Tonight went pretty well

The uber expensive babysitter from the sitter service was late for no real reason. I asked if there was traffic, if she had trouble finding our house, etc. Nope. I asked her if she knew what time she was supposed to be here, and she confirmed it. Oh well. So I got to campus later than I would have liked to.

The kitchens I was supposed to use were locked up/empty. So I went and found my chef who was sitting in his office looking bored. Begged and pleaded for him to supervise me in the kitchen so I could at least attempt to get my dough done so I could learn shaping tonight/wouldn't have to get another zero.

We spent a lot of time talking the few hours in the kitchen. There were 20 minutes between roll-ins to just sit and chat. He's really very nice. He gave me his cream cheese filling recipe it's amazing. He just made a big vat of it for all of his classes but I asked so many questions about it (since it wasn't anything like the recipe in our book) that he just wrote out the recipe and gave it to me. Yay for being nosy .

He is on a first-name-basis with the head chef at Disney World in Orlando. We had talked about where we grew up, what led us to the desert, etc. He thinks I should apply for my externship there. I'll apply, doesn't hurt. SM Sr. thinks it's a bad idea but really, who would turn down a chance to work at Disney for a few months? Even though it'd be unpaid slave labor.

My dough ended up looking horrible as I didn't have enough time to work it and let it fully rest. I thought it was going to be a disaster but what can you do other than try? So we rolled it out and shaped it. My croissants didn't hold very well because of the butter issue but the inside structure was absolutely perfect. He used them as examples of what to do and what not to do amazing how both of those can be in the same product.

Onto the pictures!

We made regular croissants, one filled with chocolate, and two filled with ham and Gruyere cheese (SM Sr ate one of them the second I got home). We also made amazing danishes with the cream cheese filling. I dotted two of them with fruit filling, one cherry and one apple. I'm not a fruit fan, cream cheese is where it's at!

When the danishes came out of the oven we brushed them with a special glaze that was sugar and a starch, forget the name of it. To hold in the moisture and give it a shine. After they cooled down we strung flat icing over them. Learned a really cool technique, put on a glove, dunk your gloved hand in a bucket of icing, make a wide-spread claw with your fingers, and run your hand up and down the tray. Such a neat, fast, and easy way to do it!




(SM Sr. ate a whole cheese/ham croissant but only wanted a bit on the danish. So he put it back for SM to eat in the morning!)

quote:

Originally posted by blondie:
I can't cook MS. I don't exactly follow your posts, or know who you are either, but just wanted to pop in & say I really enjoy your thread here. It's one of the best threads I've read here.

Your pics are inspiring & your creations look so tasty. Your daily stories keep me coming back wanting to read more.

You remind me of my days back in 1st yr nursing school.

Someone purposefully sabotaged my bed-making efforts on a quiz in 1st year nursing. We'd get graded on making beds, yup: neat 45 degree corners, perfect pillows, no wrinkles, order of assembly, gah. That was 26 yrs ago. I still think of the instructor who said "Katie, you'll never work in a hospital if you can't make a bed." But my bed was *perfect* before someone sabotaged it. The student who I think did it: Evil Leanne. I think she became a psych nurse. Pfft.

Anyway, I love your thread MS. Keep posting please.

I didn't mean to hop over your post it was a stressful day.

I'm glad you're enjoying my rantings! It feels good just to get stuff out of my head and not bother SM Sr with everything. He doesn't need to hear about everything in my head all the time, that's what the internet is for no one has to "listen"/read if they don't want to.

Sabotage is horrible. Someone tried to take my cream cheese filling today. Claiming that they thought it was the Chef's that he used for his demo and then passed around so it would get used up. It was in a plastic pastry bag like Chef's and few others' were since no one bought/brought theirs but it was tagged with my info and I wrote my info on sharpie on the darn bag. Are you blind??? I didn't feel one bit bad about snatching it back to my work station.

That's the spirit!

And your creations look soo good!

I don't think you've bitten off more than you can chew. I know you can do it!

I probably shouldn't say this but it's my honest theory that women are stronger than men.

I don't know many men who could juggle taking care of kids, taking care of a house, and going to school and/ or working, and women do it all the time.

Don't take any carp from anyone at school- students or teachers. If any teacher dares to give you a zero again for something that's not your fault, I'll be tempted to pay that person a visit!

If it helps you to post about school, just keep posting about school! That's what we're here for.

