Recipes

On the first day of pastry school almost one year ago, Chef said the recipes in the book we used in class are now ours. We could go out and open a bakery using these recipes, but he wouldn't recommend it.

I want to open a place where I know the recipes are original and different. Not just a "thaw & serve" menu. All you have to do is change 10% of a recipe and it's now your own. I have changed so many recipes I can't keep track. But I still have yet to be truly happy with a recipe. I can now empathize with my husband who is never quite satisfied with any of his art work.

However, this can't keep happening. I must finalize recipes if I am to open my own place one day.

Tonight I baked Trail Mix cookies. It's a chocolate chunk cookie, with peanut butter chips, oatmeal, and cranberries. I liked the thickness of the cookies, and the overall flavor, but I feel like they are missing something. They are good, but they need to be great in order to sell in a shop.

I guess I just need more guinea pigs...

I don't just have fun in class, I'm actually learning something too

I can't believe my first semester of pastry school is one month from being complete. It's a week before Thanksgiving break and it's amazing what I have learned and already put into practice. My chef is a firm believer of thin layers of cake with equal layers of frosting. As seen here:

This produces a much more flavorful cake than having two inch thick cake layers with a quarter inch thick frosting in between. Also, I only had to bake one cake instead of two.

This cake I made for my mom's birthday. German chocolate is her favorite, but I wanted to make it Cloud 9 style, so I made a chocolate ganache filling for the bottom layer and toasted the coconut before adding it to the german chocolate frosting. Then I topped it with ganache rosettes. I was really happy with the way it turned out. This one will definitely be on my cafes menu.

I have also realized that I really enjoy making bread. I didn't think I would like it as much as I do. It can be very temperamental and time consuming, but there is nothing like a fresh piece of bread right out of the oven slathered with European butter. And yes European butter has a much better flavor than the stateside butter and no I don't know why. Bread is very versatile. So many different things can come out of what is essentially the same dough. There's a really great book that chef uses a little in class called "Artisan Breads". I really want a copy of it. It's available at your local Barnes and Noble, just in case you're wondering what to get me for my upcoming birthday or Christmas this year. :)

But don't worry, I won't abandon my love for cakes and other desserts for my newly found love for making breads. I have no plans to change Cloud 9 Pastries to Cloud 9 Breads. I will just have to expand my plans for my future cafe.

Sugar-free...Really?

As previously mentioned, I was tasked to make a sugar-free dessert recently. I gave the client three options: peach cobbler, chocolate cake, or peanut butter cookies. I bought Stevia in the Raw which measures cup for cup like sugar for what ever dessert she chose. I am not advocating the complete use of Stevia, but if I had to make another sugar-free dessert, I would definitely use it again. It's made from plants and is more natural than Splenda and other artificial sweetners.

She eventually decided on the peach cobbler and it was probably the best choice she could have made. The cobbler didn't taste like it was missing something. It was actually good and the Stevia didn't give off a nasty after taste like Splenda can. I was actually happy with the cobbler. It had a homemade biscuit topping and I made vanilla whipped cream to go with it. I used the good mexican vanilla that my wonderful friend and coworker Donna gave me in both the whipped cream and the cobbler. The rich vanilla flavor added another depth of flavor to mask the lack of sugar in the desserts.

I also wanted to try to make my chocolate bundt cake sugar-free. It really didn't turn out. The cake was more bitter than usual, but it still had the dense moistness that the cake should. It also didn't rise as much as the regular cake would have. I would have to experiment with that one again before making it for someone else.

Roger was really excited about the desserts. He said it was so thoughtful for someone to take that much time and effort to make him a dessert. I didn't tell him that Kacy asked me to.

It was a really good experience and I am glad to have done it.

Client vs. Beliefs

One of my managers recently asked me to make a dessert for someone who does not eat sugar. He is not diabetic, but had a close scare and has stopped eating sugar completely. He told me that he's more afraid that if he eats a little bit of something sweet, that he won't be able to stop and he will be right back where he was before. I understand wanting to prevent diabetes and other health issues. However, I do not agree with artificial sweeteners. They are all made of chemicals that I believe will eventually cause more health problems including cancer. I would rather eat the full fat, full sugar item and just not eat a lot of it. It's what the Europeans do and they have a much lower obesity rate than we do. It's all about eating less processed, all-natural foods. We have forgotten that food should be grown, not developed in a chemical lab. The only thing that should have zero calories is WATER!

I will step off my soap box now.

Anyways...the client for this order wants me to use the new Splenda for Baking. I told her I would do some research and get back to her. I thought it over and I just can't bring myself to actually purchase The splenda and sell a product to a client that I did not think was 100% me. It's like on Project Runway where the judges tell the loser that week they lost their design aesthetic in order to please the client. I refuse to let that happen to me.

In my research, I found that Stevia is now available in a large bag for cooking and baking use. For those that are not familiar with Stevia, it's a plant. It looks kinda like a mint plant, but if you taste the leaves, they are sweet like sugar. I am much more comfortable with the idea of using Stevia in place of the sugar. The manufactuer says it can be used cup-for-cup, but with further reading, I found people have reduced the amount of Stevia because it is much sweeter than regular sugar. This might take a couple of trials to make sure I have the right ratio of Stevia. But I guess I should first choose a recipe.

Bringing a little Autumn into the Summer Heat

On Monday, I made my first ever pumpkin pie for one of the managers at Barnes & Noble. It's his favorite type of pie and it was his birthday.

