I recently bought a camera with some birthday money, which of course means that I took it to my internship and went crazy taking pictures of delicious things. No time to waste, here they are!
These are the Eclairs-- Pate Choux filled with vanilla bean pastry cream, dipped in dark chocolate ganache. I make the pastry cream, then fill the premade pate choux, and dip them in the ganache!
Homemade Oreos-- Chocolate shortbread with brown sugar & vanilla buttercream, dipped in chocolate. Oh baby. I usually put them together and dip them in chocolate.
Chocolate cream pie-- I make the chocolate pastry cream, and then the pastry chef I'm working with, Jen, does the whipped cream piping. It's a bit too rich for me to eat a whole slice, so one bite after I'm done with the chocolate filling is enough for me!
I didn't take pictures of other things I've been learning to make, like Italian Meringue Buttercream, Pumpkin and Pecan Pies, Browned Butter Frosting, Almond Cream, and bunches of other tasty treats. Plus, the techniques I'm learning are amazing as well-- I applied my new pie skills at home the other day and made a killer blackberry pie (blackberries were on sale, $3 a carton-- seriously how could I pass that up??!)
I also took some pictures of the mini-cakes I made for a friend's 1920's-black-and-white-themed birthday party. When I say mini, I mean really mini:
Baked mini-cakes
Whipped Butter & Vanilla Bean Frosting
Finished cakes dipped in chocolate ganache and decorated with fondant "pearls".
I made half of the cakes this way, and took the other half, filled them with chocolate whipped butter frosting, and dipped them in white chocolate...
...and decorated them with fondant bow-ties!!
I'm pretty durn proud if I do say so myself...
Since I have a little baking theme going on here, I thought I'd also do a little book review, for those who are as crazy about all-things-wheat-related as I am.
The other day, I bought The Bread Baker's Apprentice by Peter Reinhart.
It cost me a pretty penny ($35...more than it would cost me to make about 30 loaves of bread...), but I didn't mind; I was excited about it because he uses baker's formulas (that use weight instead of volume) and he had a wide variety of recipes with a ton of technique tips.
Alas, as you can probably guess by now, I was disappointed. His formulas were great, technique tips relatively valuable, but holy crap-- that guy is the BIGGEST snob!! He spent the first 30 pages of the book talking about his various bread awards and how amazing he is at baking-- all with inlayed pictures of him in a chef's hat that's as big as his ego.
EQUALS
Yep.
So, after being a sneaky snake and copying down a few keeper-recipes, I have decided to return the book to Powell's and get my sweet, sweet, tip-money back.
I have, however, found a perfect replacement bread-book. It has formulas AND recipes, has technique tips not only for conventional ovens but also for wood-fired ovens and other baking arrangements, and only cost me $10! It is called The Laurel's Kitchen Bread Book, and I love it.
There are a few reasons why I love this book so much.
First of all, Laurel's Kitchen was formed by a small group of vegetarians who wanted to write a recipe book that centered around vegetarianism and proper nutrition-- in the 70's. I bought their cookbook (a little baby paperback book that looks like a novel and cost me $3.95), and it is filled with nutritional tips for healthy bodies, and hundreds of amazing country-style recipes.
So, naturally, their bread book is also filled with healthy recipes and advice for baking bread that tastes good because it has good things in it. Seriously-- Honeybutter Oatmeal Bread, Whole-wheat sourdough, Potato Rosemary Wheat?? Heck yeah! Plus, each recipe has "slow" options-- in case you have a little more time on your hands to really develop a rich, multi-faceted yeast flavor. Ohmygod.
They also have a chart in the back that gives you about twelve different time schedules for your bread-making: 24-hour slow-rising options, 12-hour options, super-fast rising methods, and everything in-between.
So you probably get that I love this book by now. But I have to say one more thing about it; perhaps my favorite part about the book. Because it was written by 70's-era veg-head hippies, it talks about bread making with a whole lotta love. Each loaf has a story, and each method is centered around the fact that bread is a family, communal thing. Everybody loves a hot loaf of bread as a gift, and if you are the baker in the family, you can't help but bring people together to eat delicious things. I love that this book makes that an actual part of the baking process-- something starkly different from Peter Reinhart's elitist approach to bread-making.
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| An illustration from the Laurel's Kitchen Bread Book |
My final bread-baking reccomendation is also my favorite, and also cost me a measly $7.50. It's called the Wooden Spoon Bread Book, and holy moly, it has everything under the sun with a grain of wheat in it.
This has my two favorite cornbread recipes: buttermilk cornbread, and sourdough cornbread (oh yeah, it exists, and it's amazing.) In fact, lil' trade secret: I make the sourdough cornbread with buttermilk...good lord. It rockets you into another corn-dimension.
I love this book because it has a zillion recipes, under cute sections like "The Magical Breads" (anything sourdough) and "Breads That Say Good Morning" (scones, muffins, waffles, pancakes), and it also features tons of regional recipes; I really want to try the "Southern Spoon Bread"....bread you eat with a spoon?! FOR DINNER??!! Yes, yes, a thousand times yes.
Well, anyhoo, I hope you all go out and buy some amazing books to make some delicious treats (nutritional delicious treats of course). I'm picky when it comes to recipe-books, even though I rarely follow the recipe spot-on; but these won't lead you astray.
Of course, I always have to leave you with something entertaining. Check out my new (old-time) favorite Appalachian band- the Coon Creek Girls. Friggin' adorable. And talented! [two videos below.]
