Fondant and Unleavened Bread

I was happy to be in class today but I felt really worn out for most of the day.  I had a terrible headache, plus we had a piping quiz - these two things do not equal happiness, trust me.  I feel okay about the piping practical, but not great.  My rose was good and so were my borders, but my writing needs a lot of work.  I suppose it's just one of those things that requires repetitive practice, but there are only so many times that you can practice writing, "Happy Birthday" in icing before you go insane.

Tomorrow we're using fondant for the first time and then it's on to our first stacked cake.  I've been searching online for ideas for the next few cakes (Hello Mr. Fondant...) and thought - hey, I should ask you!

So, dear blog readers - do you have any fun, funny and/or interesting ideas for a cake theme?  Just remember - keep it clean. I don't want to get kicked out of pastry school ;)

In other news, tonight is the first night of Passover - the feast of unleavened bread.  Otherwise known as the worst time in the world for me to be suddenly immersed in the production and eating of baked goods.  Dave and I had a small dinner at home tonight and tomorrow we'll be joining the Erich clan at our friend Josh's apartment for the second night seder.  I'm hoping that Josh will have a crown for whoever finds the afikomen first...afikomen - you are mine!

At least Dave will finally have the right holiday when he asks if we need to open the door for Elijah

ML vs. The World + Drinking at 2pm + Buttercream Roses = 1 Hilarious Week

I've got you hooked with that title, don't I?  Was it the ML or the drinking?  Oh, it doesn't matter, on with the blog!

I'm going to have to give you a little bit of background info first:  so there's this woman in my class, let's call her mustache lady - ML for short.  First, trust me when I say that there shouldn't be ANY confusion about where she gets this nickname from - I'm not talking about a little peach fuzz like almost all woman have, this is a full on mustache.  Does she not have a mirror? Tweezers? Razor? Wax?  I do not have the answer to these questions, getting her better grooming is not why we're here.  I didn't really have any issues with her during the first couple of weeks - she seemed nice enough and I'm not the type to dislike someone without good reason, but as it turns out, she's really quite mean.  She talks down to her partner all the time, barely lets him do anything and makes him clean up after her.  She's also a hoarder, and that's where this story really begins.  Whenever there's a shortage of equipment in the classroom, she always globs onto it and won't share with anyone else (what is she, 5?).  She's also seemingly obsessed with the plastic wrap.  Now yes, it does take awhile at the end of the day when everyone is trying to wrap up their products but so what?  If you don't get the roll of plastic wrap right away will the world come to an end?  Probably not.   So we're cleaning up at the end of Wednesday and all of the sudden I hear ML yelling, very loudly, at one of the girls who stands at the next table over from her.  I can't really make out what she's saying until I hear quite clearly, "You should have more respect for your elders!!" Really?  ML is definitely one of the oldest people in the class, but who cares?  Age doesn't make any difference in the kitchen, and we're all at the same level, so why make an issue out of it?  It turns out that this other girl went to grab the plastic wrap that apparently ML had "dibs" on.

*shakes head*

Is that really something to start yelling about in the middle of class?  Not really, but alas, I am not ML - who knows what makes her tick...

So when I came into class on Thursday, I found out that apparently Chef Katie had told ML and the other girl that they had to stay away from each other.  ML interpreted this by taking over my and Julie's table and telling us that we had to stand at her table now.  Whatever.  I'll miss standing next to our table partners, but I'll live.

After class we were all supposed to go bowling together (in full chef's regalia to boot), but the bowling alley was going to kick us out at 3pm for a private party so we decided to postpone and a few of us wound up heading over to Dave & Busters to drink and blow off steam.  It's pretty funny going to a Dave & Busters to drink at 2pm when the only other people there are moms with their kids.  Also, it became readily clear to me that when you start drinking that early, no topic becomes off-limits.  I know a LOT more about my classmates now.  We also joked that we should each buy ML her own roll of plastic wrap and stack them up underneath her table at the beginning of class...I still haven't ruled this out completely, we'll see if there are any recurrences of her craziness first.

The rest of Thursday was pretty relaxed.  We each made a carrot cake (yum!) and a variation of buttercream called "rose paste" which is used (surprise!) to make roses and other cake decorations that often need to be made with a stiffer icing.

icing carrots ftw!

We practiced making roses and general piping techniques and before you knew it, the day was pretty much over.

