Rising Up From The Ashes

When I had completed culinary school in June, I stopped updating this blog. Without classes I was no longer making new and interesting things. Sure I baked, a lot. I bake every few days. However, it's the same old stuff for the most part. Quickbreads, leavened breads, a little variation, but nothing interesting. I had considered posting again when I got a snazzy baking job and had new and interesting things, but that certainly hasn't worked out. Three months out of school, I'm still not working. Not the best situation.

However, I am in a new location. Bellingham, Washington. While I am still not baking much new, I now have an opportunity to widely broaden my cooking options. The lifestyle here in Washington has bred several opportunities to find foods that I couldn't find otherwise. Bellingham has a great farmer's market every week. It has a co-op that offers access to lots of local and organic foods and ingredients that I couldn't get back east. I live a few blocks away from two Asian markets, offering even more ingredients that I could never get before.

I am only cooking for one, so it only offers a couple opportunities a week to cook, but regardless, I am trying new things as much as I can with the new options that have presented themselves to me. And so, I am resurrecting the blog, to further enhance my portfolio and expand into regular cooking with the new options that I have available. I plan to post recipes of everything I make in addition to pictures, descriptions, and opinions. I will probably go back and repost all the old staples that I commonly make just to include the recipe. While I probably have no readers and so nobody actually interested in my recipes, I want to use this blog to create my own cook book of sorts. With the blog format, searching, things like that, it will make it easy to always find recipes I want and it seems like it will be easy to make a quick search on the site to pull up a recipe as opposed to any other format. So hopefully this place will get a little more interesting as I post once again.

06/11/10 - Class - Bread Decoration

Here's the final for my breads class. This is something I was pretty apprehensive going into, but after having done it, it was really fun. We did bread decorations, showpieces made out of bread. Being non-artistic I was apprehensive, but luckily my partner was pretty creative so I was able to help him make something pretty good. It was based on a template, not something original, but we ran with it and changed it some to create something nice. My partner was going to a wedding in a couple days so we personalized it to make it a pretty nice gift. I did most the details-the rose, the grapes and leaves, stuff like that and helped out with the bigger parts. I was really surprised how how well it turned out and I'm pretty proud of it.


So that, as they say, is that. No more school. Since this is a portfolio of my work, there probably won't be many more posts, at least for a while. I only want to post new stuff, and unless I get a job and have new stuff to show, there isn't going to be much new. Perhaps it'll pick up again in the future, but till then, we shall see.

06/07-8/10 - Class - Torte Final

This was our last week of my cake and torte class, and so we had our final. For it, we were charged with creating an original torte recipe that included complementary flavors, various textures, and quality presentation.

I called the torte that I prepared a Chanoyu torte, named after the Japanese tea ceremony. Its base is a green tea meringue disk, the wall a green tea roulade with green pate a decor on the outside. Inside is blueberry mousse with fresh blueberries folded in, a pomegranate insert, and pomegranate glaze on top. It was then decorated with a few fresh blueberries, a dusting of matcha powder, and sugar decorations, representing the three flavors of the torte.

I chose the three flavors because I know that green tea goes well with both blueberry and pomegranate flavors, and that blueberry and pomegranate go well together, so I assumed that the three would make a good mix. I wish my presentation could have been better. The glaze on top was too thick and a little messy and there was supposed to be designs on the pate a decor but I made that toot hick as well so it did not show. I am however satisfied with the result.

06/03-4/10 - Class - Bread

Our last week of making regular bread recipes, this week we focused mostly on rolls.

On Thursday we finished two recipes and prepared one more to bake the next day. The two that we did bake were soft dinner rolls and onion poppy seed rolls. Both turned out pretty nicely I think. The onion poppy seed rolls tasted better than I'd expect.

The first bread on Friday was the one that we prepared the prior day, sourdough cheese bread. I think that it turned out pretty well. It didn't get a whole lot of rise however. Every bread that we have had to retard overnight in this class didn't bake especially well the next day, which is unfortunate. There just isn't enough time in one class period to give the bread proper time for quality product. Regardless, I guess it turned out really well; Everyone else seemed to think it was really good. I'm not into cheesy stuff myself so I'll take their word on it.

Two more rolls that we made were carrot rolls and potato dill rolls. Both turned out okay but I don't think either are quality products. The carrot roll dough was so wet that it was really hard to work with. We had to add a lot of flour to make it manageable at all and even then it couldn't be shaped. I guess they turned out okay but I wasn't impressed. They didn't really taste like anything, not carrots, didn't even have much of a bread flavor. I didn't try the potato dill rolls cuz I don't like dill much so I'm not sure how they turned out. We didn't have potato flour so had to use potato starch. As such the dough was pretty tough, I'm not sure if it adversely affected the flavor as well. They look pretty good though so hopefully they turned out well.

The next recipe was pretty interesting. It was called Filoncini Burro y Nocci, little sticks with butter and walnuts in Italian. I didn't really know what to think of them at first. The name led me to think that they'd be pretty crisp bread but in fact they were very soft. Though I guess I should have guessed that from the recipe; the majority of the liquid is milk and also contains eggs and butter, so I guess it is on the line of being a sweetbread. It also contained walnuts. However I was surprised how good it tasted. Really one of the best tasting breads in my opinion this quarter. Unfortunately, being nearly a sweetbread, it's pretty unhealthy for a bread.

