Holy Chocolate, Batman!

Okay, first things first: I really want to know why I seem to wake up on the klutzy side of the bed on Wednesday mornings. Could it be the 12 hours of class on Tuesdays? So, this morning I get to class and put my belongings (toolkit, notebook and binder, formulas book, apron, side towels, water bottle and travel mug) neatly under my station. Someone in class had very graciously filled soap and sani buckets for my table, and put them on the outside edge of the shelf next to my station. This is not where we ever keep our buckets. Surprise! There is such a thing as gravity, and it works really well to make sure that the slanted cover of a three ring binder is not the best place to keep one's apron and side towels. Hello, wet apron and towels and a big puddle of soapy water all over the floor. Chef just looked at me and shook her head. I wonder what she thinks when she watches me do stupid stuff like that.

Today was a great day for chocolate. We had to make a chocolate LSS (liquid shortening sponge cake) for our practical tomorrow, and a flourless chocolate sheet cake for a yule log. We finished the German Chocolate cake we started yesterday. We also made a jelly roll sponge, and a huge batch of Italian Buttercream. tomorrow we'll finish the yule logs and the practical cake. We'll also have our written mid-term. Then, two weeks of break! I'm looking forward to break, and to getting back East to see friends and family. But I am going to miss cakes class. I really love Chef C. She is awesome! And she told us today that we are one of the best classes she's ever taught!

Most of the baked goods that we produce get sent to the storeroom every day, and the folks there distribute them as needed to diningh rooms, the main dining hall, university events, or the freezer for use at a later date. I found out today, though, that the cakes are different! The cakes that we make (my class typically produces around 40 cakes a day, and the afternoon advanced cakes class at least another 20 cakes on top of that) get dontated to Project Angel Heart, which provides meals to people living with HIV/AIDS and other life-threatening illnesses. So, that makes me feel good, that we're making desserts that will be enjoyed by people in the community as well.

I need to go do some studying... wish me luck tomorrow!

I fought the cakes and the cakes won...

Not such a great day for cake decorating. We had a pistachio torte and a flourless espresso torte. I had issues with crumbs in my buttercream for the pistachio, and the glaze was too cool for my espresso. Oy. But, we were actually able to have class.

A little background on that: last night hit a record low in Denver of -18F. Brrr. The labs aren't kept terribly warm anyway, but our lab room was 32F at 6:30 this morning, and the pipes were frozen. You can't run production if there's no running water. So we turned on all the ovens and jacked the heat up. Finally, around 8:30 we got water in the dish pit, so we got started with finishing our cakes. But, the water would change from hot to cold in seconds. It was just a chilly day in class. My feet are still cold, and I've been home for over an hour.

Our big project is due on Thursday. I'm done with the writing. I just have to do the cake cutting guide and the sketch of my cake.

Three days until break...

if today is Tuesday, this must be bake tech...

oh, yes, how I love 12 hours of class in the same day. And being gone from the house for almost 15 hours.

The reason? Bake tech. Every Tuesday from 2:15-8:20.

I had a moment of complete embarrasment this afternoon at the end of cakes class. Kendra had just dropped her frosting tips on the floor, and she was embarrased. Then, I picked up my case, which I hadn't latched completely after putting my tools away. Of course everything fell all over the floor. everything being 3 knives, assorted flat and offset spatulas, my zester, and my melon baller. And a tube of frosting tips. It was a klutzy kind of day today (big surprise, huh?)

In good news for the day, our liquid shortening cakes came out, and my piping is getting better every day. I made some nice roses today :)

The snow has ended, and it's going to be in the 50's the rest of the week.

That's about all from here today. I'm really going to go do homework now....

Dances with Cream Cheese

Today we made carrot cake with cream cheese frosting. Yum. But, really, the amount of cream cheese icing required to fill and frost 4 carrot cakes is a lot. And it kind of goes all over when made in a 20 quart mixing bowl. After finishing the cakes, each slice got topped with a little marzipan "carrot". Way cute. Alas, I forgot the camera at home. Maybe Wednesday I'll remember.... We also finished our citrus tortes (torted into 3 layers, filled with lemon curd and frosted with German buttercream, then scored and garnished with buttercream shells and little knots of candied lemon peel).

