Week 1 - Baking and Pastry Class

It is a dream coming true, I finally am in a cooking school.
Since this is something that i love to talk about I will be posting notes that I made during class, and I hope it can inspire or help someone.

It was very nice to work with a colleague and share technique  and work.

I didn't have trouble using scale and measure the ingredients. Our crème angles was delicious, very easy to make as long as we do all the steps and don't overcook, do not boiling the crème when the steam starts remove from the fire, add the hot cream to the mixture of egg yolk and sugar and whisk at the same time this process is called tempering, bring back to the stove in a lower temperature and using a spatula mix until get thicker. Using a cold water bath strain the crème in a bowl.

I made ice cream with my crème angles when I got home . Turned out really good.

We all cut some fruits and learned technique to cut orange (supreme), the strawberry (brunoise) and mint (chiffonade) , we did some tasting, with new ingredient each time.

orange + strawberry, it felt a little sour.

orange + strawberry + mint, the mint gave a new flavor, fresher taste

orange + strawberry + mint + vanilla simple syrup, it was very sweet but good

orange + strawberry + mint + vanilla simple syrup + salt, the salt made a lot of difference, the flavor was way better .( now I understand why my mom always said that we should add a pinch of salt when baking or cooking something sweet)

when we add the crème angles was already too sweet, but I am sure that would be delicious only fruits with the crème angles, the ice cream made in class was really good.

Class was amazing, I learned a lot.

Class Notes

Measure

1-Water = Volume - 8oz = 8fl oz

2- Milk

3-Eggs

The only things that has the same oz and fl oz

Me an Tania made 1 full recipe of crème anglaise.

Crème Anglaise = English cream, can be used as a soup with meringue, fruits, ice cream, sauce for a cake

recipe that goes:

eggs ( we used pasteurize egg yolks) + milk + sugar + vanilla = is a custard

Have a water bath, clean bowl with a sieve. In a pot add milk, cream, salt and vanilla bean and half of the sugar, stir it on high temperature. On the extra bowl whisk  the other half of sugar and egg yolks. When steam starts coming up from the cream mixture move out.

Tempering - add little by little the hot cream into the egg yolk mixture until well incorporated and bring back to the stove in low temperature, don't stop stirring.

When ready move out from the fire, ad to the bowl in the water bath trough the sieve, keep stirring.

Trouble Shooting - if it is too thick add a little more of cream, if has any lumps, coagulated  you can try to use the hand blender or mixer

Demo - Cutting fruits

Supreme of orange - hold with the palm of your hand, rotate the orange on my way where I can see, stop when the knife gets close  to the center, do with the whole orange. Save the peels, cut out the extra white part and cut in cubes to make orange candy for fruit cake (cut in strips then dice)

Brunoise of strawberries - with the point of a  pairing knife remove the leaf, slice then and dice it, to get the juices flowing.

Chiffonade of mint - stuck them together one on top of the other , roll it like a cigar and cut very thin.

Simple Syrup

sugar : water

   1     :     1

   2     :     1

depends on what you are using for