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Eight whole weeks have passed since my last culinary school post. Read school update one and culinary school update 4 here!
8 weeks; 118 recipes and 21 pounds of butter (which is actually not a lot of butter, by the way).
Iโm not going to tell you where all that butter went. This is a safe space.
I have both so much to say and too little to say all at the same time. The recipes blend into each other; the days blend into weeks; the facts swirl about in your brain until you dream about piping โHappy Birthdayโ and you can make pastry cream in your sleep (or until your arm falls off).
If time has passed this quickly thus far, someday soon school will draw to a close.
And, honestly, that thought made me inordinately sad.
What about the friends that I have made?
What about my favorite chefs that I wonโt get to see everyday?
What about the learning and the fast pace that have become quotidian?
What about this City that I love?
But the most heavily weighted questionโฆ
What will I do?
I have no clue, but I think about it everyday and it weighs on me. I am open to any and all suggestions.
But letโs not talk about thatโฆletโs talk about what I have been BAKING!
So much, so much.
Let me take you on a quick tour of Cakes, Bread, more Cakes and Petits Fours!
Though I didnโt know it at the time, they eased us into cakes with this Chocolate Swirled Pound cake (one of my favorite photos, by the way), a Lemon Pound cake, and chocolate fudge cupcakes.
Thatโs right. Cupcakes! You better believe I was like a little girl on Christmas morning. Do try to contain your excitement, Lindsey. #fail
Did you know that to get the perfect slit down the middle of a loaf cake, chefโs actually open the oven after 15 minutes and cut it with a knife to ensure a perfect slit?! Yeah, I didnโt. I thought that stuff was magic.
Turns out magic only exists in Harry Potter. #dreamscrushed
And apparently there is more to life than the Creaming Method. And bubbles alone are supposed to leaven your cake. Mmm hmm. Air.
Can I get a witness!?
Itโs not magic itโs science. (See above!) And itโs really easy to deflate. Not that I would know anything about thatโฆ ๐
And this whole time, weโre squeezing in piping, because apparently piping โHappy Birthdayโ is a pastry chefโs new best friend.
I want a new friend.
Never fear, Flourless Chocolate Cake to the rescue! Those are sticks of chocolate meringue sprinkled with cocoa nibs. #ooc
And with the blink of the eye and one more โHappy Birthdayโ, we are on to bread!
If you thought I got excited about cupcakesโฆ
Bread is my weakness.
I know I said that about Puff Pastry, and itโs totally true, but bread is the weakness I have had since birth. Right, Mom?
Right.
This unit can pretty much be summarized by the followingโฆ
OMGITWASSOGOODICANHARDLYBREATHE!
Like cakes we were eased into bread with Quick Breads, which, Chef Jรผrgen will have you know, are not called that because they are made quickly. They are called quick breads because they are made with chemical leavening instead of the slower Organic Leavening (yeast in laymanโs terms), and chemical leavening mimics the yeast but in less time.
Soooo unless I missed something in the 20 times this was drilled into my head, quick breads are bread that are leavened quicker than yeast-leavened breads. Am I dense or are they splitting hairs?
I donโt even know where to start with breads! We made so many in such a short amount of time: there were bagels, English muffins, foccacia, traditional harvest grain loaves, milk bread, orange swirl bread, pecan sticky bunsโฆHOLD UP!
These pecan sticky rolls are todiefor. They are actually made with the orange swirl bread dough, which is spread with even more cinnamon sugar and topped with the best caramel pecan topping I have ever tasted. Cinnamon sugar makes everything better.
Challah!
And if that wasnโt enough butter and eggs in your bread, there is always brioche. Buttery, rich brioche. So good.
My weakness (and not in the good kind of way) is croissants. I have yet to make a croissant dough without my butter breaking. Grrrrr.
I have perfection in my blood, and it is not pleased that this skill eludes me. Not pleased at all.
Danish is like croissant dough but it has more milk and eggs, which means itโs AMAZING.
Why I can make Danish dough and not croissant dough when they are basically the same damn thing is beyond my comprehension. I donโt have an answer to these complicated questions.
I can tell you that Bread is the last time I saw my waist.
And we are off to Cakes 2!
The breakneck pace did not abate just because we entered a more complicated unit. No, no. Not at ICC. The complicated cakes in Cakes 2 made the first unit look like childโs play.
Say hello to the Charlottes.
Above we have Charlotte Russe, which is ladyfingers filled with fruit mousse; and below we have the creepy looking Charlotte Royal, which is a jelly roll painstakingly shaped into a half sphere and filled with Bavarian cream. It was disgusting. Iโm just keepinโ it real.
