Week 14 at San Francisco Cooking School

I've made it to week 14 with all my fingers, and no burns.  I'm considering myself super lucky to have not injured myself horribly during this experience.

Sacha Lauren, from Winters Cheese Company, visited our class and taught us how to make Ricotta, Mozzarella and Burrata cheese!  We started off with Ricotta because it's really straight forward and super easy to make.  Mozzarella on the other hand requires exact temperatures and pulling.  You have to stretch the cheese curds to make the mozzarella smooth but you can't stretch it too much or it will become tough.  Burrata is really thinly pulled mozzarella with a cheese and cream filling, you want to stretch the mozzarella so thin that you can't even tell it's a separate cheese.  We enjoyed the fruits of our labor with a caprese salad for lunch. YUM!

 Cheese, we made that!

We learned about tuiles this week.  Excuse my language but tuiles are a bitch to make.  They're really thin crispy wafer things that you can mold.  The trick is that you have to mold them while they're still hot.  Many fingers were slightly singed and many a tuile was tossed out.  I am not a fan of the tuile.

Lace cookie, tuiles.

But don't worry because we also made Brioche!  Apparently brioche is in my wheel house.  The dough is super sticky and you have to throw it down on the table to knead it.  Nic, my partner this week, managed to throw his down on the table with such force that some of it ended up on the front of me.  We made brioche loafs, knots and various other delicious bites.  We saved some of the brioche dough to make flamiche, which is like a quiche but with brioche dough.  I was quite pleased when I asked Chef Plue (SF Cooking's resident - and super awesome - pastry chef instructor) if "on a scale of 1 to 10 with 10 being awesome and 1 be the most horrible thing she'd ever seen, how she'd rate our brioche knots," and she said, "3." I'm pleased because it wasn't a 1!

 Brioche knots!

 Ham and cheese flamiche!

And then, the day I'd been waiting for all through this course came, the day Bill Corbett, from the Absinthe Group, came to visit!  He makes some of the most amazingly delicious desserts I've ever eaten.  He is a pastry God as far as I'm concerned.  First we took a little field trip over to the "commissary" where all the prep for the desserts happens before being sent out to the various Absinthe Group restaurants.  They have a steam convection oven!  It was such a great kitchen, and the set up was great.  I'd love to be able to work in a kitchen like that.  After the tour of the commissary Bill came back to school with us and we made a whole bunch of different dessert components.  After everything had been prepared we got to play with playing and combining flavors.  It was such a great day.

 Plating creations! (None of mine are shown as I ate them all.)

To celebrate the end of the week we made cheese burgers and finally used the deep fryer for fries!  Sadly there are no pictures of this marvelous event as we all shoved everything in our mouths so fast.

Next week we plan for restaurant week!

:)M

Cupcakes! Gingerbread and Fruitcake

I baked 185 cupcakes yesterday. 161 mini cupcakes and 24 regular sized. It was madness in my kitchen and at the end of the day it looked like my home had been invaded and only the kitchen had been ransacked. Craziness.

I made cupcakes for two different office parties and they were a huge success at both. I made:

Fruitcake Cupcakes- dried apricots and cherries soaked in booze (brandy and rum) in a molasses and ginger cupcake with walnuts. Topped with Rum buttercream salted caramel and more dried cherries.

I also made:

Gingerbread cupcakes- gingerbread cupcakes with a vanilla custard filling, topped with vanilla buttercream, crumbled gingersnaps and short bread cookies and finished with a white chocolate sauce.

Everything was amazing and I've now knocked off two more recipes from the Robicelli cupcake cook book.

:)M

(I wrote this on my phone, please forgive any typing and layout errors.)

Goat Cheese Creme Brulee!

Bob and I really like creme brulee.  Once we had a delicious goat cheese creme brulee and we both thought, if only we could make this at home!  And now we have.

First I went out and bought a sexy kitchen torch.  I spoke to a nice gal at Sur La Table who told me she very much liked the one I ended up purchasing.  (Yes, I believe her.)

I used the Chavrie recipe, which strangely doesn't tell you how hot the oven should be.  I went with 275 degrees.  I also went ahead and halved the recipe because I didn't think we needed to be eating that much creme brulee all by ourselves.  It was really straight forward and easy, just took a long time to finally get around to eating it.  And of course, it wouldn't be complete with out fresh strawberries!

It was so good! If you like goat cheese and you also enjoy creme brûlée you should definitely check this out.

:)M

Coffee Toffee Cheesecake - The Results!

