Blah, blah, blah

 All I talk or think about is bread. Bread, bread, bread. I have started planning my meals around what will go well with the bread I just brought home. The only trouble is, our instructor doesn't abide by the syllabus so I can't plan ahead. I guess that also makes it kind of exciting.

Last week was baguette ridiculousness. We made 2 on Tuesday, 2 on Wednesday and 2 on Friday. On Wednesday we had a banh mi party at our house to help get rid of the baguettes.

This week we have made quite a variety of things. Pretzels were delicious and we even made pretzel rolls which I have been meaning to make for months. They taught me a very important lesson as well. Proper cooling and storing is crucial. I threw the rolls into a ziploc bag while they were still warm and they ended up wrinkly and disturbing and found a new home in the trash. Sad. You must cool bread all the way before storing! Must!

We also made bagels this week. I wasn't super excited about these since I can't eat them (I broke my jaw long ago and wound up with a list of thing never to eat again) but my friends were happy to take them.

I love challah bread but I wasn't sure what to do with two loaves of it. Luckily I had a friend with a plan. She invited us to dinner where we paired the challah with a bohemian goulash dish. A match made in heaven!

I love just looking at the challah bread. It is so shiny and it was fun to braid. I am really starting to love my breads class. Kneading practically puts me in a trance. Getting something to rise and double perfectly has become a new obsession. Just when I am getting used to it all we are preparing to switch to laminated doughs and  a new learning process will begin. I wonder what my new obsession will be?

*New thing of last week - I walked into a bakery I have never been to and inquired about doing a stage.
*This week - new foods, kolache, a super yummy bohemian dessert. Like a yeasty cookie. I feel like that isn't really enough so I'll try to squeeze something else in.

Moves like...

On Friday in class we made cute little dinner rolls. Our instructor showed several different to prepare them including braids, knots and Mick Jagger lips (not pictured). One of my favorite parts of baking is trying to make things look fancy or adorable. I like making loaves of bread and baguettes but it is so much less satisfying to just dump dough in a pan than to work with it and try to give it a very specific look.

We also made tortillas on Friday and they were delicious. I had no idea that real tortillas contain lard. That is probably why they were so delicious. I made them again at home with shortening and they were good too. So good that of the 24 tortillas I have made I got zero pictures of them. They will be made again!

Earlier in the week we made pizza and pita bread. That was a delicious day! I have made pizza and pita bread many times before but I always enjoy it. These turned out kind of rectangular because we had to form them on half sheet trays. The pizza dough recipe we made was different that my usual and it was so easy to work with. We let it ferment overnight and when I took my dough out of the fridge the next day it was so light and fluffy it could have been a pillow. Or a pizza cloud. Or something else that I can't think of.

This week I think I will learn how to make my own yeast starter!

A Bounty of Bread

I started breads class this week. We will spend the first half of this class focusing on typical breads working towards artisan breads and then the second half will be devoted to enriched breads and pastries. That means croissants and danishes are on the way.

The first day was all lecture but we have been working nonstop since then. And by nonstop I meant sporadically. Turns out, there is a lot of waiting around when you are making bread. This is in stark contrast to our last class when we were in constant motion in an effort to get everything finished. No one is quite sure what to do while waiting for our bread to ferment or proof so we have started playing battleship and hangman. Yesterday I was smart enough to bring a book.

All that waiting around has produced 2 baguettes, one loaf of white pan bread, one loaf of cinnamon pan bread, pizza dough and two baguettes epi style. I froze the white bread, my husband and I ate one baguette almost immediately, the cinnamon bread became french toast for breakfast this morning (with leftovers for tomorrow) and I fed the kids at school one of the epi baguettes. The last baguette will hopefully become banh mi sandwiches tonight and I think we are making pizza during class today. One epi baguette left. Phew! Bread is easier to find a use for than cookies at least.

I resolve.

Everyone has been talking about resolutions lately (shocking) and I hate to tell you this but I'm gonna do it too.

I don't usually make resolutions because I don't stick with them. I don't stick with them because I feel like it is something I'm supposed to do, not something I want to do. My family and my husband will tell you that it is very difficult to make me do something that I don't want to do.

This year I was going to skip even pretending to make a resolution but then I thought of a good one that I really want to try. Plus it is simple and pretty open-ended so I can probably cheat. I am going to do something new every week. I decided it can be anything new. Eating something I've never tried, making something new, going somewhere, a new activity, whatever.

