Good week & a great weekend

Well hello again readers! Seriously, thanks so much to everyone for reading and going on this adventure with me. I've gotten lots of good feedback on my blog and I could not be more grateful!


This week was a very short one. We got 3 days off because our kitchen was being used by another class. So it was a nice little break that just happened to be during my birthday week. But I'm not going to lie--I honestly missed going to class. Guess that means I'm in the right place, eh? (Dale, my Canadian friend, that was for you) 


Thursday we really didn't do any "real" baking, we spent a lot of time talking about our field trip last Friday which got us onto talking about what it takes to own a bakery, what's profitable in a business and lots of great things to consider when picking what to concentrate on in your career. We also did a nut tasting where we identified and tasted all different kinds from pecans to macadamia (my favorite). After that, we made a swiss meringue buttercream (we colored ours a pretty baby blue) and practiced piping rosettes and shells and borders. Honestly, this was the first thing we did that really frustrated me. I just couldn't get a grip on the little things. There's a certain motion and technique to both, and I had never even used a pastry bag until a few weeks ago. I practiced a little at home and I can tell I'm getting better, but it's definitely not there yet. I've got to agree with the age old saying--practice does indeed make perfect.


Friday was a fun day--we got to learn all about cooked sugar. There's certain stages in sugar cooking that you've got to be aware of, the most important being the soft ball stage, when the sugar is at 235-240 degrees. All of the stages determine how the product you put the sugar in will end up feeling and tasting. As we start to get comfortable with sugar, we will most likely be able to identify the stages simply by how the bubbles look and act. But another way to test it is by touch, and this is what we worked on in class. You've got to have a bowl of ice and water next to the pot, then you swipe your hand over the cooking sugar to grab some then immediately put your hand in the ice water. It's terrifying at first, but it's actually kind of fun. After that we made fudge which was the highlight of my day. It was a long process that ended by working the fudge on a marble with two bench scrapers until it was solid enough to put in a pan. It was so much fun and it tasted amazing! The last thing we did on Friday was to make an Italian meringue. The only difference is that this meringue is made with sugar that's been cooked to the soft ball stage. That sugar makes it the most stable meringue and it's the only one that can be frozen and used later. It's an extra step, but well worth the time if that's what you need to use.


So I'm really excited about this--I got an internship at a restaurant!! God is so good. It started two weeks ago when I volunteered at a book signing and tasting with amazing chefs all around the city. I got to assist Chef Emily from Veritas with her desserts--she let me help her plate them and serve them out to the guests. We got to talking and she told me to email her and come work in the kitchen with her, so this Saturday I went in. I was there all day and learned a lot! It was intimidating at first, but then I started to get more comfortable and really observed how the chefs were working. They let me make pate de fruit, which we made in class already! It was a different way to make it, but still, it was nice to do something familiar. Also I made banana bread, measured out lots of ingredients and helped cut and roll dough for other breads. At the end of the day I told Chef Emily how much I enjoyed the day and she told me I could come intern with her every Saturday. I am so very grateful for this and can't wait for next Saturday! Even though this means no Saturday afternoon college football, I think it's safe to say this is a good tradeoff! 




Sorry about the lack of pictures this week--my phone fell in water and is hopefully recovering in its bowl of dry rice as I type. If it does start working I'll be sure to post pictures!

Week 3

I've really got to start being more creative with the titles of these posts. But anyway, week 3 is over and it was quite busy. 

We started off the week by making succes cookies, which just happen to be some of my family's favorite french treats. The first step was to make an ordinary (or french) meringue just like we'd been practicing in week 2, except that we added chopped nuts. Then we made a swiss meringue, which is different in that you whip the egg whites and sugar in a bowl over a bain marie (a hot water bath) until the sugar is dissolved before it goes in the mixer.  We then turned the swiss meringue into a buttercream by simply adding butter and a flavoring (me and my partner decided on hazelnut) and continuing to beat until it was smooth. The next step was to pipe the ordinary meringue into swirls and put it in the oven to bake. Then for the final step we piped the hazelnut buttercream in rosettes on the swiss meringue "cookies" and sifted confectioners sugar and cocoa powder on top for decoration. 

