Friday, January 23, 2015

My final blog


The final exam coming up this Tuesday. That means semester is coming to an end, which is pretty sad because I’m actually really starting to enjoy working in the bakeshop. This week I baked puff pastry filled with almond filling and another type filled with pizza sauce, cheese and pepperoni, which I must say were in fact delicious. The next day I baked a blueberry pie, it turned out okay I guess but it was not my favorite personally, for some reason I don’t enjoy fruit pies, but that’s just me. Wednesday was our field trip; we went to Steinbach Nature’s farms where we learnt about chickens and eggs mainly, but also a little about pasta. We didn’t have enough time to eat at a restaurant so instead we ordered eight different types of pizza’s from Pizza hut. On Thursday I made an unbaked key lime pie for the first time, it had a strange flavor but if you like lemon lime flavor then you should definitely try it. Last week on Friday I believe, we had to plate our desserts professionally; my dessert was a strawberry cream cheese pie. First layer was Oreo cookie crumbs, then ordinal vanilla cream cheese and to top it off strawberry cream cheese. I even have a picture of how it all came out in the end. Hope you like it.    

Plated Dessert Assignment


Last week Friday we all had to decide on a dessert to make for an assignment in the bakeshop. So I decided I would make a dessert called pavlova because it’s not a common dessert that you here about every day and I had only made it one other time before in the bakeshop. If you’re not sure what that is, it’s just egg whites and sugar that you mix in the mixer until soft peaks form. Then you put that into a piping bag and pipe it onto a baking sheet in a circle as big as you want and then you bake it. Then after they are baked you pipe whipped cream on top and I garnished mine with strawberries and raspberries and then strawberry sauce. You don’t have to garnish them with fruit you could just garnish with chocolate and caramel sauce and a piece of chocolate on top of that. Or really anything else you wanted but I think those are the most common garnishes for this type of dessert. I got the chance to taste the pavlova and for myself personally it wasn’t really my favorite I think it might have been the texture I didn’t like. I found the topping was better than the pavlova itself. JR

Monday, January 19, 2015

Pie Station


          Pies are a very common American dessert. Pies are very easy to make. There are two kinds of pie dough’s. There is the flaky pie dough and the mealy pie dough. Flaky pie dough is fat cut into flour until it resembles the size of peas with salt and water added. Mealy pie dough is fat cut into flour until it resembles coarse cornmeal with salt and water added. I learnt that letting the pie shells rest for half an hour to an hour before baking stops the pie crust from shrinking. This is because when forming the pie dough the gluten gets worked a lot. I did some research about pies and I found a lot of interesting facts. Apple pie a la mode means apple pie served with ice cream. Pies used to be made with meat inside first. The invention of fruit filled pies came later. Very early Americans had a take-off crust for pies. They first baked the apples with the crust and then they took off the top crust and added sugar and sometimes added spices. Next they put on the top crust and the apple pie was ready to serve.

Cookie Station


          A few weeks ago I was in the cookie station and I noticed that cookies get sold very quickly. The creaming method gets used a lot for cookie recipes. My favourite part in this station is scooping and flattening the cookies. It’s fun making different kinds of cookies and learning what gives cookies different characteristics. For crispy cookies less liquid is added. Crispy cookies contain a high amount of fat and sugar. They get baked longer so that more moisture gets out creating a crispy texture. They're usually small and thin shaped. For soft cookies lots of liquid is added and not so much fat and sugar. Under baking also makes them soft. Chewy cookies contain a high amount of sugar and liquid but they are low in fat and they contain more eggs. Chewy cookies are mixed a little longer so that strong flour or gluten develops during mixing. Cookies that spread contain a high amount of sugar. Here's an interesting fact the word cookie comes from the Dutch word koekje. Koekje means “little cake.”

Yeast Station

   My second time in the yeast station was very interesting. For the first time I made croissants and It was fun and a lot of work to actually make them from scratch. Making yeast products requires lots of rolling out dough especially croissants and Danish dough. Making croissants takes a lot of time therefore it seems like the more work you do the better the product tastes. What I really like about the yeast station is that it doesn't take a long time gathering all the ingredients. For making bread for example the main ingredients are flour, water (or milk), yeast and a little bit of salt. The longer part of the process is actually waiting for the dough to mix until the gluten has developed enough so that it can be proofed and the production can go on.


Friday, January 9, 2015

 Raspberry Tart
 
Making puff pastry... 
 
Chocolate covered strawberries 
 
Pavlova 
 
Strawberry Cheesecake