More Bread

i wish that i did not LOVE BREAD. i wish that i did not love EATING bread about 50 times more than making it. i wish that i did not want to eat MORE bread RIGHT NOW.

anyway. this is what we made today. (seriously. just today.)



Pissaladiere

it's like a pizza but french, i guess. it is just a bunch of caramelized onions piled on some old dough. (i skipped the anchovies on it.)


i clearly like it. i ate half of it before i even took a picture.



Banana Muffins

these muffins are good. the recipe is almost exactly the same as the recipe i would make at home.


but they have streusel topping, and that is very rarely a bad thing.



Irish Soda Bread

this is like a big scone with caraway seed and dried currants.


Cibatta

i love cibatta. it makes me want to go buy some cheese and tomatoes.



or i could just eat it plain.

it is better than panera bread.


i know at least one person who will be very jealous.


Sweet Potato Brioche

we made this dough with sweet potato puree added.

we made little ones that are rolled up with shallots in them. these are pretty good. i wish the flavor of the sweet potato was a little stronger.

and we made big ones.


the big ones have sugar cubes with orange juice and zest. the sugar cubes make syrup, but they are still crunchy. i think the sweet flavor compliments the sweet potato a little more.




i live in a pretty small apartment, and it is full of bread. this is the pile of bread where i live:




well, i really live in one pile of bread and one pile of shoes:


(and at least one pile of laundry, but i'm not taking a picture of that.)

Bread

. . . bread, and more bread. one day when i'm a famous chef, you can all say you knew me when i was thin.


Petit Pains

they are little breads (not little pains-- they are not so bad.)



the ones with the points were cut with scissors.


Pain de Provence


this one has herbes de provence and lots of olives in it. i don't really like olives, but i still ate half a loaf of this.


Oat Bread

to be honest, i haven't tried it yet because i ate too much other bread. i made mine with butter instead of the lard in the recipe because i just could not do it.



Focaccia

. . . aka why i might not be able to wear my jeans by the end of the week.



Tarte Flambe

this is the same dough as the baguette (one day older) with caramelized onions, a cheese custard, and more cheese. delicious. and clearly fat free.



Baguette

we don't have bread ovens in the pastry kitchen, so the crust isn't as nice as what they make in the bread kitchen. but it is still good.




Croissant

they really want us to get this one right. we made plain ones.


and some with gruyere.

Cake Test - Day 40

it was cake test day, but this was by far our most laid-back test yet. we had to make a three layer genoise, filled with raspberry, and frosted with butter cream. of course i had a horrible fear that i would produce a half inch genoise, but it came out fine.

these are the things that are wrong with it: there are little pockmarks in the buttercream because it should have been beaten longer, one of the rosettes was hanging over the edge of the cake, and the bottom layer of cake could have been soaked with simple syrup a little more. of course, my chef said it was still an A cake. i'm pretty sure he just knows that i can make a really perfect cake one day soon.


this is the inside after the chef cut it to grade it.






we had some mousse cakes still in the freezer. we unmolded them and stuck some marbled chocolate pieces around the edges.

these have 5 thin layers of a chocolate-hazelnut sponge filled and covered with chocolate-hazelnut mousse. i love cake, mousse, chocolate, and hazelnuts.


so i have 2 of these (minus one very large slice) in my freezer.

Cakes

i gave up on the whole day by day thing. this is a whole unit at once. it is a little out of order, but you wouldn't know that if i hadn't told you.


Genoise

genoise is a very classic cake that is only leavened by the air whipped into the eggs. we whisked these eggs by hand, and i was pretty sure that my arm was going to fall off. we never have to do it by hand again.

it is 3 layers of the cake, soaked with simple syrup, filled with raspberry jam, and frosted with buttercream.

Angel Food Cake

good angel food cake is just one of the pleasures of life.

look how tall it is.

Dacquoise

dacquoises are meringues with nut flour folded in. this one has five layers of dacquoise with almond flour and is iced with a coffee buttercream. so it is crunchy layers between soft buttercream.


it was ok, but that is A LOT of buttercream.



Lemon Cakes

these are like pound cake with some pieces of lemon in them. they have a little powdered sugar, lemony glaze.


these are good for breakfast if you are too tired from, say, beating eggs for a genoise until you lose an arm to go to the grocery store for yogurt.