After that, we had soufflé day! Or rather, quite a few soufflé days! The first day, we made flourless chocolate soufflés which are so light that they just taste like flavored air. Since there's no flour and really nothing to hold them up, they start falling as soon as you take them out of the oven and will be really flat after about 5-10 minutes. So they're pretty much pointless in an actual situation unless you're going to serve them within 5 minutes. But it was our first taste (literally) of soufflés and I loved learning how to make them. The next few days we learned to make flour-based soufflés which I much prefer. We made all different kinds--chocolate, orange, coffee, praline, strawberry and coconut, just to name a few. 

Later on in the week, we started to learn about gelatin and how helpful it is in baking. We then used our newfound gelatin knowledge and made milk chocolate panna cotta, which is a consistency of a custard or pudding. Next we actually got to make marshmallows which was really fun--my group made ours coffee flavored and they turned out great! After that it was onto making a delicious chocolate mousse. We combined a lot of the things we'd learned into one chocolate mousse--we started by making an ordinary meringue, adding melted chocolate and finally making sabayon and mixing it all together. 

On Friday of last week we got to take a field trip to Chelsea Market where we got tours of the kitchens at  Sarabeth's and Amy's Bread--two of my favorite places there!! I especially loved meeting Sarabeth (of Sarabeth's) she was hilarious and a little bit eccentric which I just adored. She told us it's incredibly important to learn the techniques of baking and practice them, but then to take what you learn and make it your own. She experimented with the recipes she was taught and tweaked them to her liking and that's where her success came from. I found her words incredibly familiar, because that's exactly what I've been told in my dance training (yes yes, another dance/baking comparison--bear with me). Technique is the foundation of both baking and dance and should be taken to heart. But then you've got to work with what you were given and find your own unique rhythm, so to speak. Isn't that what any kind of art is about anyway? Expressing yourself through something the world can see--or see and then taste, in the case of baking. This week, more than the first two, I really see just how much I fit in this new world of baking and I could not be more thrilled. God put this desire in my heart so he knew this is where I needed to be all along, he just waited patiently for me to listen. And as Chef Jeff put it, "you're probably one of the only ones coming from a career that's even harder than the one you're going to be entering." He makes a good point--as long as I'm not asked to stand in pointe shoes while I bake, I think I can pretty much handle anything.

 Succes cookies (and some mini ones made with extra meringue...just because they're adorable)

Flourless chocolate soufflés 

Showing off one of my strawberry soufflés 

Orange flour-based soufflés (you can even tell from the pictures how much better these rise 

than the flourless ones)

My wonderful family from Connecticut came to the city on Sunday and had a birthday lunch for me. We ended the meal with some of my chocolate mousse I brought. This is my adorable cousin Sophia after sampling the chocolate mousse...I think she liked it haha

Some of my attempts at artistic pictures in Chelsea Market

Week 2--Complete

I made it through week 2 of school! It may not sound like much of an accomplishment, but after being out of school for 3 years, it's been hard to get back in the swing of things. However, week 2 was definitely an improvement over week 1--I even fit in a ballet class! Huzzah! 


This week was pretty much all about fruits. We worked on the proper way to cut up fruit using both our paring knife and chef knife, we did quite a few tastings identifying all sorts of fruits and herbs and we made quite a few things.


We started out the week making Apricot Pate de Fruit (pronounced like "pat de fwah"...we all were saying it wrong until chef corrected us haha) which basically is apricot gelatin. Honestly it was way too sweet for my taste, but we were eating it by itself and usually it's served either in very small amounts or with other desserts. 

Next class was one of my favorites so far! We partnered up and got to work on 5 different recipes at the same time. It was the first class we had to figure out time management and how to focus on lots of different things at the same time--and I loved it! I got to make dried pears, candied grapefruit rind, plain poached pears, strawberry salad and poached pineapple. They were all great, but my favorite was definitely the poached pineapple--it was sweet with a hint of vanilla. Plus I just love pineapple even by itself! 


