  We're starting this term off with Artisan Breads all the way through the middle of next week.  We are using all kinds of fermented starts for the different types of bread, so usually we are making them the night before so they can do their thing before we need them in class.  A lot of the breads are more free formed and don't use any types of additives and all the leavening is done naturally through yeast and not baking soda or powder.  Most all the artisan breads also use steam to make a good crust, but allow the crust not to set too quickly, and most of them come out with a nice European caramelization color on the crust as well.  The breads also have lower protein amounts in the flours used, so that makes less gluten forming as well, which is what we want in these breads.

On Tuesday we made Focaccia (topped with Proscuito, basil, oregano, and garlic), Ciabatta (which is supposed to mean "old slipper" because it supposedly resembles and old, well worn Italian slipper - mmm... tasty thought!), and we were supposed to do Sourdough, but ran out of sour starter.  The Focaccia and Ciabatta were both really good.  The Focaccia was super easy to make and you can top it with so many things or use it for pizza even.  The Ciabatta was very sticky, but I really liked it even if it had a few more larger air bubbles than it should have!  :)  I accidentally already froze these breads without taking pictures, so I will try to get pictures when I take them out this weekend.

Wednesday we got to our Sourdough, and we make it with Gorgonzola cheese and walnuts, and also made Burli (pronounced beer-li) bread and also Rye bread, but our Rye didn't proof enough and kind of exploded out one side, so we will redo that one.  Dan had to miss yesterday, which was our Bread group day, but Chef helped us to make sure we had enough bread to go out to the restaurant.  Luckily, we only had to put out 10 baskets (instead of the 30 we do sometimes), and between what Carly and I made, what Chef made, and what the other students in the class gave us to use, we had full baskets to go out!  And Chef Hammer made us some yummy food for dinner too - spicy chicken enchiladas!  

Last night was really cold walking home and tonight it is supposed to be chilly again.  I had been bringing gloves and a scarf to school, then it got too warm, so I guess I'll have to start bringing them again.  As long as it doesn't snow though, but it looks like it will warm up - slightly - this weekend.

Choco cream pies and Crepes!

Well the weather all of a sudden has turned quite chilly, but I still went to school today to finish up my projects.  Natalie came in as well so we could finish some joint production and we got it all done in 2 hours which was pretty good since we couldn't get in our regular kitchen and had to go back and forth to get what we needed.  We wound up working in the Culinary kitchen next door, in the back half of it while the consumer class was making Sushi in the front half of the kitchen.  But we managed to get out a half batch of corn muffins for Natalie and a batch of crepes each along with a chocolate cream pie each that will be finished on Monday.  

I am most proud of my crepe flipping once I got started.  First we were trying to flip them by hand so as not to flip them onto the stove top accidentally.  After burning my fingertips one too many times, I tried to flip it straight in the pan, but chose to try it over the table top - just in case.  :)  But ta da!  It worked perfectly and that was so much easier than burning my fingers!  So after flipping a few over the table top, Natalie and I got adventurous and flipped them directly over the stove and we didn't lose a single crepe!  We probably made about 15 each, so we have plenty to show Chef on Monday for a check off.  

We are waiting to top our chocolate cream pies with whipped cream and grated chocolate until Monday to ensure that it looks perfect, but I am glad I got the crepes out of the way.  So far the crepes and the cannoli have given me the most difficulty since they each have characteristics that have to be perfect for check offs.  But I am pretty sure I'll have at least 3 crepes that can be checked off on Monday, so yay, one less thing to do!  

And now, I should probably say that break time is over and go back to my studying for awhile longer and then stop for dinner. 

Mmm... more yummy foods!

So the week is over already and that was quick!  I feel like it was just Monday yesterday, but here we are at another weekend and I get to spend it studying!!!  Woo!  :)  We have our first term exam on Monday, so I will be studying all weekend, only making time to stop tomorrow to go meet Natalie at school and finish up our chocolate cream pies and crepes.  

Let's see... yesterday was more and more bread as was today.  Yesterday we made multigrain loaves, potato-rosemary rounds, and pitas.  Today we made light rye rolls, onion-walnut rounds, and pizza dough.  I also got caught up with my corn muffins and cannoli too!  Here are pictures of everything but the corn muffins, rye rolls, and onion walnut rounds, because we served those to the big party in the restaurant tonight.

This is what is left of a yummy baguette!

These are small butter braids.  The top is a 4 strand and the bottom is a 2 strand.

A close up of the 2 strand butter braid.

The top loaf is the multigrain bread, and the bottom is the potato-rosemary round.

This is one of my pitas, all ready to be made into a sandwich!  Pita pit here I come!  :)

This is dinner for tonight.  Pizza with cheddar and mozzarella cheese, red bell peppers, yellow squash, mushrooms, and prosciutto (cured ham), mmmm....

Dessert tonight will be a cannoli with a cream cheese, powder sugar, pistachio, grated chocolate, orange zest filling!

Things are still just as busy, but mostly the same stuff I blogged about before.  Just making more and more fun foods and eating lots of yummy stuff!  Last night Chef Hammer made us yummy mac & cheese again and tonight I got my homemade pizza, so I am not going home hungry!  I have plenty of bread here, so I think I will freeze some this weekend to last through next week.  On Monday we have our last few things to be checked off, just pretzels and bagels left, though we have the option of doing raised donuts as well if we have time.  We have our test first off.  I'm a little anxious as it has been forever since I have taken a test, but I will be studying this weekend and cross my fingers that I still have good study habits still!  :)

Well, I am putting off laundry until tomorrow.  I usually do it on Friday nights because the laundry room is empty, but since I am going in to do chocolate pies tomorrow, I will most likely come home with chocolate on my white coat and apron, so I'll wait to do laundry til after that.  So back to my pizza it is!  Night!