It started on New Year's Eve, before I had even thought of the resolution. We had dinner with friends and every couple was asked to bring a dish to share. We have adventurous friends so we brought roasted bone marrow. I have never had bone marrow but I hope to have it again soon. It was far tastier than I imagined, like delicious meat butter.

Late last week I made pasta with braised oxtail. I have never prepared or eaten oxtail before. I usually leave the meat preparation to my husband but this needed to be cooked all day and he was at work so I had to do it myself. This was also delicious and I will prepare it again soon.

Over the weekend was one more first. I volunteered to make a dessert for a bridal shower I was attending. I went for Tres Leches cake from the new cookbook my brother got me. Another first.


So far it has mostly been new food adventures. I will try to mix it up. Later this week I am going to a concert of a band I have never seen at a venue I haven't been to. Plus I started a new class at school!

Chocolate Overload

 My poor book club. This is what I'm bringing for dinner.

At the end of my Intro to Baking class I was drowning in baked goods. I ended up bring home three cakes one day and had the good sense to freeze two of them. One was a genoise cake which I turned into a tasty trifle at Christmas (resolution for the new year, take pictures of things and also try to take better pictures of things).

The other cake was a devil's food cake. I have never been a fan of devil's foods cake but that may have something to do with the fact that the only form I have had it in is a Snackwells cake/cookie thing. Remember Snackwells? Low fat cookies and such. They were also low on deliciousness.

Since this has been my only experience with this kind of cake I had no idea what to do with it and I also wasn't very excited to try to do something with it.
Enter Christmas.

For Christmas I received many wonderful things. My brother got me this book on a recommendation of a friend of his who is a pastry chef in New York. In this book is a really good looking devil's food cake. It has layers of caramel and dark chocolate ganache. The frosting is dark chocolate ganache coated with toasted cake crumbs. Now who can I make eat this cake? My book club. I hope it is good.

The crumb coating makes the cake look "classy" in my husband's words but I felt it lacked a little something extra. In the book there is a perfectly placed dollop of ganache on top of the cake. I tried to replicate it but it always ended up looking like a turd. I have been wanting to try my hand at making roses so I warmed up the ganache a little and hoped for the best. I don't know if you are supposed to pipe roses out of ganache but I did.

I made 5 roses and they each turned out a little different. The first ones were smaller and tighter since the chocolate was a little cooler. The edges of the petals were rough which I think made kind of a cool effect. The last 2 I did were bigger and softer looking since the chocolate had warmed up while I was using it. After chilling in the fridge for a while I chose one of the bigger ones and stuck it on the middle of the cake. Done and done.

New Year!

I couldn't have really asked for a better year than 2011 was. It was a year of firsts and a year of adventure.

This year we traveled to Asia for three weeks to visit Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand. It was my first time traveling in that area. Again, my husband made an awesome blog for it so if you are curious about what it is like to travel in that part of the world I will refer you to him.

This was a the year of weddings. Four of my husband's cousins got married and one of our friends got married twice (sort of). I'm usually not a big fan of weddings but these were each so fun and unique in their own ways. One had brunch for the reception dinner. One had a hot dog cart late in the evening. One had karaoke at the dance plus it was at a beautiful resort up north. One was in a local park. Three had fun photo booths. One was on the beach in Florida and officiated by my husband (another first).

We made our first trip to New York. We traveled to Chicago to see my brother perform in a play that we later got to see him receive his first Ivey award for.

There were also new babies (4 friends and one family member brought some new humans to the world) this year and other new beginnings. My husband and I both left our jobs. He left his for a new opportunity at a different company, I left mine for a part time teaching job that allowed me to start culinary school. We had several friends that also started new jobs and even started new companies this year.

This year I also started running. I completed Warrior Dash, Tiger Tracks 5k and Muddy Buddies. I also obtained my first running injury.

We survived 17 flights and a million concerts. We had way too much fun with our friends doing things like camping, a wig out, pine wood derby, a pie party, a milkshake party, a pudgie pie party, Christmas in July, Bratstravaganza, roller derby, wine party, birthdays, sledding, crafting days, book clubs, bowling, rib club, game nights, etc, etc, etc.

I also made it through the entire year without getting a tattoo.

It was a very brave year.

2012 is going to have a hard time competing.