Challenge Mondays

In this course, a typical Monday starts off in the classroom, meeting up with everyone after the weekend and looking at what we need to do for the day. During this time, once everyone is seated, Mrs. Nikkel will tell us what our challenge of the day will be. Some days it will be easy, others will be more challenging, but that's the point. These challenges put our technical skills and creativity to the test, seeing if we can create something tasty and pleasing to the eye.
A few weeks ago the challenge was pumpkin. I had never made a cake alone before, so I did just that! I made a coffee infused chocolate pumpkin cake, filled and iced with cream cheese pumpkin  spice icing, topped with chopped up toasted pecans, and a border of pecan halves around the perimeter of the top of the cake. The cake was meant to be rustic looking, it was fall! I was quite pleased with how this turned out and only took me a few hours to make! I will definitely be making this again for Thanksgiving next year for all of my family to enjoy!

Chef's Table dessert

At least once a year you must participate in a lunch called Chef’s table, if you are in the bakery and pastry arts program, you must prepare a dessert that is at your difficulty level and must feed 30 people.

 For my dessert, I made “The Severed Head of Cakenstein”. He is a 6-layer vanilla white velvet cake tie-dyed with various colors for each layer, then filled with vanilla buttercream dyed a light green, then covered in fondant, making it look like Frankenstein’s monster! I had two other smaller cakes served on the side just iced the green vanilla buttercream and topped with green sprinkles He took me about 10 hours to make, but it was a labor of love.

I was so happy that I could practice the skills I’m going to be using for when I open my very own bakery. This course has given me such unique opportunity, letting me have all this hands on learning I need for this practice, and while I’m still in high school! It gives me the confidence I need to pursue my dream of owning my own bakery, and each day I feel one step closer to that goal!

Yesterday I spent a chunk of the day making Candy Apples, which is a thing that I have never made and haven't ever eaten. I really liked the way they turned out, because I thought the colour was very nice shade of red and I loved how shiny the candy was on the apples. It was my first time making these and I don't think its going to be the last time, because I want to try making these again but this time I want to make them I different colour and add some flavour to them and see how that turns out. The only part that was not the greatest was having to clean the hardened candy in the saucepan that I used to make the candy. 

 

The next time that I make candy apples I think I would use popsicle sticks on them rather than lollipop sticks because they get soggy from the inside of the apple and come out.

All Over The Place

In the third month of this semester, time is going by quicker than I expected. I love being here-not necessarily this school- but the class itself. Its funny how I've done things I didn't expect to do and be so comfortable in doing so. I've made so much that its almost crazy. Of course things like cookies and muffins have already been done before but things like bagels, bread, tarts, cakes, and things with French names, those have not been done before. I've become comfortable in the kitchen and comfortable enough to know how to make things that I don't ask for as much help as I did when I first came to join this class. The things that may have annoyed me the most of all were the laminated doughs-Danish, croissant, puff pastry- kneading and kneading until you're numb and your arms are ready to fall off. The outcome is great but the process of it is really tiring. The first time I made bagels they turned out great and beautiful, the second time I made bagels they were wrinkly and we had to use them for bread crisps, and the third time I made bagels they turned out beautiful all over again. I have fun in this class. You always hear the culinary class yelling and banging around, it just seems so stressful and scary. I'm thankful I took bakeshop inside of Culinary. I am to be Dessert Chef for Chef's table next week and haven't figured out what I'm going to make. I'm thinking about it though. As I read this over I realize this post may have been all over this place but nothing around here is always perfectly in order, we always find ways to figure out things anyway. Until next time!

For my first Chefs Table I made Puff Pastry Apple Roses, I was pushing my limits with this because I have never made anything like this before. It was difficult and I didn't do it on my own. Vanessa and Lena helped me, I would not have had enough time if they didn't help. To make the roses I cut the puff pastry into even rectangles, about 2'' by 10''. Then I spread whipped cream cheese with added sugar on the rectangle sprinkled with cinnamon, I put 4-5 apple (that were thinly sliced and microwaved in a bowl with water and lemon) on the puff pastry, folded the pastry in half and rolled them to look like a rose. The first few looked bad but with some practice we got the hang of it. When I baked them I wrapped tin foil on top of the pan so the apples wouldn't burn but with the one pan the tin foil fell off so those were nice and crunchy. I preferred the overbakes ones because the others were too soft, but everyone loved them. I was afraid I wasn't going to have enough, I think I made 32 or 34, there were 4 leftover, and I took them home. I enjoyed making them despite the time crunch, the roses were stressful, I was very proud to be the first Chef to make something like this.

I have enjoyed some of the things I have been able to make since we first started with The Baking & Pastry Arts course. One of which was the Watermelon Macarons. I made these Macarons using a different technique to smoothen them before I let them rest which I thought was a very good new way of getting them smooth. While making them, I coloured them all a light pink and sprinkled them with black sesame seeds to look like watermelon, and coloured the filling green, and added a watermelon flavouring. I had a lot  fun making these because I have never made any macarons not only taste like fruit, but also like it.

Another thing that I really enjoyed making was a Peanut Butter Cheesecake. I really like the way it turned out once it was portioned and decorated. I choose to drizzle it with chocolate glaze because I feel like peanut butter and chocolate fit really well together. I actually enjoyed making this cheesecake so much I decided to make another one at home, and also decided to play around with the flavour and made a second one at home but used Nutella instead of the Peanut Butter, and it was excellent. I put the Cheesecake into the freezer before we ate it so to let it chill a little bit more, and forgot about it. Once I took it out it was almost fully frozen and looked kind of like ice cream and my whole family loved it because it was cheesecake that had the texture of ice cream, but the flavour of Nutella. I really enjoyed making all these cheesecakes and would like to make it again soon.

I have been baking in the Bakeshop for around 2 months now, it has been very great! I have made several things, like pies, baguettes, and lots and lots of yeast products! One of my favourite thing is probably making baguettes and cinnamon buns, because I love working with yeast products, and shaping bread and decorating. You learn lots of things in baking class! Before baking class I always needed help with some of the yeast products, but then after I knew that you need warm milk and warm water to help it form together, I also know how to bake yeast products by myself! but when I started baking in the bakeshop I learned many new things, and after that I wanted to bake at home every day and try out different things, but it doesn't work every day because its so busy and usually when we get out of the bakeshop we are all tired and ready to go home. I also made laminated dough, which is dough for croissants, Danish and puff pastry. I already made those doughs, my croissants didn't turn out as well as my Danish, my croissants were kind of dark and they were kind of elastic, but my Danish had a nice filling inside and a really soft feeling and taste from the outside brushed with a hot apricot glaze on it.