Bread, bread everywhere!

We started our bread module about two weeks ago, and I just haven't gotten a chance to post a blog about any of the things we've made. Thus, the huge amount of pictures and random items. Bread is seriously amazing to me--it's just flour, water, yeast, and maybe a starter, yet you can do so much with such simple ingredients. Anyone can make bread, but true artisan bread takes very specific methods. It's all about technique, which is what we're being taught right now and is so intriguing to me. I forgot to take pictures of a few things we made like baguettes, pretzels and bagels, but these are a good representation of what we've been working on. Enjoy!

Artisan French bread

Hot cross buns

Focaccia bread--made with fresh rosemary, red peppers, onions, and thinly sliced potatoes.

Homemade pizza--the first is with pepperoni, sausage, cheese and sauce; the second is a white cheese pizza with spinach and red peppers.

Fresh whole grain bread

Sourdough bread--we made sourdough starters and "fed" them over the weekend (which is just taking 1/2 the starter and adding water and high gluten flour) then made the bread in class.

Zeppoles--if you've never had them, it's basically just fried dough with powdered sugar. Amazing!

Doughnuts--lemon doughnut with lemon vanilla icing and sprinkles.

Coffee cinnamon doughnut with chocolate sprinkles and lemon doughnut with lemon-vanilla icing and rainbow sprinkles.

More doughnuts...

Yet more doughnuts...

Boston creme doughnut with chocolate icing...

Brioche--it's a sweet bread, and believe it or not, it's supposed to have the top part...it just shouldn't be crooked. It's called Brioche à Tête.

Pain Aux Raisin--we used currants instead of raisins and there's an almond spread and sugar fondant icing.

Pictures say 1,000 words

This past week has been quite busy--I had a lovely visit from Audrey and Marcello this weekend, worked at my internship, went to school and worked at my job at Baked by Melissa. So I'm just going to post pictures with descriptions this week--this seems to be becoming a pattern, but I actually kind of like the idea. I love everything we've been making in class and would love for you guys to get to see all of it. So in this case, pictures really are worth a thousand words. 

Cinnamon and vanilla ice cream shaped placed in a nut tulipe (sugar and almonds formed into a bowl shape) with a chocolate tulipe cookie. Raspberry sauce on top with chocolate fudge.

Vanilla and chocolate ice cream with a chocolate tulipe cookie. Mango and raspberry sauce. 

Frozen raspberry and Grand Marnier dessert with a meringue base. Fresh raspberries and cacao nibs on the bottom for texture.

Petit croquembouche--petits choux filled with chocolate pastry cream and glzed on top with caramel. Set together using caramel and a caramel piece on the top.

Petits choux (cream puff pastry), eclair, paris brest--filled with either praline or vanilla pastry cream or whipped cream and topped with chocolate glaze, vanilla glaze or powdered sugar. Then finished with chocolate cornet work on top.

All of the puff pastries I made.

Flour based chocolate souffle--made for a practical exam in class. Chocolate cornet work on the plate.

Writer's block...

How lame is this...I seriously just don't feel like writing a blog. And this isn't just tonight I'm feeling this way--it's been for days now. I've tried and tried to sit down and write, but it just never happens. With that being said, it's now 11:27pm on Monday night and I still have not posted. Therefore, I would like to establish that this is a lazy week and I will simply post pictures of a few things we made. 

We got to make creme brulee--one of my favorite desserts. It was so much fun to use the torch and color the sugar on top. We have little baby torches because of fire safety regulations in the building, so it took awhile to get the sugar to start caramelizing. But it was still very entertaining!

We made quite a few baked custards in class--this one is a creme renversee au caramel. It looks a lot like flan, but I think this is much better.

Last week we started making bases for ice cream and sorbets. Along with that came numerous things like wafers and cookies to use when plating the frozen dessert. These are called pizzelles--they're essentially flat, hazelnut waffles. The batter is put in a little pizzelle maker, which looks exactly like a mini belgian waffle maker with a fancy design on them. They were delicious! 

At the end of class on Friday we got to work on plating all of the things we made in two classes. My plate has a pizzelle, vanilla ice cream, mascarpone cheesecake, raspberry sauce and chocolate fudge designs.