 Julie's and my practice roses

 The cake that I made for the culinary students after they shared their ravioli with us

after only learning how to do them the day before!

manic swiss dots on the sides of the cake

However, my favorite part of Thursday had nothing to do with roses or getting ousted from my work table.  While we were on our lunch break, a few other girls and I decided to run out to get something quick to eat.  We stopped at a shopping center, split-up and then met back up at the car to go back to school.  So, we're all getting back in the car and there are 3 of us trying to squeeze into the backseat.  The other 2 girls are already inside, and I'm halfway in when all of the sudden, the car starts to move!!!  Now I want you to take a moment and imagine the hilarity of this situation: 4 girls sitting in a car, the driver completely unaware that only the left side of my body is currently in her moving vehicle.  I start yelling, "Hey!" repeatedly, all the while my right leg is trying to quickly hop along with the rest of the car.  At the same time, there are a bunch of women working at a nail salon laughing hilarious as this scene unfolds.  Our lovely driver finally noticed I wasn't completely in the car and I'm able to finish getting in.  I looked at her with wide eyes and said, "What the hell!" and then started laughing so hard that I didn't stop until well after we got back to the school.  I thought she did it on purpose, but I could tell she was mortified once I got in the car, she felt so bad.  Obviously, I'm not mad, it was too funny!!  We did tease her a lot for the rest of the afternoon about how she was subconsciously trying to do away with me, but let up by the end of the day.  I really need to start wearing my Brooke Safety helmet everywhere I go!

It's always important to practice Brooke Safety

In other school news, we finally got our cumulative grades for the first section of pastry school: Baking Basics.  I got a 96!  I'm beyond thrilled.  Right now we're in the middle of the cakes module, and after that it's on to breads, advanced pastry and then we're done!  It's hard to believe how fast we're moving through everything, but I'm having a really great time and everyday I feel more convinced that I made the right decision.  As scary as it was (and still is!) to leave my job to start school again, I am infinitely happier and honestly, I can't wait to see what happens next.

Goodnight friends!  Shabbat Shalom.

Swiss Rolls and Rex Manning Day

I don't know if you've ever seen my Mom's buche de noel before - it kind of looks like this, but way more awesome.  I've always wanted to be able to make that cake as well as my Mom does, so you can imagine my excitement when I found out that last Friday we were making swiss rolls, which are the same base.  It's made with a sponge recipe, which is kind of tricky - it's a very thin, flat cake made in a half sheet pan and it's very annoying to roll up!!  We used raspberry jam mixed with whipped cream as the filling, and I'm pretty sure that when my Mom rolls hers up, she rolls it up on the same parchment that it was baked on, but Chef Katie had us invert them onto another sheet of parchment and roll them up from there.  This almost made things more difficult, because the top of the cake kept sticking to this new sheet of parchment, but Julie and I managed to roll it up in the end. 

In an effort to not wind up being 500 lbs by the end of this class, Dave and I both agreed that I wouldn't take home every single thing that I wind up making.  It's so difficult because unlike most of my classmates, I don't have a lot of family nearby, so I can't give perishable items to them.  Plus, I no longer work at a job where I have a plethora of co-workers, so I can't share with them either.  Therefore, the last 2 products I made I wound up donating to the culinary students, which serves 2 purposes - someone gets to eat it and it gets me in good with the culinary students so that when they're doing their menu projects, they'll ask us to taste them :)

Here are some pictures of the swiss roll that I split up and gave to the students in kitchens 2 & 3:

Yummy Goodness!

On Monday we did more prep for the rest of the week and also wound up making a German's Chocolate Cake.  Despite popular belief, this cake didn't originate in Germany.  In fact, the chocolate used to make it was invented by an American named Sam German.  He created it for the Baker's Chocolate Company and they named the chocolate bar after him, hence - German's chocolate.  These cakes look really amazing, but since neither Dave or I are fans of coconut, I had no problem donating this one to the rest of the school as well.  We made a fudgy chocolate cake base, and then the filling is made of butter, eggs and sugar cooked together which is then mixed with vanilla, coconut and chopped pecans.  Then we applied a crumb coat & top border with chocolate buttercream and stuck chopped up nuts, coconut and cake crumbs to the sides and put it in the fridge.  Once it was chilled slightly, we poured a cooled ganache on top and let it pool in the middle of the border we'd piped - it looked so cool!!  Again...too bad I don't like coconut!

Then, Chef Katie showed us how to pipe with white chocolate.  Just like with my genoise cake, I didn't really want to write anything typical, so I wrote the first thing that came to mind:

Happy Rex Manning Day!!