 

Ta-da! My beautifully decorated cheesecake.

So, if you'll recall, I was making my first ever cheesecake just the other day.  Great news!  The coffee toffee cheesecake worked out awesomely!  It was far easier than I could have ever imagined.  If I can do it, you can do it.  I swear.  The above picture is my cheesecake after it had cooled over night.  I added the chopped up Heath Bars all over it and then melted dark chocolate and piped a nice design - cause that's how I roll. 

Now, here's how you too can make a delicious Coffee Toffee Cheesecake.  I used the linked recipe with a couple of small adjustments, which you can read about in my original cheesecake post.

I seriously followed the directions other than the previously read/written about small adjustments which I couldn't help, because I'm lazy.

One thing I will tell you, that I didn't know about until I was making a cheesecake is that you MUST wrap your spring form pan with tin foil.  (Yes, even if your spring form pan has a bottom.)  I laughed at the idea of wrapping tin foil around my pan, but did it anyway because I wasn't sure.  I'm really happy I did wrap the darn thing because when I removed the foil and pan it was all sticky/buttery gross and that would have ended up all over the place.  The tin foil just helps you contain the mess.  I used two sheets of foil and made sure to wrap all the way up around the sides of my pan.

I'll also say that when/if I make my crust again I will pulse the crap out of those cookies to make the crust easier to spread and mold to the bottom of the pan.

This is a picture of my cheesecake right after it had come out of the oven, still in it's water bath.  (Yes, you need to use the water bath.  Do it.)

 

After my cheesecake came out of the oven I delicately removed it from the water bath - so it'll stop cooking - and placed it on the counter to cool.  When it had cooled completely I covered the top with foil (cling wrap tends to fall in on the top and make it look ugly.) and put it in the fridge for the night.  Yup, just leave the foil and spring form pan as is, there's no reason to remove it yet.

The next morning I pulled the cheesecake out of the fridge and removed all the foil and the spring form pan.  It's messy, be prepared.  I used a new piece of foil on the bottom of my pan so I could move the cheesecake around without getting everything else in my kitchen gross.  I had my Heath Bars already chopped into a fine powder and sprinkled it all over.  The recipe calls for 4 Heath Bars but you will be fine with 3.  I melted my dark chocolate (when you melt chocolate in the microwave you should do it in 30sec increments so you don't burn your chocolate, ever 30sec take it out and stir it around), and put it in a small ziploc bag so I could pipe a nice design.  I stupidly didn't wait for my dark chocolate to cool sufficiently so I tried to burn my hands off.

Here's a nice side view of my decorated cheesecake.

 

And finally, cut that cheesecake up and eat it! Eat it like there's no tomorrow!

Cooking Measurements

Dark chocolate mousse, with chocolate cake, poached cherries, and a yogurt mousse.

I recently took the Chocolate Class, taught by Bill Corbett the Executive Pastry Chef of the Absinthe Group, at SFCooking.  I mostly took the class because my friend Hazel was taking it as well and we like to cook together.  I was really surprised by how much I learned in this class because, while I had expected to have a good time and make delicious desserts, we measured everything in grams.  All the classes I've attended at SFCooking have been great, and I've learned a lot and had wonderful time cooking, but Bill's class put a whole new spin on everything.  

Everyone in the chocolate class still had a good time, but you could tell that everyone was more focused on what they were doing because the recipes were so precise.  Most people don't realize that one cup of flour is not equal to every cup of flour.  If you're heavy handed and smoosh the flour into your measuring cup you will end up with a different amount of flour than say a person who delicately sifts a cup of flour.  Bill eliminated any kind of discrepancy by using grams for everything in our recipes.  Each group had a food scale (I know I love mine at home, but it had never crossed my mind to use it like this.) and we used it religiously to measure out all our ingredients.  

My team was in charge of the White Chocolate Cremeux, with Lime Curd, Coconut Crumble and Rum Whipped Cream.  Each piece of this dessert was made separately.  My team of four (Roger, Mike, Hazel and I) split into teams.  Hazel and Mike worked on the Lime Curd part while Roger and I worked on the Cremeux.  The best way to describe the Cremeux is like the mix between a custard and a pudding.  First we made a custard, and we whipped it into a pudding-ish consistency and added more ingredients.  This leads me back to being amazed with the measurements.  After making the custard portion Roger and I discovered that it had not yielded as much as the recipe said it would.  Because we were cooking with grams we were able to measure how much we had and then easily adjust the rest of the recipe.  For example, we only had 86% of 415g required to go with the rest of the ingredients.  We just adjusted the rest of the ingredients to only be 86% of their grams and went on our way.  If we had been using cups to measure it would have been a complete disaster.  How do you take 14% away from a cup of something accurately?  It was an eye-opening experience.