Things that are good:
1. my piping is getting better, as is my finishing
2. my new travel mug keeps my tea hot all morning long; I made it at 6:15 this morning, and because I kept the lid closed, it was still nice and warm at 12:30!
3. I got some work done this afternoon
4. arriving home to find out that we are having chicken and dumplings for dinner :)

Things that are icky:
1. not getting as much work done as I wanted (thanks in no small part to not being able to find the reference book I needed, getting stuck in 3:30 pm traffic going through downtown on Colfax, not being able to find a parking space at the public library, and having to go back to the pharmacy because they were out of my prescription over the weekend)
2. not getting home before it started to snow, since I was aparently not thinking this morning and left home without a coat (future note to self: chef's coat does not a toasty warm coat equal)
3. altitude adjustments and formula conversions
4. it's snowing out

Yes Chef!

A lot has happened since my last post. I survived Classical French Pastries. Had a wonderful Thanksgiving break. And this week, I started cakes class. I love cakes class!

I have Chef C., who is also my advisor. The majority of my classmates are other GYD students, and we share the class with a handful of Freshman. So far, it's a really great group of people, and there are no major problems (cough*awful girls*cough). We got to choose our tables, and I'm working with my friends Maria, Shannon, and Kendra. So far, we've made a convenience cake (cake from a box) and a chocolate applesauce cake, and fininshed both of those. Yesterday we baked off a pound cake with lime and a carrot cake, and we'll finish both of them on Monday. We also do skills practice every day, piping shells, rosettes, and roses. I went to Michael's last night for some pastry bags so that I can practice my piping at home. My shells especially are giving me a problem. Part of that is the fact that they're supposed to go in a straight line, and anyone who's ever seen me try to draw or write on a chalkboard knows that I can't even draw a straight line with a ruler. Hence, practice.

I adore Chef C. She is professional, and treats us with respect, treats us like adults. She expects a lot from us, and there is what seems like a TON of homework (altitude adjustments and formula conversions almost every night in addition to our two major projects), but I know I'm going to learn so much in her class.

My other class this tri is Baking Science, also called Bake Tech. It's interesting in that it's kind of a cross between a science lecture and a baking lab. Each week we'll do an experiment where we change ingredients in a formula and evaluate what happens to the finished product. The guy who does the lecture segment is a hoot and a half. We have a different chef for the lab part. I think the class will be fine.

We got our first really measurable snowfall on Thursday. The highway was a parking lot, so I took back roads to school. I would have been on time for class if I hadn't taken a nasty spill in the hallway as soon as I stepped off the carpet onto the tile. I know that my mother (hi mom!) is laughing at this, and saying that I really am her daughter. Seriously, though, I think I have more klutzy than she ever has. I felt like a cartoon character. My feet hit the tile and I went a$$ over teakettle, landed flat on my back. My toolkit and books went flying, and my travel mug hit the floor with such force that the rim got dented. Thankfully, I didn't get terribly hurt, just a little stiff. And I wasn't the only one. Two of my classmates also fell. So, note to self: wipe feet really well before venturing onto the tile.

Well, I need to get some homework done. I'll try and post more often this term. It turned out that there wasn't much to talk about last tri once I got out of breads class.

"It's not dollar days at K-Mart!"

I know, I know. Such a bad blogger am I. Breads is finished, and we are now both feet into French Pastries. I'm liking this class simply for the fact that it is not as stressful as Breads was. Some of the people in my class who've had other labs are, apparently, bored. But, I find enough to keep me busy, so I can't complain. I also do well with the chef's more hands-off teaching method, so no complaints here except for the fact that his instructions can be a little vague. So, I've learned to ask very specific questions.

We're taking our mid-term practical tomorrow. I'm not that nervous, as I'm pretty sure I've got a good handle on everything. Once I learned the trick to piping non-anemic looking eclairs, I stopped being afraid of the pastry bag! For those who are interested, don't pipe your eclairs head-on; angle your hand so you're actually piping a little sideways.

Today, we made this really tasty dessert called tartouf. You make cream puffs that you fill with lemon chello (boil lemon peel and sugar in Vodka or Everclear; mix into diplomat cream). Then, you dip the entire cream puff into freshly made chocolate mousse. Sounds (and looks) kind of gross, but OMG! Delicious! Chocolatey! And it was a good thing, too, because lunch from the International Cuisine class was really bad. Again.