When one of my classmates saw this, she came barreling at me and gave me an attack hug.  Nothing brings two people together like Empire Records :)

On another note, I've started practicing some of the cookies from my last module at home.  So far I've made chocolate chip, double-chocolate macadamia nut and peanut butter cookies and yes - I will be sending out carepackages this week.  Don't be sad if you don't get one because chances are good that if you don't get one of these, that you'll be first to get one of the next ones!  I hope you like cookies!

Also - We haven't gotten our final grades for the first module yet b/c the computer system at school crashed, but Chef Katie did give us the grades for our practical and written exams.  I got a 90.5 on my practical (respectable) and 106 on my written exam (!!!!!) 106?  I guess I really did get all of the extra credit questions right. ;)

I hope that you all have a great day, and that you get your stomachs ready  for cookies!

Sorry about that, I just torted...

Today we learned how to "torte" our cakes.  For those of you who don't know, torting is what happens when you make horizontal slices into a single baked cake to make several layers.  I could see a lot of my classmates getting frustrated but, to be honest, I loved it!  I made some kick ass layers and am pretty darn proud of myself.  I guess all the time I spent watching my mother decorate cakes (hi mom!) really stuck - it was actually kind of fun.

After we torted our cakes, (genoise, for those keeping track), we brushed each layer with a simple syrup, before putting a dam around the edges.  This is when you pipe a ring of icing around the edge of each layer, thus providing a "dam" that keeps the filling (today's was raspberry jam) from oozing out everywhere.

It kind of looks like a giant linzer torte

After affixing each of the layers, Chef Katie taught us how to crumb coat the cakes with our icing to seal them in, so that you could refrigerate them and come back later to decorate them.

We wound up taking them home in this state, so I decided to have a little fun trying some piping on mine.  Nothing jaw dropping, just fooling around with some chocolate icing and a cornet.

Ah! Ah! You said death first!

I meant cake!

p.s. I would like my own cake turntable (this, not that)
p.p.s. I still don't understand why my classmates don't know who John Larroquette is (I heart Meatballs II)
p.p.s. Why don't I own this hat?

Goodnight friends!

Parties, Cakes and John Larroquette

This past weekend Dave and I had a little pastry party.  This way we got to see some of our friends and I got the chance to practice making all of the fun things I’ve been learning how to bake in class.  It went so well too!  I served blueberry crumb pie, apple turnovers, mini éclairs, napoleon, mini fruit tarts, almond pear tart, Butterfinger cheesecake, chocolate bread pudding, homemade vanilla bean ice cream and langue de chat; There was so much food!  It was really fun getting to have more people try my baked goods and it felt so good hearing that they liked everything.  I did have a minor “Brooke moment” though, as I was taking the bread pudding out of the oven, it slipped out of my hands and overturned on the open oven door.  I managed to save most of it though, so it wasn’t so bad.  Plus, a couple of the mini éclairs were a bit “explosive” when bitten into, but apparently only the ones that Josh and Rachel ate, which is just hilarious fun if you ask me.

Monday we had our first module written exam.  I know that I answered a couple of questions incorrectly, but I definitely got all of the extra credit questions, so I’m fairly confident that I did well.  For example - do you know what the French name for a napoleon is?  And no, the answer is not "le napoleon."  The grade on the test will then be averaged with a couple of other things (the practical, a quiz and a homework assignment) and that will be our grade for beginning pastry.  Wish me luck, we find out our grades at the end of this week. 

Since beginning pastry is now over, we’re starting cakes!  We made a simple butter cream icing, a genoise cake and a sour cream coffee cake yesterday, and yellow butter cupcakes and chiffon cake today.  Julie and I messed up on the coffee cake – we over-creamed the butter and sugar so that our topping wound up sinking down into the bottom of the pan.  It still tastes good, but it’s definitely not right.  I made a passing comment to one of our classmates about how it was messed up and Julie looked at me and was like, “Don’t be so hard on yourself!”  Her tone kind of took me aback; Needless to say I was surprised.  I hope that I don’t come off that way to my classmates, as someone so focused on being perfect that I shirk everything else; But there’s no denying that I want to be good.  I want to do things well and it’s going to bother me when I don’t get something right.  That’s what’s so frustrating about culinary school.  Sure, there are a few things that you make more than once (So far: pastry cream, pate a choux, icings, etc) but for a lot of things you only make it once during class.  Obviously there isn’t a lot of time to dwell on individual recipes, but it’s aggravating that you only get one chance to get something right.  I guess it just means that I have to take the time to get more practice in at home.  At least as far as cakes go, most things will be freezable.  Thank goodness, b/c I’m already starting to feel overwhelmed by the amount of product that we have to take home with us – I’m going to have to start giving all of my stuff away to the culinary students to try!  There is definitely way too much stuff sitting around our apartment.