Last, and certainly least... more country bread. I didn't bother with the special shaping but did try to be a little creative, and just like every other time baking it, it doesn't hold its shape, making it a stupid choice to practice shapes with. At least this is the last time I'm making it in class, and probably ever.

06/01/10 - Class - Tortes

Our last class of regular tortes. Next week is the final. We did these tortes between Monday of last week and Tuesday of this week since school was closed one day of each week.

The first torte was called a Diva torte, which another group member of mine made. It was a pistachio sponge with apricot mousse, topped with Italian buttercream. Certainly doesn't sound very appetizing in my opinion. Plus she ruined the presentation by hitting it on the freezer rack or something.

My other group member made a lemon raspberry basil cake. Pretty intricate, with a lemon white chocolate sables for the base, filled with lemon mousse, a basil cremeaux insert, and a lemon chiffon sponge. I dunno, basil in a cake doesn't sound very tasty either.

I piece that I made was called an Empress torte. At least this one sounds like it would taste pretty decent. It had a dacquoise base, almond genoise round, lime curd, and raspberry mousseline. It was then topped with raspberry glaze and along the sides are shingled pieces of white chocolate that I made a marble design on by mixing plain white chocolate and dyed white chocolate. I'm pretty happy with my torte at least.

05/27/10 - Class - Breads

Only one day of class this week so fewer recipes than normal, but we still were able to churn out 5 breads in that one day.

First, since we can't get enough, is more country bread. This time it was a "Tabatiere" shape, like a bowtie, and like most in the past, the dough was very soft and didn't really hold the shape. A tighter dough recipe should be used for learning the various shapes.

Next we made pretzels. I've made these before at home, though they turned out a little better here. We opted to not dip our pretzel in a baking soda/salt solution, which is supposed to give it a salty taste and I think develop a chewy texture. Instead of shaping them as pretzels, I made mini batards. Perhaps because we didn't dip them, they were very soft. Since mine were so big they weren't really much like pretzels but rather rolls, but still tasted good.

Our third recipe was honey wheat pan bread. It sounds like a very good recipe. Being pressed for time, we had to cut down on proofing, and I think that affected it as it didn't get very large. Though it was a wheat bread so that had some effect as well. Even if it is dense, it will still likely taste pretty good.

Next we made English muffins. I thought these were considered a quick bread, but it uses yeast and ferments and rests, albeit very shortly, so I guess it is actually a bread. However I have seen other recipes where it is more a batter than a dough, so dunno. Regardless, they were kinda interesting. The dough was rolled out and cut into rounds and then cooked on a griddle (or frying pans in my case). I made them a bit too thick though so the outsides were browning with he insides still a little underdone. In retrospect I should have finished them in an oven but oh well. Since they are meant to be toasted, they get fully finished during the toasting process so they still turned out good.

Finally we also made hamburger buns. They turned out really beautifully, perfect shape, size, and a great color. All the more pity that I forgot to take a picture of them.

05/20-1/10 - Class - Sweet Breads

This week we did mainly sweet breads in class. These aren't my kind of thing, as I am fanatic about health, and generally just eat bread for sandwiches and bread pudding. They were interesting, however. Some pretty unique things.

The first bread we made was called corona dulce. It was a basic sweet bread. No frills, just bread with sugar and butter and that kinda stuff. It came out extremely light and soft. I didn't taste it but it probably would make a pretty good sandwich or bun even if it is a bit sweet.

Next was Hawaiian pineapple sweet bread. A pretty intersting one. It was flavored with pineapple juice and also had ginger. I tried a little bit and thought it was pretty good, even though I'm not much of a pineapple fan. Though being a sweet bread it isn't something I'd have more than a try of. This too was very light and soft, probably pretty good. Ours got a tad overdone unfortunately.

Next came a non-sweet bread, sourdough multigrain bread. This was very good, at least for my tastes. It tasted a tad dry, perhaps because of all the seeds and stuff, but I really liked the flavor and texture. I'm also surprised how much rise it got during proofing, so it wasn't as dense as I thought it would be.

The next bread was a particularly unique one: pan de cioccolate, or chocolate bread. Certainly not something for my tastes. When it finished mixing, the dough looked like a big mound of cookies dough as opposed to bread. It had almost no rise at all either. It was an interesting flavor to say the least. Not quite cookie and not quite bread, I don't think it would appeal to the masses, but to a big chocolate fan I'm sure it's really good.

The next bread was a buckwheat bread. It was supposed to be a pear buckwheat bread but the chef forgot to order pears, so it was just plain buckwheat. It had walnuts in it though so that added something. It's a shame that there weren't pears, I was looking forward to seeing how it tasted. Though as a plain buckwheat bread, it was still nice.

Another interesting recipe came in caramelized hazelnut squares. I guess it's a sweet bread, sorta. It isn't a sweetbread in that it doesn't have sugar or eggs or fat in the recipe, but it includes caramelized hazelnuts, which are hazelnuts coated with sugar. Despite that, I enjoyed it. You didn't really taste the sweetness much at all so it was a pretty good plain bread with nuts. It was pretty dense though, I'm not really sure why.

The last recipe was interesting as well. Corn bread. A bit misleading in the name as it isn't the cornbread that I'm familiar with, the quickbread. Rather it is bread made with corn flour and corn meal. Pretty unique, it tastes like bread, not the quickbread. I thought it was pretty good. but kinda dry. Possibly because of the cornmeal, I don't think it absorbs much moisture. The dough itself was very dry, a solid mass, not even tacky. I guess that carried over to the finished product.