Soup Kitchen

My home smells like soup a lot recently. I've been practicing stocks and soups for class, and yesterday I made a pureed soup of carrot and ginger. I have so much fun going through the steps, watching it turn from raw vegetables to a delicious, bright, flavourful soup. It's like kitchen magic.



Later today I might make a batch of Leek and Potato soup but we'll see. I've already got food coming out of my ears as it is. Considering I'm trying to lose weight, that's not exactly ideal. I weigh the most now that I have in two years and I'm not particularly pleased about it. I suppose it can partly be blamed on things like this Moka Cake I made for my mother's birthday this past week.



It's a white génoise cake, with coffee butter cream, toasted almonds and chocolate covered coffee beans on the rosettes. I'm very happy with how it came out, although I think I did use a little too much coffee syrup soaking the cake layers. I can always get better. I haven't got too much else to say, and until I feel better appearance, I don't think there will be too many outfit photos. So food it is. Cheers!

All About Food

While I've been slacking taking outfit photos - a little unfortunate because I've worn some pretty creative stuff - I've been absorbed with food. I'd had quiche on the brain since Paris because I was eating some nearly everyday. I finally made myself a vegetable quiche on Friday and it was so satisfying.



I'm hoping to practice a lot of my class recipes ahead of time at home. This past weekend I made Choux Pastry Swans, something we had seen our Chef make at the Cordon Bleu but that we didn't do in practical. It's scheduled for us next week now, and it was actually a lot easier than I thought it would be and I'm quite happy with how they came out.



 Next time I'll try to make the necks thinner and the 'heads' less bulbous. I brought some over to a friend's and gave a bunch to my parents - I really just wanted to make them, eating them interests me less - and everybody was suitably impressed. Then I do things that impress myself - even if just a little - and whip up tasty dinner dishes like chicken in a spicy mango pineapple sauce on lovely red quinoa.



I've also been cooking up foods with lovely vegetables from my garden. Unfortunately frosts have started at night, which means the garden season is basically over. This wasn't exactly an ideal year for gardening and I can just hope next year is better temperature and weather-wise for me. I've been pulling up potatoes and a few green peppers though, and there are still tomatoes on my covered plants.



My ornamental corn is also quite lovely and I have to finish drying the cobs. I'll definitely be planting more of it next year, it's just so pretty. I love the variety of colours and the rich purple that can grow in the stalks. I'll be planting more varieties of potatoes too, for certain. They actually have really pretty plants and flowers and that surprised me.



Anyhow, I need to get ready for my baking class. We're making three kinds of cookies today and hopefully it all goes smoothly. I hope you had a great weekend. Cheers!

Happy Mother's Day

I have a great love for all the mothers in my life, and I hope each and every mom of you has a wonderful day with your children! I baked up a special moka cake for the occasion, just a few days after baking a birthday cake for a friend. The weather's gotten quite cold - cold enough to cover all my garden plants - so it's no surprise I'm back to baking again.

Leather jacket - Danier

Skirt - Thrifted from the Salvation Army

Rubber boots - Thrifted from Value Village

This photo is back on April 25th, which is why things are still brown and grey compared to the lush green outside now, but the weather is essentially the same. I just couldn't bring myself to post this on a beautiful sunny day. Today suits this!

The first cake was a simple vanilla cake with confectioners frosting, for my friend (and incidentally also a momma) Karen's birthday. It was good, but sooo sweet. I won't be making it again. I imagine if someone likes very sweet things that would be the cake for them. The second is a moka cake, génoise layers soaked with coffee syrup, with coffee butter cream icing and toasted almonds. It was a recipe from my Cordon Bleu collection. My writing abilities are rusty, I'd really need to practice again. I'll be bringing the Mom cake to my parents' later today, and I can't wait to eat it. I hope you all had a great weekend. Cheers!

Fruity

It's hovering just above freezing outside and it feels like Spring is on the way. Too bad it's still going to be months before winter's grip finally releases us and the weather starts to really warm up again. At times like these, I dress extra colourfully, to try and keep myself cheered up in this time of drab greys and whites and muddy browns out there. I guess my baking desires are along the same lines because I've been making strawberry tarts over the last few days.

T-shirt - Can't remember

Skirt - Gift from Heather

Shoes - Thrifted

I've had a lot of spare time on my hands - for reasons I won't go into because they're bumming me out right now - and I can only sit around playing video games for so long before I start going loopy. I cleaned the heck out of my apartment yesterday, which really needed doing. I don't know why I avoid it for so long, when it doesn't take that much time. Really it only takes about as long to clean this place, mopped floors and all, as it does to make a tart from scratch.