Some funny side notes from this week so far:

1. While looking for a new soap container at my part-time job, I found a secret stash of condoms.  Who’s getting it on in our tiny office bathroom??
2. I made a comment about John Larroquette during lunch at school today and all but one person looked at me blankly – they had no idea who he was and had never heard of Night Court!!  I feel old.
3. They also didn’t know who Bruce Campbell was, and I felt sorry for them

Chocolate Mousse and Bossy Boots

Today we finished the practical portion of basic pastry.  2 days, 3 recipes.  Everyone had to make a chocolate mousse and then we were each randomly assigned 2 other recipes; I wound up with eclairs and langue de chat (milano cookies).

This practical kicked my ass.  No, seriously.  I don't know if it was the fact that all of the sudden I couldn't ask questions without losing points, or if I was just nervous, but I made a lot of mistakes.  I wound up having to make my chocolate mousse 3 times because the chocolate kept seizing when I added the egg mixture too it, which made it look more like chocolate chip mousse (not good enough).  Luckily, the way the practical works is that you have to make your recipes on your own (no help) and then you can start individually presenting your products to Chef Katie by 11am and you have until 12:30 to present; Any minute after 12:30 and you lose points.  It's just lucky that all I had to do on the 1st day was to make the chocolate mousse and the pastry cream for my eclairs for the next day, but it was so frustrating!  However, by the end of day Wednesday, I was able to present my chocolate mousse to the Chef (with time to spare) and even though it wasn't perfect, I still did really well.

Today I had similar problems with the pate a choux dough for my eclairs, although thankfully I only had to make them twice.  I forgot that the amount of eggs in the recipe was merely a "suggestion" and wound up putting too much in.  But I made them again and they came out pretty well.  Plus, Chef Katie said that my langue de chat were perfect!  Whoo hoo!  All I wanted out of this practical was to have her say that at least one thing that I made was perfect, so at least I succeeded at that.

Our grade for the first module is based on an average of 5 things: a quiz and homework packet that we already completed, our 2 days of practical and then an exam that we have to take on Monday (Guess who's helping me study this weekend? Thanks in advance Dave!)  Then we go immediately into our lecture on cakes before going back into the kitchen for the next module.  I'm excited for cakes, but more so because I just want to experience it and see how I like it.  I think that there are a lot of people who want to be cake decorators, but then realize that it's just not for them.  I didn't go into this program with a strong urge to wind up as a cake decorator, but I really just want to see what I'm best at and what I really enjoy making.

On a slightly unrelated topic, there's a woman in my class that I privately refer to as "bossy boots" or "bb" for short (can stand for so many more appropriate names, if you catch my drift).  In case you hadn't guessed, I'm not overly fond of her.  She has a penchant for taking other people's equipment without asking, and then acting completely nonchalant when you catch her with them.

"Oh, this pastry brush? It was just sitting here on the table...how am I supposed to know that it's yours?  Just because it has your name written on it 5 times, your initials engraved into it and has a microchip inside of it that squeaks out your name...I mean c'mon - I'm not a mind reader!"

As far as I'm concerned, she and mustache lady should run away together and never look back.  But anyway, she was making turnovers today and they completely exploded in the ovens.  Cherry filling was oozing out everywhere, and I'm sorry, but it made me chuckle.  I know, I know...I'm petty and no matter how annoying I find her, I shouldn't take pleasure in her accidents.  Especially since I had my own issues in the kitchen these past couple of days, but I can't help it.  She is a bossy boots and I do not like her.  Harrumph.

This Sunday I'm having some friends over to finally taste all the yummy things I'm learning how to make, so I'll definitely post more about that later.  In the meantime, I will leave you with one of Chef Katie's many pearls of wisdom.  This is one of her many theories regarding the right baking ingredients:

Butter is better

Shortening is good

If you use margarine, you deserve to have poopy diapers thrown at your head

(who is she - Paula Deen?)

The Fall of Napoleon

Did you know that the napoleon pastry has nothing to do with this dashing fellow, but refers to being from Naples, Italy?  Too bad.  I love a little history with my baked goods...