The last class of the week was "egg day". We learned about why eggs are so important in the baking world and worked on making meringue out of egg whites and sugar. I was so thankful that we have amazing Kitchenaid mixers in the classroom because for one exercise we had to whisk the eggs by hand and my wrist was sore after that. At the end of class we got to make Sabayon which is just sugar, sweet Marsala wine and egg yolks whipped together. Chef Jeff let us eat our sabayon over fresh berries and it was quite amazing! 


So there you have it--a brief overview of my second week in baking school. Of course other things were thrown in there like food safety videos and working on memorizing weights and measurements, but I expanded on the highlights of the week. The picture is poached pears, poached pineapple and vanilla on top in one glass, and raspberries and sabayon in the other. Oh, I was asked to give a shout out, so here it is--I got a lovely call from John Mark Griggs and Hannah Farlett that made my week about 200x better! (see, yall made it in my blog!)


I'm seriously loving school more and more each day and I am so grateful to be there! 

Cornets, Chocolate Work and Decorating = Homework (?!)

One of the first things that we learned in baking school was how to make a " paper cornet". We make these by rolling and folding parchment paper into the shape of a small cone. Our chef said this is a basic skill that is required in any professional kitchen, and it's really useful for all kinds of decorating and chocolate work. You can fill them with melted chocolate, like we've been doing, and use it to decorate a plated dessert, top a cake, or decorate candies.  

Here's a picture of a few cornets I made:

After we learned to make the cornets, we got to start practicing different designs made out of chocolate. In class this morning, Chef Jeff taught us two of my favorite designs. One is made out of swirls and dots (two things I LOVE to draw) and the other is just 3 different sizes of round shapes that come out looking cool. 

This is a picture of the two designs Chef Jeff taught us today:

Our homework tonight was to practice our chocolate work. I mean, seriously? We actually get credit for melting chocolate and making cool designs? Obviously this school is for me.

First week of school

Hello all! 


Welcome to The Baking Ballerina! 


My intention for this blog is to document my journey through baking school and share it with friends and family. 


Blog #1--First week of school


I just completed my first week of baking school at the Institute of Culinary Education and I'm not going to lie, I am a bit overwhelmed. I knew that school wouldn't be a walk in the park, but I didn't necessarily realize how much went into it. We started the week by having lots of chefs talk to us about what it takes to become a success. While listening to them talk, I started to see just how many similarities there are between the baking world and the ballet world. I'll just start listing the ones I thought really stood out:


1. The key to success is perseverance. No matter how hard something is or how frustrated you are, you've just got to keep trying until you overcome it. 


2. You're going to be really bad at first. Unless you're just born a naturally talented and gifted person in either dance or baking, you're going to have to work at it.


3. Repetition is key. In ballet, each class is essentially the same. Not because we like to be boring, but so that you can assess how you're feeling that day and fix what was wrong yesterday. Same goes for baking--there are so many small details that you must do accurately every time, which can only happen through practice.


4. You've got to be a bit of a perfectionist. It just seems to go with the territory of both worlds--they both require a certain, almost scientific technique. Sure, there's a creative and artistic side to both baking and ballet, but there's also a set of specific rules that has to become second nature so that you can start to have fun with it.


5. You've got to have connections. This is probably one of the best/worst things about both worlds. If you've made a good impression on a few influential people, they can really open doors. And if you haven't, it makes it about 75x harder. My goal is to make some great connections in the baking world, and sooner rather than later.


6. You've got to take criticism and apply it to your work right away. In ballet, the director will give you a correction only once or twice and expect you to get it right the next time. If not, they'll move on to someone who can. Our chef said the same goes for baking. I've learned how to do this quickly in ballet, now I've just got to transfer that skill to my baking. 


That's about all I can recall at the moment--but I'm sure I'll be adding onto this list as time goes on. It gives me an extra boost of confidence to know that the new world I'm entering has direct connections to the world of dance I know so well.


I'm really excited for this new challenge and can't wait to see what the Lord has in store for me!