And if those arenโt complicated enough for you, behold the modern entremet cakes.
These are layers upon layers of textures and flavors that all come together in one cohesive beautiful dessert. No small feat.
Lets take the Chocolate Caramel Tropical Fruit Entremet for example (the top left and the bottom right photo above). The base of this cake is a coconut biscuit daquoise cake that is then topped with caramel milk chocolate Bavarian Cream, homemade pineapple compote, a chocolate gรฉnoise cake, then a layer of passion fruit Bavarian cream. You surround the whole thing with a light, egg-foam cake that is baked over a yellow pรขte ร cornet pattern (yes, you make that tooโฆitโs like a cookie batter) and then you flood the top with a chocolate ganache and decorate it.
Oh and there is gold leaf, because it just wouldnโt be complete without some bling.
And that is why these types of cakes cost $20 a slice. Itโs a lotta work peeps.
We learned how to make, color and cover cakes with fondantโฆ
And fondipan (a mixture of fondant and marzipan)
And we wrote Happy Birthdayโฆa lot.
There still was barely enough time to complete the complicated assembled cakes like the Chocolate Caramel Roulade Cake above, but then you had less that 20 minutes to decorate it.
What can you do in 20 minutes?
Last but not least there is the carrot cake that my husband and I loved so much, I made them into carrot cake cupcakes.
This next definition is for all my friends and food recipients who expected tiny cakes when I promised them Petits Fours. Petits Fours are basically anything you can eat in 1 or 2 bites.
So macarons? Petits Fours.
Gougรจres? Petits Fours.
Marshmallows? Petits Fours.
Some of these little guys were so intricate I wouldnโt even want to imagine making 40, not to mention 1000, for a party. Like those little boat shaped ones on the far left of the tray aboveโฆ
Chestnut Barquettes. You fill a tiny little mold with pate sucrรฉe and pipe in a miniscule amount of classic almond cream, then you bake it. Next you fill them with chestnut cream and shape them with an offset spatula so they have that beautifully tapered shape. And then, because all that isnโt enough work, you dip them into a chocolate glaze being super careful not to get any glaze on the pie crust.
I know. The French.
Incroyable.
For a week I had petits fours coming out of my ears. More than I can even show you here. More than could fit on the trays. I canโt even with the petits fours.
This is where I leave you. There is so much more to show you, but I am sure I have outlasted your attention span, and I have most certainly outlasted my own!
Be sure to follow me on Instagram for more pictures of what I make each day and the sweet treats and savory goodness that I try in NYC!
You can also, if you just haven’t had enough, read my First and Second Culinary School Updates!
These are truly inspiring and very helpful to our culinary students as well. I am looking forward for more such well informative articles in future too.
That’s so wonderful to hear!!! Best of luck as they brave culinary school, I know they can do it. ????
Oh my gosh those carrot cake cupcakes look too irresistibly cute (and tasty)! I’m so glad you have a recipe on them because I will definitely try it out. I have never experimented with marzipan before though, so I guess I’ll have to pipe out those carrots. ):
They are so good, Joyce! Everyone who tries this recipe in either cupcake or cake form LOVES it! Marzipan comes in blocks or bars and you can work with marzipan almost like fondant. You can roll it and shape it but it isn’t thin enough to pipe it. I’ll put that on my list for video tutorials! It is super fun (and delicious)!
Hi LIndsey, Glad to see you doing so well. I have been so busy and buried with weddings that I stopped reading your blog for a while. Wow!! I was missing out!! So many doors are now open to you!! Actually I am cruising your blog because I have made 3 of your recipes this week – the Rosemary Chicken, the salad that accompanies it the second day, and your Quinoa Roasted Veg Chopped salad tonight. This last one was a total wow! We loved it, and I have sent the recipe along to all 3 of my cooking children. I have to say…. way better than Crushed Red.
I still owe you guys a wedding album, so if you have an hour to spare next time you come to town, I will help you narrow your choices down. Or you can do it yourself on my website where there is still the gallery of your choices. Let me know, and BEST WISHES!!
It is full blown wedding season, so I can only imagine how busy you are!!! It makes me immeasurably happy to hear that you are still making some of my favorite dishes!!! Love that quinoa salad. love it. I’ll definitely talk to you soon about the wedding album. Good luck with all the weddings!
I love your updates, they’re super fascinating!
Loved reading this post! What an adventure you had. Canโt wait to see what is next for you in your world of baking. Did you start your externship yet? How is that going and did it influence what you will do next?