Yesterday we started working with puff pastry, which made me deliriously happy.  I love puff and was definitely excited to make it from scratch for the first time, I actually found it very soothing.  It takes a long time to make, but it's definitely fun and worthwhile to know how to do.  After we finished the dough, Chef Katie showed us how to make twists, turnovers, palmiers and napoleons.  Oh how I love napoleons!  First you have to dock the dough (poke it full of holes) so that it doesn't rise crazy high, like "puff" is meant to do, cut into 3 equal pieces and then bake until golden brown.  Once cooled, you spread poured white fondant onto 1 sheet, drizzle with chocolate ganache and use a toothpick to make the trademark spiderweb patterns.  Then you make pastry cream and fold whipped cream into it to make it lighter and so that it will hold it's shape a little better.  Then layer the lightened pastry cream in between the 3 layers and voila! Napoleon!

So now here is where my story gets sad.  I put Julie's and my napoleons on a tray in the walk-in fridge and went to eat lunch.  I had just finished my sandwich when one of the girls from my class sits down next to me and says, "You're going to hate me..."  Never EVER a good sign.  I guess she was putting her own tray on the rolling rack and didn't realize that there was already a tray on that level and accidentally pushed our tray off.  The napoleons were ruined when they fell on the floor.

Noooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Now I know that it's just a dessert, but I was definitely upset.  I didn't really say anything at first, I was just so surprised.  One of the other guys I was sitting with complimented her on coming forward and that's definitely true.  I'd much rather her tell me that she knocked my pastry onto the floor than to go back into the walk-in myself and find it laying there. I was just sad that the one thing I'd been looking forward to making was ruined before I could eat it, let alone take a picture of how pretty it looked!  I manged to take some pictures after the fact though.  Amazingly enough, Julie's still looked pretty much the same, just a little noticeable damage:

Mine however, were another story:

So sad.  Oh well.  The girl who did it felt so bad that she insisted that Julie and I split and take her Napoleon home, which was unnecessary, but really sweet.  I later went up to her and told her I wasn't mad and to thank her for telling me in the first place and for giving us her product.  Eating some of it tonight wasn't the same as eating my own, but I do appreciate the gesture.  On the plus side, most of my palmiers came out well and my apple turnovers were really tasty.  One of the techs at my job told me this afternoon that she doesn't even like turnovers, but that she loved the ones that I brought in to share - definitely a little ego boost.  

Tomorrow my class will start our first practical.  It lasts for 2 days and we have to make 3 things.  Everyone has to make a chocolate mousse tomorrow, and then we each have to make 2 other things that we picked out of a hat; I wound up with eclairs and langues de chat, which are essentially the sandwich cookies used to make milanos.  I'm pretty nervous actually, because even though Chef Katie is a fun teacher, I also know that she's a pretty tough grader and she's already told us that that the likelihood that more than 2 out of the 19 of us would make a perfect mousse is slim to none.  I've also never made the langues de chat cookies before.  They were made on the day when every team made different cookies than everyone else.  I'm sure I'll be able to follow the recipe well, but it still makes me nervous.  Anyway, I should probably go and review my notes on these 3 recipes before class tomorrow.  Goodnight, and I'll let you know how my products turn out over the next couple of days :)

MVP of the Day and the Return of the Finger Cot!

The last couple of days have been pretty hectic, but at least the random heavy snow has stopped for now (I don't want my classes to be canceled anymore).

Yesterday we made meringues, paris brest and chocolate mousse and got to sit for the lunch being made by the culinary students, so it was jam-packed.  I love meringues, whenever I have them it always reminds me of the holidays when my Mom makes meringue mushrooms with her buche de noel - yum!  We were allowed to make them a little more interesting by making variations with chocolate or almond, vanilla and lemon flavorings.  I chose chocolate (big surprise) and worked hard on not letting myself get overwhelmed by working alone.  Chef Katie made a joke that by now I've worked on my own as much as I've worked with a partner.  She told me that my meringue batter looked perfect and then, as I was piping it, she announced to the whole class that my meringues made me MVP that morning!  Some of my classmates even came over to watch me piping - needless to say, it was a huge ego boost and I was on cloud 9 for the rest of the day.  After that we made the pate a choux dough for the paris brest and baked our circles.  Chef Katie then taught us a neat trick for using our leftover pate a choux - mix it with a handful of parmesan cheese and any other spices or flavorings you want - I used black pepper and garlic powder, and then pipe into little mounds.  These little cheese puffs are amazing!  Dave loves them and I'm already planning when I can make them again.  We wound up filling the paris brest with our chocolate mousse, which looked beautiful.  Usually they're filled with a praline cream, but we were practicing making the mousse, so there you go!