On the left: Milk chocolate panna cotta, with basil meringue and pistachio streusel. On the right: White chocolate cremeux with lime curd, coconut crumble and rum whipped cream."

Our desserts came out restaurant ready.  The precision and delicate attention to details paid off and everything was delicious.

I've since been looking for recipes measured out in grams, or ounces, or really almost anything more precise, and it's been quite a challenge.  Bob found an excellent article for me just this morning from The-Magazine.org by Joe Ray, called Weight For It.  It pretty much says the same thing I've said here but it's still a great read.  It also led me to do some further investigating and I've just ordered The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook and Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work which both contain measurements in grams.  I also went ahead and picked up a copy of On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen because I feel like if I can better understand the chemistry involved in ingredients I will finally be the McGyver of my kitchen. I'm so excited!

I'm also happy to share the chocolate class recipes with anyone, just let me know!

:)Margaret

Black Cherry Chocolate Devil's Food Cake Mini Brownies with Blueberry Cream Cheese Frosting

I was in a baking mood this last week, but I'm kind of a lazy baker.  I buy the Betty Crocker boxes of cookies and cakes and then instead of following the directions I turn them into something else.  It's kind of like making it myself, but so much easier.  I highly recommend this process to everyone.  Anyway, my friend Meaghan was having a house warming party and I told her we'd bring some treats and I decided I wanted to try something new.  The original plan was to have blueberry chocolate cupcakes but that plan was sidelined by 1- Safeway not having any pure blueberry juice, and 2 - my eyes landing on a devil's food cake mix.  

One of the first things you need to know about baking with a box, is that you really should never use oil or water.  I will typically substitute butter for oil, and milk for water.  I find that this leaves my baking goodies more chewy and fresher for a longer amount of time.  Everything is also richer in flavor.  Okay, so here's what you need:

Cupcakes

• A box of chocolate devil's food cake - I like Betty Crocker Super Moist Devil's Food Cake Mix
• 1 Cup Black Cherry 100% juice-Alternatively, you can really use any juice you'd like.
• 3 eggs
• ½ cup Butter
• 48-ish mini cupcake cups

Frosting

• 4oz Cream Cheese
• 4oz Unsalted Butter
• 2 cups powdered sugar
• 1tsp vanilla extract
• 1 cup fresh, or thawed frozen blueberries

Follow the directions on the back of the cake box, subbing the juice for the water, and the butter for the oil. Using a teaspoon, yes a teaspoon. Fill you mini cupcake cups. Bake each batch for approximately 20 minutes. You're going to end up with 48+ mini cupcakes.

While your cupcakes are baking put your cup of blueberries, along with about a 3/4 cup of water in a small sauce pan. Bring the blueberries and water to a boil and then allow them to simmer for about 5 minutes. Strain the blueberries and then mash them up like there's no tomorrow. You can also use a blender if you want, which does work very nicely. Add all your frosting ingredients and stir everything together until you have delicious blueberry frosting.

For easy cupcake frosting I recommend spooning your frosting into a ziploc bag and then cutting a small hole in one corner. Then you can use the ziploc bag like a pastry chef, and feel like a badass as you easily and quickly frost your 48+ cupcakes.

If you're not going to eat all your cupcakes in one sitting you should definitely remember to put them in the refrigerator as the frosting will be super nasty if you don't. Now go enjoy your delicious creating.

:)M

P.S. - I wrote/built this entire entry using my new HTML skills. I'm feeling pretty awesome about it.

Spicy Pumpkin Gingerbread Muffins

I love pumpkins, they're delicious and apparently a "super food."  I want to have more pumpkin in my life, so rather than bake a pie or make soup I decided I needed pumpkin muffins.  While perusing the internets for pumpkin muffin recipes I found an excellent recipe that required very little work on my part, which is always a bonus.  "Easy Pumpkin Muffins" is a great starter recipe, but I felt like I could better.

The original recipe tells you to use a package or yellow cake mix.  Meh, that's okay if you want boring pumpkin muffins.  I saw someone had commented saying they'd used a spice cake mix and it turned out great and that got me thinking, I could do anything and so I did.  I bought the Betty Crocker Gingerbread Cake & Cookie Mix and used it, along with a can of 100% pumpkin puree, a fair amount of cinnamon, and a dash of Ghost Pepper Powder to kick these muffins into deliciousness!  Oh man, they are really good.  I'm eating one right now, and I'm quite pleased.  The ghost pepper adds excellent kick, but not too much.  The only thing that would make them better would be to add some candied walnuts on top.  My next batch will be chocolate pumpkin with cayenne pepper.