It's hard to believe that the trimester is almost over. Class gets out for fall break on November 19th, and then we have 11 days off! What a treat!

OK, time to gather my notes for tomorrow....

The highlight of the past two weeks....

was getting a new cell phone. One that I could program to play my favorite Rob Thomas song as my ringtone. But, I digress. This is supposed to be a blog about my culinary schooling.

The past two weeks have been seven days of awful and one day of goodness. We're two days in to our practical exam in breads class. The first day, we forgot to convert the formula for our ciabatta down to 5 lbs, so we were racing to do that before we could get anything into the mixer. Then there was a problem with our corn muffins. Corn muffins, of all things. We had to redo them the next day. But, we did get 100% on our ciabatta. We're doing pretty well, with two 90's and two 100's on our graded items so far. Tomorrow is baguettes and soft rolls for my table. plus date-nut bread and croissants (the last two not for a grade). An easy day compared to Thursday, when we had 4 yeasted doughs to make up, plus biscuits and corn muffins, and the laminating of croissants.

This long weekend has been full of "busy" schoolwork. We have to keep these portfolios that are due on Wednesday, and we have to type up all our formulas and class notes, plus keep a daily journal. And we have to put pictures in with the formulas. So, I spent yesterday doing that only to find out that I apparently forgot my camera more often than I thought I did. I'm missing pictures of about 20 items, so now I'm waiting for my tablemates to email me what I'm missing. I just need to get my resume fixed, and then that can get crossed off my list too.

Thursday we start our next class, Classical French Pastries. I'll be interested to see how the table assignments bread down... every chef has a different way of doing things.

Wish me luck in the last of our practical!

Is that a baguette in your pocket?

Sorry about the decided lack of posts last week. It's been crazy! Our mid-term paper is due tomorrow, as is a draft resume for my career management class. We have a networking assignmnet due next week. Add to that the lessons for Food Sanitation, and the fact that we're doing inventory at work, and I've been super busy!

Friday we had a skills lab, which was great because there were so few of us there. We really got to work one on one with Chef L. on things like rolling and stippling baguettes, braiding challah, and cutting dough.

Friday night I was taking the trash out at home and tripped (over my own bare foot, aparently) on the porch. The concrete porch. Hello, skinned knee and gouged shin.

Sunday I washed my uniforms. Soaked and washed coats, aprons, and side towels in one load, and then did the second load of pants, t-shirts, and hats. And a black gel pen. Yeah. Those would be ink stains all over my t-shirts. Thankfully, the pants came out unscathed, and only one of my hats has a little ink dot on the back. I'm hoping nobody notices. But I did have to go to Wal-Mart yesterday and buy new t-shirts.

It's actually been a good week in lab. I think the skills lab helped us all gain some confidence, and we haven't been bugging Chef L. much at all. Tomorrow we start the Week 4 rotation, which included croissants, danish, and doughnuts. We'll be making Boston Creme Doughnuts, which are my most favorite doughnuts (after jelly-filled, of course... I asked my dad one time what kind of doughnut I used to get as a little kid when he'd take me to Dunkin' Donuts, and he said that I always got jelly. I guess they've been my favorite for a looooong time :) )

Once week 4 is over, we spend week 5 doing our practical exam. I can't believe how the class has just flown by. Winter trimester schedules came out last week. All of us GYD's have am labs, and then on Tuesdays we'll have Baking Tech. It incorporates a lecture and a lab, and runs from 2:15 to 8:30 at night. Ugh.

And really, what's with the culinary class fascination with fish and veal? Seriously, I've eaten fish more in the past 3 weeks than in the past 3 months, simply because I won't eat veal.

OK, off to do more work....