The filling was not going to be difficult. I just followed the recipe on the can. (I accidently bought pumpkin pie filling instead of just regular canned pumpkin last fall, so I didn't have to search long and hard to find pumpkin in the middle of summer.) The thing I was worried about was the crust. The most perfect pie filling is only as good as the crust. And a good pie crust recipe is one to treasure. I am still on the hunt for the perfect pie crust recipe.

I decided to give one of the many recipes I have collected over the past two years a try. It turned out really well. I was really happy with how easy it was to work it. I want to try it again only this time with a fruit filling to see how the double crust tastes.

Because the filling was so easy to make, I wanted to give it that Cloud 9 touch. I made a cinnamon whipped cream to go on top. Oh my, was it wonderful.

I really enjoy making whipped cream. I like the idea of adding different flavors to make each batch unique. It's also gotten me thinking about making my own marshmellows. But again, that might have to wait until the temps actually start dropping. Until then, I will have to experiment with homemade ice cream to beat this crazy heat we are having.

Trying something new

Recently, I have been playing around with different flavor combinations for cookies. Last month, I made Almond Joy cookies. I took my earthy chocolate chip cookie recipe and adapted it for adding toasted almond pieces and shredded coconut. They are really good and I don't think there is anything to change as far as the recipe is concerned. For once, I am really happy with the first attempt of an original recipe.

After making the almond joy cookies a couple of times, I wanted something new. I found dried cherries while shopping at Costco and instantly thought about combining white and dark chocolate chips with the dried cherries. I wanted the dough to be more of a sugar cookie dough, not the brown sugar dough that the earthy cookies are made with. I decided to try substituting equal parts white granulated sugar for the brown sugar in the dough recipe. It worked pretty well and the cookies were good, but really sweet. I was already thinking of ways to change them when Alison suggested adding some nuts for a crunch in the cookie. I really liked the idea and will definitely add some toasted almonds to the batter the next time I make those. (Which, knowing me, will probably be really soon.)

Friday, my mom and I made lemon bars with homemade lemon curd. I had made the lemon curd before, but had never made lemon bars, even from a box. They are so good and tart. Very refreshing on a hot summer day.

While we were making the lemon bars, I took dried pineapple and rehydrated it using banana liqueur. I allowed it to sit until yesterday afternoon. They were a main ingredient in Pina Colada Cookies. I took the same sugar cookie base from the Black & White Chocolate Cherry Chip Cookies and replaced most of the vanilla extract with white rum, used coconut milk instead of regular milk, added shredded coconut, the rehydrated pineapple, and some toasted almonds pieces. I really like toasted almonds in cookies if you didn't already figure that out. I like the flavor in these cookies, but I was not happy with how thin the cookies came out. The batter spread a lot while baking. I'm not sure what's causing it, but you can bet that I will find out. Bring on lots of experiments.

Cakes. cakes, and more cakes

The last few weeks have been quite busy for Cloud 9 Pastries. The middle of June marked the 30th anniversary of employment for one of my co-workers at Barnes & Noble. We had a surprise party for her and I was asked to make the cake. In fact, I got to make my very first formal invoice. Since it was a surprise party, I had to be sneaky about how I asked her what flavor of cake she would like to have. In the end she suggested the chocolate cake I have made in the past is wonderful and that she would recommend that flavor to other people. So chocolate cake it was. It had almond buttercream frosting and the chocolate cream filling. Here's a picture of the cake:

Two weeks later, I made two sheet cakes for my Nana's 80th birthday party on June 26th. The party went very well. Everyone commented on how great the food was especially my Mom's brisket and the chocolate cake.

The chocolate cake was the same recipe as for Carolyn's cake, but I reduced the recipe a little bit so the cake wasn't so tall and therefore much easier to cut. It was just as moist and delicious as ever though.

In addition to the chocolate cake, I made a white cake with lemon filling and lemon-scented vanilla buttercream frosting. The white cake was good. The lemon filling went really well with the white cake. But it still was not my favorite. I was not extremely pleased with it in the end.

Also, I was commissioned to make a light, summer, cake with fresh fruit for my uncle's mother-in-law, in which he delivered to her on the morning of Nana's party. I made a 7-inch white chiffon cake. In between the two layers I spread strawberry preserves and homemade whipped cream. I repeated the jam and the whip cream on the top and topped it with fresh strawberry halves. I left the sides unfrosted and it looked kinda like a large strawberry shortcake.

Friday marked the wedding day for Ashley and Bryan. The bride and groom requested a two-tiered offset square cake. The bottom tier was white cake with vanilla buttercream frosting and the top tier was red velvet with the chocolate cream filling and vanilla buttercream frosting. I was worried about the white cake. Since it was the majority of the cake, I didn't want it to turn out like the previous white cake. I made sure to mix the batter well and they both came out of the oven perfectly. They felt moist and soft. A little relief set in. I had made the red velvet in cake form previously and was not worried too much about that.

The most nerve wracking part of the whole night was carrying it from the car up into Dave and Buster's. I had a slight problem arise when getting off the escaltor, and my arms felt like Jell0 so much that I was worried about dropping it. Thankfully one of the managers carried the cake back to the room for me.

The cakes were a hit though. Everyone loved both kinds. The red velvet was gone pretty quickly that I didn't get a chance to eat a piece. I did eat a piece of the white though. Oh my goodness, was it 100 times better than the cake that I made for Nana's party. The cake was moist and fluffy. It had excellent flavor. The frosting was quite good too, especially in between the two layers. I was very pleased with how the cake turned out both the flavor and decoration. The bride wanted minimalistic decorations. The frosting was to be smooth with a black ribbon trim.