Friday, February 26, 2010

Pie!

School is going very well.  I just finished my sixth week of Baking Fundamentals 102.  I got 88% on my mid-term practical exam and 103% on the written one.  My class grade is 93.38.   I do pretty well on written tests.  Not so hot on practicals!

I love to bake and have my favorite instructor EVER in this class, but I really miss the culinary classes.  I miss savory food.  Monday we start making laminated doughs.  That's going to be tedious but I'm looking forward to it.  I will be bringing home croissants and many pastries.  I look forward most to making bread.  I have been baking bread at home for a long, long time and enjoy it a lot but am completely self-taught.  It will be very cool to have some guidance with it.

This week we made pie, pie, pie!  I can't fit anything else in my fridge until somebody eats some pie!  We made two kinds of apple, blueberry, cherry, pecan, lemon meringue (with Italian meringue), and finally, on Thursday, two savory pies--quiche and a caramelized leek/goat  cheese tart (YUM) plus a raspberry frangipane.  Chess pie was on the curriculum but Chef said that our recipe just didn't set up like it is supposed to so he substituted gooey butter cake for it.  I need to freeze individual slices of whatever freezes well so I don't end up tossing it all in the trash.

This is a slice of raspberry frangipane that we made yesterday.  The dark chocolate ganache is a little too heavy on there (Chef Hedger called it my Charlie Manson pie).  It was supposed to be prettily drizzled on top but I couldn't throw any away, could I?  It is dark chocolate ganache!

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