I made the mini tarts a few days ago and the full-sized tart this evening. Its recipe was from my Cordon Bleu pastry book. We saw the Chef make it during class but we didn't make it during our practical because it's so simple. I fought a little with the crust dough, and I'm not exactly certain why it was misbehaving, but it seems to have turned out well enough. I had some left-over dough and baked up a few mini tarts today too and the one I ate - with extra whipped cream - tasted just fine.

Not counting an apron, I baked dressed like this. I unfortunately managed to burn my right arm taking the tart crust from the oven but I'm getting used to having burns at some degree of healing somewhere on my arms or hands most of the time now. But now that my baking is done and the kitchen is all cleaned up, I think I'll crack a beer and go back to playing video games for a while. I hope you all had a good start to the week. Cheers!

Sweet Progress

Happy new year everyone! I'm late with that as I am with a few other things I'm going to be mentioning here, but better late than never I suppose. Life's been pretty crazy the last few weeks. I had to do a lot of studying for my final exam, and then attended my graduation. The holidays were a whirlwind with my parents' visit, and then I danced the night away with a friend to welcome in the new year. Not to mention my work life is changing too. I'll leave most of that to other posts, but for now I'll share some of the last pastry photos from my time at school.



Starting from the top, there's a Charlotte aux Poires, a pastry made from ladyfinger biscuit, filled with bavarian cream and pear chunks, and decorated with Chantilly cream and braised pear. The second photo is the Charlotte served with a strawberry coulis. The chocolate decadence below is a Pavé du Roy, chocolate biscuit soaked with rum syrup and layered with a dark chocolate ganache and topped with chocolate decor. Finally, two Saint-Honoré cakes, made with a base of shortcrust and choux paste, filled with Chibouste cream and decorated with caramel. The first was my initial attempt, and I unfortunately failed my Chibouste cream. My second attempt went much better and I was much happier with it.



These last two photos are a before-and-after of an apple tart I baked up in my own kitchen yesterday. The dough was leftover from one of my first ever classes and had been sitting in my freezer ever since and I figured I may as well use it up. I do so love baking. Which makes my other news all the more wonderful. But I'll save that for another day. Cheers!

A Fresh Start and More Pastries

Today I start my new job. I've been hired on as a Line Cook in a new Italian restaurant that just opened. I've never worked in a legit kitchen before - the closest to that was working in a sketchy pizza shop in high school - so I have a lot to learn, but I'm excited. This is going to be challenging, and exhausting, and stressful. But I am so ready for this. It's what I want, and I'm still amazed this is my life now.

In just a few more weeks, I will have finished - and hopefully graduated with my certificate - from the Basic Pastry course at the Ottawa Cordon Bleu. I'm sad thinking about it being nearly over already, because I'm enjoying it so much. I really think I'm eventually going to go back and at least do the Intermediate Pastry level too, probably in July if I can swing it. Here are some more of the tasty things I've been making in class over the past few weeks.



Above are a tarte soufflée filled with the strawberry coulis that you can see below it. I was surprised with how well my soufflée turned out, considering they're such fragile things and I'd never made one before. Below here you can see a not-quite-perfect gratin aux fruits. I should have cut the berries up a little more, so they wouldn't show through the light pastry cream like they did.



This Christmas Log is pretty self-explanatory. I find it rather gaudy but I suppose most Christmas-themed things will be. It was really tasty, and I've got a half-finished one in my freezer for when my parents come up to visit. The Succès pastry below was a delicious almond overload. Layers of almond buiscuit, with almond buttercream and toasted almonds pressed into the sides.



This miroir aux cassis (a blackcurrant mousse cake) is probably my favourite so far. It was sooo delicious! The only bummer about all this is that I don't have a lot of the required tools to make most of this stuff at home. Looks like I'm going to have to acquire some entremets rings and tarte moulds. I hope you have a really groovy Monday and a good week. Cheers!

Ssssweet Things

What a day I've had! I won't go into details because it's stressed me out enough, but suffice to say I am very unhappy with the Government of Canada, how they run this country, and how they treat their citizens. So on a lighter note... feast your eyes on some of the tasty sweet things I've been baking up in class this past week, and shots of my gorgeous Jewel the female albino checkered garter snake.



The above are a Pithivers and six overstuffed Chaussons aux Pommes (apple turnovers) made with puff pastry dough. The top pastry is filled with an almond cream and I'm really quite pleased with how it turned out. The only hitch was the little "petals" should be round rather than pointy.