Left to Right: White and Dark Chocolate Mousse Cake, Cassis Miroir, Charlotte Royale
(sorry for the combined picture, but doesn't it look fancy like a bakery all together?)

the chocolate mousse cake is the one with the brown flowers on the outside. that is a piece of thin cake around the outside. i piped the chocolate dough onto a silpat, froze it, then spread the white cake dough over it and baked it. then when it cooled, the picture peeled off with the cake. inside is white and dark chocolate mousse, and there is whipped cream and chocolate curls on top.


the purple one is a cassis (black currant) miroir. the striped part is a jaoth black currant mousse and topped with a black currant glaze. it is very refreshing. the white stars were piped with white chocolate.

the swirly one (some people say it looks like a brain, but it doesn't look like my brain) is a charlotte royale. the swirls are joconde cake rolled with apricot jam. slices of the swirl were used to line a dome mold. there is a slice of genoise on the bottom. inside is a hazelnut mousse.


Carrot Cake

we had one american day. you can see chocolate cupcakes we made in the background, too.


this is a nice recipe-- very moist and carroty. it has cream cheese icing, of course. and i made those tiny marzipan carrots on top.

i took the carrot cake and the three cakes above to megan's work.


Sacher Tort

this cake is named for the hotel in austria that makes it (and has a copyright or something for it). it is a chocolate cake, with apricot nappage then it is glazed with chocolate.

and it always says sacher.


Marjolaine

this cake is out of control.


it is made using the same meringues (rectangles instead of circles) as the dacquoise above. from bottom to top: chocolate genoise, chocolate ganache, meringue, creme d'or, meringue, praline buttercream, meringue, whipped cream, meringue. that whole business is covered with praline buttercream THEN it is glazed with a chocolate mixture (because i'm not sure there was quite enough going on). i used a metal spatula to make that diamond pattern, and decorated it with some hazelnuts.


Charlotte Russe

this one has lady fingers around the outside and a lady finger disk on the bottom. i love lady fingers, and i ate a lot of the ones i had left over.

it is full of pear bavarian with whipped cream and chocolate curls on top. this thing is weirdly delicious. it is just light and fantastic.


Dobos Cake

this one is five thin layers of dobos cake (like the layer sliced on the top, minus the caramel) with chocolate butter cream. then the final layer has the caramel.

the cake layers are flat, but they are made with some sour cream and are light and fluffy and flexible. this cake is good like cake and chocolate butter cream should be.


Chocolate Ganache Cake

this one is chocolate genoise, filled with ganache, covered in ganache, and glazed with chocolate. it is decorated with white chocolate and candied rose petals. fancy.

maybe this picture of the inside is blurry because i was shaking from too much chocolate. maybe.

is there anything not to like?


Flourless Chocolate Cake

ok, i know-- this "cake" looks like a pile of sticks, but inside is a (6 inch) flourless chocolate cake. the cake is made with almond flour and is very moist but not too dense. i think it is delicious.

the cake is covered in creme d'or, and then it is covered with chocolate meringue logs. these logs were in long strips, and they were broken to make them look like this. my chef said that the logs taste like count chocula, and they kind of do. my other chef said that this cake reminds him of the flintstones.


this cake is so weird, i took a picture of the top, too.




so, if i put all of these in a bakery case, would you buy a cake?

Pie Day

we had a guest chef one day, and we made pie. we don't normally do pie, because it isn't very french and because it has hydrogenated fats, which is both gross and illegal in the city.


this is a caramel apple pie. the filling was yummy.

i guess we were testing a cookbook for the chef, and there was a teensy mistake. this crust is so salty.

we also made a chocolate pecan pie, but it was ugly.

Day 30

Savoy Scones

these are scones with dried currants.

very nice. i like them more than the muffins.


they were brushed with cream and sprinkled with vanilla sugar before they were baked.



Stolen

this might be the ugliest thing we have made so far. it is bread (i thought i might need to clarify). after it was baked, it was brushed with butter and covered in sugar.



the inside is full of orange and lemon zest, raisins, walnuts, pecans, and almonds.

it actually tastes pretty good, even though it will reportedly last for months.



Croissant (and Pain au Chocolat)

i am pretty excited that i made croissants. and i think they came out pretty well.



i eat a lot of croissants, and these are pretty good.


we also made pain au chocolat. they each have two batons of chocolate in them. these could have been a little better, probably, if i had used a little more dough. some of them came unrolled a little.


still amazing.