Fire in the Hole

Flambe Day was a very exciting and delicious day. We got to light stuff on fire, cook in the dark and then eat it all over icecream!

Crepes Suzette

To begin, this is not my favorite dessert. However, it is a classic and the art of crepe making is a useful skill. Suzette sauce is the flambeed component of this dish. The sauce is a mixture of butter, brown sugar, orange juice and zest as well as some lemon juice and zest. This is then reduced until thickened slightly and then the gran marnier is added and ignited to cook off the alcohol.

A very thin batter that is strained to ensure absolutely not lumps is used to make crepes. A small amount of batter is added to the preheated lightly greased crepe pan (or small omelet pan) swirled around fast to create a thin and even layer. Once the bottom has very lightly browned flip until the other side does the same. Create all the crepes at once.

To assemble this dessert, heat the suzette sauce in a sauce pan and add a crepe or two in the pan for a few seconds until hot. Fold the crepe into quarters and add to serving dish. Add extra sauce also.

Crepes Suzette

Bananas Foster

This famous dessert originates from New Orleans and is one of my absolute favorites. I've even had a bananas foster waffle before (and currently craving it).

To begin the sauce portion of this dish, combine butter, brown sugar and a drop of lemon juice. The acid from the lemon will keep it all cohesive. Cook until starts to thicken but do not brown to much. Add your quartered banana (the riper it is the later on you add it). Heat the bananas thoroughly and until tender. Add the banana liqueur as well as rum and ignite.While the alcohol burns off, VERY CAREFULLY sprinkle cinnamon sugar on it (from very high up above).

Igniting the Bananas Foster

To finish, serve warm over french vanilla ice cream.

To quickly review the next day of class, we made cobblers and crisps.

Blueberry Cobbler

A basic blueberry pie filling is placed in the ramekin and then a par-baked biscuit is put on top and baked until golden brown and bubbling. Serve with vanilla ice cream.

Plated Apple Crisp

To make the apple crisp: Saute diced apples in sugar and spices until fork tender. Then pack the apples into a ring (if bottomless cover with foil to create one). Go about 3/4 of the way up the ring with apples and then gently pack down a layer of struesel topping and then mound more on top of the packed layer to give height. Bake until tops are golden. Unmold after cooling slightly and plate as desired. Serve warm with vanilla ice cream.

Pie, Pie, Pie!

As you may or may not realized (by the title of this post) I started a new lab today! And it is all about pies and tarts. Who doesn't love pie???? SOOO many varieties so little time.

I spoke about loosing my ambition in my last post, but that all seems to be going out the window in this class or at least mostly. (The beautiful weather still beckoned me and summer is nearing.) My chef, is pretty awesome so far. He's super chill and is all about the product and nothing more. He's industry relevant and doesn't sweat the small stuff.

Speaking of sweat. 85 degrees in Providence today! What happened to "spring"?! It was so hot outside, and the sun was beating in through the nice glass windows of the new building all day, not to mention the air conditioning hadn't kicked in yet. Plus those deck ovens retain a LOT of heat. Our class room was at leassssst 85 degrees, probably more. During lecture, we were all dripping sweat. So needless to say, as soon as I got done with class, I took a cold shower!

Pie Dough

We made "short flake" pie dough, which is a very standard dough. We used butter because my chef "doesn't believe in trans fat free". This dough is a 3-2-1 dough. Three parts flour (pastry), two parts fat (butter in this case), one part liquid(did you know you can use vodka?), and a few other pinches of this and that (sugar, salt, Dry milk solids).

First, sift flour. Add sugar and chop up cold butter into small chunks. Using your bench scraper/ hands (lightly) cut the butter into the flour to resemble sand.

Cutting in the butter

Once it resembles sand, add your salt, water and DMS (dissolved in water) and bring together until just combined (do not over mix!) Scale out into 8 oz discs and place in fridge (or if using shortly after making freezer)

Once chilled, dust the table with bread flour and work the dough a little in your hands and roll out until an inch or two past the size of an unside down pie plate.
Fold the dough in quarters and place the point into the middle of the pie plate. And the open up, pressing the dough up against the sides.

Panning up the dough

To trim the edges of the dough, place another pie plate on top, making sure the dough is still floured pretty well. Squeeze lightly and trim the excess dough all the way around.

Trimming excess dough

Now your dough is ready to be filled.

Dutch Apple Pie

To begin, there are eight apples in this pie and all are peeled and sliced to about a 1/4th of an inch. (Keep in lemony water if not used right away to prevent browning and drain/dry before using) Then toss in with some cinnamon sugar, as much as desired really. Then add some flour (cake if you have it) just to coat and absorb some of the water and juices.

Pile ALL over these apples into the pie, strategically placing them is your best bet. Treat it like a puzzle (tetris if you will).

Piled up Apples

To finish off this pie, a topping of butter, brown sugar, cinnamon and flour is placed on top (streusel topping).

Streusel Topping

Because of the heat, we didn't bake our pies today. So instead we made the cherry pie filling for tomorrow.

Cherry Filling

We used canned cherries. We drained the cherries very well and reserved the juice. Take 3/4 of your cherry juice, sugar and bring to a boil. Meanwhile, create a slurry with the remaining juice, cornstarch and lemon juice. Whisk into the hot juice and stir constantly until the opaque color dissipates and it becomes more clear looking (stir until the foam goes away). Once this happens, fold in your canned cherries and cool

Finished Cherry Filling

Tomorrow, we might even make ice cream to go with our pie...these nine days are gonna rock (hopefully!).

Fundamentals Skills and Techniques, First Days in Review

My first segment of the spring trimester is Fundamental Skills and Techniques.

Day 1- Knife Skills


Our Chef demoed how to correctly sharpen a knife as well as some "knife skills" including several versions of the dice and a few other cuts. For over TWO hours, we all hacked away at our apples, carrots and potatoes. And that was it. Exciting, I know...


Day 2-Chocolate Piping

We had no demos this day, instead we tempered chocolate, using the vaccination method, which for those of you who do not know, is you melt untempered chocolate to the correct temperature (for dark 120 F ish) and then cool the melted chocolate with tempered chocolate pieces (for dark 90 F). And we practiced not only our chocolate tempering skills, but also our parchment bags, which I find myself having a knack for. But most importantly we practiced our piping.

Now piping chocolate may seem easy peasy, but if you have ever attempted it, you know what a pain it can be. Many problems can arise, the line isn't thin enough, the chocolate hardens too quickly, the line isn't straight, so on and so on. ALL class long we piped chocolate.
Needless to day, it was very tedious.

Day 3- Finally Baking!

A more eventful day, the kind most of us pastry students are used to. Chef demoed how to clarify butter, which if you have ever mass produced Stollen (a holiday bread that gets a generous coating of clarified butter and then sugar after baking) like I have, you know how to clarify butter and LOTS of it. And then he showed us how to saute apples, yawn...

As far as production goes, My partner and I made Apple Cupcakes (that weren't so "spiced").


The finished apple cakes were tender, slightly sweet, with little to no "spice" flavor (the recipe called for a pinch...) and tender slightly tart pieces of diced granny smith apples. And a caramelized top. Great with cream cheese frosting ( I must admit!).


And of course, the classic standby Butter Cookies. Piped out in various shapes, some dotted with raspberry jam, delicious! Tender and buttery little cookies.