I can't believe what a big girl my sweet Jewel is turning into! I remember when she was barely as big 'round as a pencil and now she's such a chunky spunky thing. She just gets prettier the more she grows, with those gorgeous yellows and lavenders in her scales.



Lastly, here's one you all probably recognize. I baked this Black Forest cake on Friday. I even made the chocolate shavings! It was a really fun practical that day and I'm happy with how it came out, even if I wound up not using nearly enough simple syrup to soak the cake layers and it turned out a tad too dry. Live and learn! I won't be making that mistake again. Anyhow, that's that for now. I hope you've had a good Monday and your week goes well. Cheers!

Soggy Saturday

It's raining today, which is a shame, because today is the day of the Zombie Walk! I posted a little about it previous years I attended, and this is my fifth year going now. I'm zombing it up with my friend Tina again this time. I guess we're just going to be a bunch of soggy zombies!

I went out dancing for Ritual Nights last night which was great fun. I was too tired to go the last time around but this made up for missing it. Since money is tight I didn't want to spend any cash on costumes (my zombie outfit is made from clothes I was going throw out/send to the thrift store) I just dressed myself up as a spider lady with a spiderweb shirt and spider ornament.

Yesterday we made brioche and croissants with the dough we'd prepared the previous class. My pastries came out well, but there was a near disaster when someone didn't properly shut the communal oven door, causing the oven temperature to crash by nearly 100'C. Thankfully my baked goods were nearly done so it just took them a little longer to be properly golden brown, but others fared worse. One tray of croissants wound up melting into mushy little piles of gooey dough rather than crisping and rising like they should. Pastry kitchen drama!



The funniest thing was probably just the fact that braiding the brioche was a huge deal for all the men because most of them don't know how to braid anything, much less dough haha. Thank goodness for feminine skills! Anyway, I aught to eat some late breakfast and start getting ready for this Zombie Walk. I hope you're having a good weekend. Cheers!

Oreo Cream Cheese Cupcakes

This post is brought to you by ridiculously delicious baked goods. And the fact that I am running out of new things to post. I've pretty much taken a photo of most every seemingly interesting outfit that I can wear in these temperatures... so I'm stuck in weather-limbo until spring really hits and I can wear what I want to wear and not what the weather calls for instead. But yes, baked goods! Oreo cream cheese cupcakes!

These are indeed as delicious as they look! And so super simple to make too! I used this recipe here, but there are literally dozens of oreo cupcake recipes out there, so if this one isn't your favourite, try another. Anywho, I had the brainwave of taking photos while baking these, to give you a sort of step-by-step. Here we go!

Ingredients: - 18 whole Oreo Cookies and 6 roughly chopped Oreo Cookies
                     - 1/2 a cup of sugar
                     -  2 large room temperature eggs, lightly beaten
                     - 1/2 a cup of sour cream
                     -  1 pound cream cheese (I know it seems like a lot, but it's worth it!)
                     -  1 teaspoon of pure vanilla extract (the real stuff makes a difference)
                     -  A pinch of salt

Step 1: Place cupcake liners in your muffin tins (I used one 12 cup and one 6 cup tin, medium cup size) and then place One Oreo Cookie in the bottom of each cupcake liner.

Step 2: In a large bowl, beat the cream cheese until smooth. I highly recommend you let your cream cheese hang out somewhere warm ahead of time, to make this an easier task.

Step 3: Once the cream cheese is smooth, gradually add in your sugar, and then beat in the vanilla extract.

Pictured here is the cream cheese combined with sugar...

Because I forgot I was supposed to be taking a photo at each step!

Vanilla extract!

Step 4: Drizzle in the beaten eggs, a little bit at a time. Make sure to scrape down the sides so everything is well combined!

So I didn't drizzle... but it worked out fine!

Step 5: Beat in the sour cream and add your pinch of salt!

Step 6: Stir in chopped cookies by hand. The ol' fashion way!

Step 7: Pour your batter into the cupcake cups, nearly to the top. These won't rise like most cupcakes, so don't worry about expanding cupcakes overflowing.

Step 8: Bake at 275˚F for about 20-25 minutes or until firm to the touch.

Step 9: Transfer to a wire cooling rack - but keep in tins - and once cool, place in fridge to set for at least 4 hours. (I left mine in overnight)

And voilà! Oreo cream cheese cupcakes! They're like tiny little single-serving sized cheesecakes in a cup. I do recommend eating them with a fork and in a plate, with a napkin handy.

I hope you enjoyed my photo-by-photo recipe post Cheers!