I'm thinking a well-placed stickie that says, "My husband is a policeman. Steal my stuff and he will taser you," might do the trick.

Sheesh. Have people no shame?

I think the note should say, "Security cams are cheap these days. Did you know that? Smile and say "cheese!" "

quote:

Originally posted by Mary Anna:
I'm thinking a well-placed stickie that says, "My husband is a policeman. Steal my stuff and he will taser you," might do the trick.

Sheesh. Have people no shame?

We scaled off our ingredients last night for our practical today. I triple checked my weights and then I cater-wrapped my tray. Probably used way too much wrap but no one is going to steal my practical away from me!

Thankfully my other class put off their exam until tomorrow. So I just have the practical exam (on french bread and blueberry muffins) and then written exam (50 questions in 40 minutes ).

One of my friends is coming to pick up SM at noon so I can have a few hours to study by myself. So thankful for good friends!

I finally made perfect french bread dough at home! I've had the hardest time getting it to turn out. No way in hell am I spending the money on fresh yeast so I'm been trying to teach myself how to deal with active dry yeast (use half the amount and add in with the flour) but when your notes all deal with fresh yeast...ugh. I've messed up a lot

Tests went pretty good today . I got a 39/45 on my practical on blueberry muffins and french bread baguettes, so ~86. Not bad, wish it was better but it'll be easier to get to an A from a B rather than something lower!

I think I did pretty good on the written test. My calculator promptly died seconds after I turned it on at the start of the test. Of course. So I had to do all the math long-hand which means I was more likely to make mistakes and didn't have my anxiety under control enough to properly check my work. So here's crossing fingers on the math section! The rest I think I did really well on although a I know T/F question tripped me up and now I'm sure of the answer (F) but I'm 90% sure I put T. Sigh. Our Chef graded them in class so hopefully he'll post the grades tomorrow!

I got a 92 on my written test! Very very happy!



Even with the 86 I still have a 94 in the class! I have another practical and exam next week and we're doing easier (for me) things like pies and tarts. Shaping dough is a lot harder than it looks. I'd rather shape something to the pan (like a crust) .

I had an exam in my other class, Sanitation, on Thursday. I got a 100 . So I have an A in that class too!

On Monday we are baking apple pie, a classic fruit tart with pastry cream, and a tart with almond filling and topped with pears. I'm one of the weird people that don't like fruit but we made the fillings and doughs on Thursday, YUM! SM Sr. is excited. I'm excited because he works the next day and can take it all into work .

Oh man, your pictures look so yummy!

Thanks Jodi!

MS, I would throw away my gluten allergy out the window and try every single one of those scrumptious goods you have made! Please keep posting your progress, it is really interesting to read!

Ugh. We had a sub today and we might have him the rest of the week. He's the "bread guy". He teaches other things but he's the bread guru. I've actually been trying to squeeze into his bread class (he only takes 12 people one saturday a month) with no luck, but I might have stuck my foot in a spot for the Nov class when it's announced

He took 2.5 HOURS to demo 2 tarts and 2 pies. UGH. Standing, not being allowed to shift feet too much or walk or anyway for 2.5 hours is hard. Taking notes and paying attention while your feet are killing you and your brain is shutting off it harder. By the time he FINALLY finished the demo I was like WTF are we doing first? He kept jumping back and forth between rolling out the shortbread dough for tarts and making the filling for the pie doughs and then panning the tarts and shaping the pie dough and ugh. Got so lost.

Basically all we got done was the tarts. We got the pie doughs rolled and put in their pans and the fillings (apple and peach) done but didn't have time to assemble and bake them off. So we have to do that tomorrow. Along with all of the other stuff we have planned for tomorrow. And we didn't have time to scale off any ingredients for tomorrow (we usually measure out everything the day before so it's just plug-n-chug recipes during production).

If Chef isn't back tomorrow I can see the whole week just snowballing and Thursday (last day of that class for the week) being a LONG night.

We did make an almond filling/pear topped tart and a pastry cream/fresh fruit tart. But I forgot my camera at home. So I just have pictures of the pear tart (minus a slice and my partner took the other tart). But I'm exhausted so I'll post it later .

My that sounds like hard work, MS! (but then so is working in a kitchen)

quote:

Originally posted by Mary Anna:
I'm thinking a well-placed stickie that says, "My husband is a policeman. Steal my stuff and he will taser you," might do the trick.

May I humbly suggest a slight change in wording to read "I was a policewoman before I came here. Steal my stuff and I will taser you!"