You know you want them, and now you know they're super easy to make, so what are you waiting for? Do it!!!

:)M

The Other Place and Juicy Berry (Salt Lake City)

Once upon a time my grandparents discovered this restaurant they now frequent once a week, it's called "The Other Place."That's seriously the name of the restaurant.  The Other Place is a Greek/American restaurant and my grandparents go there every Thursday for the navy bean soup, which is pretty good.  My grandmother likes to add lemon juice and pepper to hers, but I think it's pretty good as is.  Anyway, I joined the Thursday night bean soup crowd to catch up on what was going on in the family and hear all the good gossip, and because I too like the bean soup.

I had a side greek salad, a grilled cheese sandwich and a cup of navy bean soup.  The Other Place is very generous with it's feta cheese when it comes to the greek salad, which I love because I <3 (Did you know the Oxford Dictionary now recognizes that symbol as a word?  It does, I'm not making this up.)feta cheese.  If you order a regular sized greek salad it's the best because there isn't any lettuce, it's a real greek salad with only cucumber, tomatoes, onions and kalamata olives and feta.  The side salad has lettuce but I couldn't handle ordering a real greek salad this time around, because I really wanted grilled cheese, mostly to work as a vehicle to get my bean soup into my mouth.  Just like tomato soup goes great with grilled cheese, so does bean soup.  The grilled cheese is nothing fancy, but it's still good.

The other place is nice because the portions are just the right size and the prices aren't crazy, plus my family seems to know everyone who works there so they always have a table waiting.  Yes, we're those people.

After dinner I met up with my friend Jill at this new Frozen Yogurt place at the local mall, the Gateway.  The place is called

Juicy Berry and it's a chain, but it's a wonderful chain.  There are about 10 different flavors of frozen yogurt and everything is self serve, so you get a gigantic cup and fill it up as much as you want, and then head over to the toppings bar.  In the end they charge you based on the weight of your cup.  I tried the pomegranate/wild berry fro yo and the cookies and cream fro yo all covered in sprinkles and oreo pieces.  I give this place a huge thumbs up.  Eat this, it's delicious, and you can have just about anything you could imagine.

:)M

My new love of almond crunch

I think I just got myself involved in something I can't get out of. I have an addiction and I can get the junk any time I want. What is this junk you ask?

So yesterday when I was making my fancy pants dinner, I was trying to figure out what to do for dessert. I don't really bake, mostly because I don't have the patience or the counter space/appliances to bake pastries. So I needed something easy. I had just bought some gorgeous peaches from the farmers market and figured since I was grilling my summer squash and yellow tomatoes I could also throw the peaches on the grill. So I sprinkled a little bit of cinnamon on those babies and put them on the grill for a few minutes.

Well, what fun would a few peaches be? Where I come from you need a little fat with your fruit. I've been on an almond kick lately. Raw almond, skinless almonds, almond milk, I've got it all in the cupboards. So I thought toasting some almonds with a bit of cinnamon, all spice, and brown sugar would make a good topping for the peaches. I baked those in the oven for a few minutes, careful not to let the nuts burn, and then ground them up in the food processor. Um, basically I had coarse almond powder so I cut in a little bit of butter to keep it all together.

Then I just threw the "crunch" on top of the peaches and tossed them in the oven under the broiler. I can't even tell you the smells that were wafting through my kitchen. I was in hurry to get to the couch to watch True Blood with the roommate, so I plopped a little bit of vanilla ice cream on top of the peaches and settled in for some Vampire Eric hotness. First bite....no not the vampers, but the baked peaches. It tasted so much like my grandma's peach cobbler but minus the carby pastry topping. The best part about the whole thing was the way the sweet almond mixture mixed in with the ice cream. I was pretty impressed with myself.

So this afternoon I get a text from my roommate, "I need peaches, almond crunch and ice cream. Every day not spent in the gym must be spent eating fatty food!" Well, I had to oblige. But we decided to forgo the fruit and just went with the almond topping over ice cream. I gotta say, the batch today was even better than yesterday. I knew I'd done something right when I heard my roommate yell "Jesus!" as he went up the stairs with his bowl of ice cream. I haven't seen him in a while. I'm afraid of what could be going on up there....