This was a super fun week in pastry class. We focused on plated desserts. We were instructed to spend lots of time looking in books/magazines/online at beautifully plated desserts. As a class, we were told what we were going to be making- three desserts in total. We all volunteered to create one element of the dessert. I made hazelnut semifreddo. After all of the components for the three desserts were made, we were able to prepare our own garnishes and presentation elements, including lace cookies, caramel garnishes, chocolate garnishes, and …

I thought I would share this cake with you all because it’s tasty and looks very pretty. It’s killer rich, and you won’t want toooo big of a slice, either The cake is a hazelnut sponge cake and it’s topped with a mocha Italian buttercream and some chocolate run-out decorations.
Hazelnut Sponge Cake

50g egg
120g yolks
85g sugar
5g vanilla
55g pastry flour
160g ground hazelnuts
180g egg whites
85g sugar

Whisk eggs, yolks, first amount of sugar and vanilla to ribbon stage. (You should be able to take the mixer whisk out of the bowl …

You wouldn’t believe the amount of things I had to take home from pastry class this week! We had so much food! The long-awaited truffle torte finally came home, along with apple turnovers and meat pies made with homemade puff dough. We also brought savoury croissants- ham & cheese and plain cheese. We made a charlotte russe which is a white cake, lined with homemade lady fingers and a gelatin mousse filling (I used a black currant/raspberry flavour). We also made creme brulee, and for some reason ours tasted like …

We lots of delicious (unhealthy) food this week in baking class. Heavenly lemon bars, flavourful rosemary rolls, classic banana bread, unique carrot bread, and a new favourite- streusel kuchen. I will post a couple recipes for these, and if you ever want to the recipes for something I haven’t posted it for, just let me know!!

Banana Bread

300g peeled bananas
300g brown sugar
65g eggs
165g oil
165g milk
10g baking soda
300g bread flour

Mix bananas and brown sugar in bowl with paddle attachment until smooth. Add oil, egg, milk and mix. Sift flour and baking soda …

This week’s pastry classes were extremely frustrating and stressful, but I made it through. We made a ton of stuff, which worked out great, as it was my brother’s birthday this week. We made a cheesecake that I haven’t tried yet, but it looks quite good, except for the crack on top. I’m going to go ahead and take a lucky guess about the crack– just after we put our cheesecake in the oven, my partner and I noticed a certain measuring cup full of cream sitting on the tabletop. …

This week, I had an absolute ton to carry home from my baking class…not an easy task while standing on a jam-packed skytrain, but everything made it home in one piece!

I’m really proud of my Apple Pie that I made- it’s probably the best looking pie I’ve ever managed to make. I will definitely be making a healthier version of this crust and pie recipe in the future.
We made Italian bread, which was nice- but slightly underbaked. We also made some cinnamon buns and they were tasty, but the sticky …

Yesterday we got the opportunity to finsih off our choux pastries. We whipped up some pastry cream, which I’ll post the recipe for, and then we chilled it. We got our  pastries out of the freezer, and we poked one whole in each of the puffs, and a hole at each end of the eclairs. We put the pastry cream in a piping bag (after mixing it up with a lot of muscle!) and used a small round tip to pipe the pastry in the holes. We dipped the eclairs …

Today I had my first baking class and it was much less like the bootcamp experience we had in Pastry class. With a more relaxed atmosphere, we made blueberry muffins, peanut butter sandies, and soft rolls. I’ve chosen to share with you the soft rolls, because they look quite nice when they are done, and……they managed to only get slightly squished in my backpack compared to the muffins!! The cookies we made will be baked off next week- I snuck a taste of the dough, though, and I approve …

I’ve now started my second term at cooking school and this includes an Introduction to Pastry class. We started the week off by making several things- vanilla poached pears, pate sucree (sweet tart dough), frangipane, classic genoise, and choux pastry to name a few. So far, I have only taken pictures of the choux pastry- with the pear frangipane tart to be marked this week, I won’t get it until later. The choux pastry was easy to make, and because there is no sugar in it, it can take on …

In my last day in the kitchen at cooking school, we had a ‘black box competition’ of sorts. Normally in a black box competition all of your main ingredients are a secret (hidden in a black box). For us, only our protein was a secret from us. We were allowed to prepare recipes and bring in any special spices or ingredients we thought we might need. Someone in my class asked our chef if I could bring in tofu and he said yes! I am so glad she asked him …