Today Julie came back!  She's still feeling pretty terrible, but she's no longer contagious so she toughed it out and made it back to class.  It's kind of funny because even though I got my partner back, we were all working individually for most of the day.  We started pies, which meant that today was a day of preparation - making our pie doughs and a cooked apple filling for tomorrow.   I also suffered another stupid cut today.  As Chef Katie would say, my chef's knife jumped up and "bit me" and I got a small cut one one of my fingers, which means I was cursed with the dreaded finger cot/blue condom.  I think everyone cut themselves today - curse of the pie doughs I guess.  Lots of blue finger cots.

Since I didn't have to go to work this afternoon, I brought a lot of my leftover class projects over to my old co-workers.  It was nice getting to see them again, and I always love getting to feed people.  Plus, now my fridge isn't overrun with so much stuff, which is good for my waistline!

I'll try to post some pictures tomorrow of the fabulous apple pie and fruit tart - yum!

I'll Have My Meltdown With a Side of Creme Brulee Please

Hi Friends!

For the last couple of days I have been partner-less at school.  Well, without my original partner anyway.  Julie and her family flew to Vancouver to participate in the last few days of the Olympics (Jealous?  Why yes, I believe I am), and so Thursday I found myself working on my own for the first time.

I was pretty nervous, but a little psyched as I very stupidly convinced myself that not only could I accomplish the days tasks alone, but that if I could, it would prove just how awesome I am.  Let me tell you this: I am not awesome.  I handled the first recipe pretty well - creme brulee.  I even made a "cinnamon" variety that I think came out fairly well.  Any excuse to use a blowtorch in every day life, right?  But then came the creme anglaise *shaking fist at sky* Damn you creme anglaise!  I completely screwed it up.  I cooked it too long and basically wound up with sweet scrambled eggs and had to make it over again.  I tried to console myself with the fact that other people had to remake other things that day (like the pastry cream that we made next), but it all comes down to the fact that I got cocky and made a mistake.  I started to have that feeling when I know that a breakdown is coming on but I was determined to not be that girl, so I took a deep breath and finished out the day.  Amusingly enough, we were pooling all of our creme anglaise together so that Chef Katie could make us ice cream for breakfast the next day, but guess what?  School was canceled on Friday!  People down here really can't handle the snow!  Granted, I certainly didn't want to be out driving in the snow on Friday, but that has to do partly with the fact that they don't know how to plow or salt the roads - it's dangerous times downstate.  In the end, I don't know what happened with the creme anglaise, but we had to throw out all of the pastry cream we'd made because it had all gone bad over the weekend before we could use it for anything.

That brings us to today.  My partner Julie was out again today (and will be tomorrow as well) because she got strep throat on the trip back from Vancouver (dumb planes), so I wound up working with another girl whose partner was also absent today.  Chef Katie asked if anyone wanted to "adopt" her  as their partner for the day (poor choice of words...) and I said that I would, which led to her calling me "Mom" or "Mommy" for most of the morning.  Other than the weird parental connotations, we worked fairly well together, so if her partner is out again tomorrow then I will have no problem being paired up with her again.  We almost screwed up our pastry cream (forgot to add the butter & vanilla at the end) but caught ourselves in time before it was ruined.  We also made pate a choux, which I made before in the 3 week course I took at ICE last summer and chocolate ganache which of course led to chocolate topped eclairs and cream puffs!  Luckily there aren't too many, but our kitchen and refrigerator our incredibly overrun at the moment and it isn't doing my waistline any favors.  I hate to throw things out, but I'm having trouble getting through everything!  I'd love to be mailing out carepackages, but unfortunately the things we've been making lately can't be shipped/need to be refrigerated, etc. and I have like, 2 co-workers now as opposed to 80+.  I'm sure I'll figure something out though.

I'm really looking forward to having some of my local friends over in a couple of weeks for a taste testing so that I can practice what I've been learning.  I already find myself making mental checklists for things to make, and which ones have parts that can be made in advance.  Hooray for feeding people!

I hope that you enjoy reading this blog as much as I enjoy writing it, and I promise to try making things that can be mailed out soon :)