In which things get "all jacked up"

I'm quoting my table-mate, K #1 (there are actually 3 K's at my table). We had a bear of a day today and got, as they say in the restaurant industry, "in the weeds." The day started off with a mandatory meeting with the college president... she's had them all week long, and today was the morning culinary labs' turn. So, we didn't get back to class until 8:15, and right away Chef A wanted bread for his class for service at 11:00. Yesterday one of the tables made up all of the sponge (pre-fermented dough) for walnut-currant and sourdough rye breads, but then there was confusion today over who was supposed to actually use the walnut-currant sponge. There wasn't enough for my table when we went to scale it out, so we have to carry that over until Monday. There was confusion over the mixing up of the sponges for Monday. There was sourdough rye, ciabatta, and coffee cake to make. We ran out of streussel for the coffee cakes. Then, Chef L added 2 loaves of banana bread to every table's rotation. Yeah. Right. Helpful, that. K #1 was one of the sous-chefs for the day, and it was Thursday, which means that it was my table's day to work the dish pit. There was math for the doubling of the banana bread formula and halving of the formula for the coffee cake. Thankfully, table 5 came over and helped out a little bit. In the end, everything got done. Except for that dang walnut-currant bread, which we'll try again on Monday. Keeping my fingers crossed that we'll be able to remove that from our rotation after Monday.

My table did get some kind words from Chef L after class; he said that he saw some strong skills emerging at our table. That made me feel better. It was just a long day today. I'm glad it's the "weekend" for me. Going out with friends tonight, and to a Rockies game on Sunday. Lots of homework this weekend, too.

New Skills Every Day

Today was the last day of our first four-day rotation. Every four days, we get a new list of breads to work on. So, in preparation for the new rotation tomorrow, this morning we were introduced to ciabatta and brioche.

We'll be adding other breads to those. Of course we got to sample; the brioche was good, but the texture was more eggy than I like. The ciabatta was soooooo tasty, but there's alot that has to happen to the dough before you can divide it.

My table used to be five of us, but one girl got dropped today after missing three classes, so we're down to four. We've got a good routine going, and we get along well. This is a good thing, since in this class especially we all rely on our group members to pull their weight. I'm pleased to announce that there are no slackers at Table 4!

On that note, we got to play with varying some formulas this week, and yesterday we made these delicious tart cherry scones:

and our first bananna bread and lemon pound cake (front one is from my group, the other is a lemon poppyseed from Table 5):

We finished up with the traditional presentation of baguettes today. Tomorrow we'll start learning to to pretty them up in decorative ways.

My group also finished up with 7 grain bread today. Below are two pics... one of the rounded dough having its "bench rest" prior to proofing, and the other of the finished loaves:

The week seems like it's speeding by. It's already Tuesday afternoon! I went to the library yesterday to do research for my bread project. I actually did find some good information, and some interesting recipes. There's lots of

contradictory sweet bread info out there, though: some people say sweet bread and really mean pao doce, which is a kind of Portuguese cornmeal bread. Some recipes call for potato flour or potato water. And one I read called for saffron. Seriously? Saffron in sweet bread? I don't think so. In our paper, we have to include a formula for 5 lbs of dough. Guess what I'll be trying this weekend? You got it! Sweet bread. Thankfully, Other Half LOVES sweet bread, and I'm sure I can pawn some off on friends... if not, it makes really good French Toast. One girl at my table is doing her paper on a Mexican breakfast bread that sounds similar to sweet bread, so I'm interested to see how they compare.

I'll be back on Thursday with more pictures, and stories of new breads!

How I paid for college, and other tales

Besides a variety of service-oriented summer jobs (camp counselor, cashier at a drug store, and telephone customer service provider), I paid my school bills via a work study job in Dining Services. This meant dishes. And pots. I've washed many a pot, and many a sheet pan. But I've got to tell you that you've never seen anything like the amount of sheet pans used by a class of 25 baking lab students. It was crazy making. The policy is that you wash your own dishes as you use them, and then one table is assigned to kind of monitor the dish pit and put away the dry stuff. At the end of the lab, when everyone else is taking care of their daily cleaning assignments, the table assigned to dishes washes all the sheet pans, proofing trays, etc. Today was my table's day in the dish pit. There were LOTS of sheet pans. I think that's all I'll say about that right now.

Today was a busy day. According to Chef L., we produced 16 different items today. We had a quiz. We did dishes. We got to eat some chocolate from Chef B's chocolates class. At lunch there was spanikopita. And pie! I thought I was a picky eater. Not so much, after seeing how picky some of my classmates are.

On tap for the weekend: studying. Laundry. And working on my research paper. I'm doing mine on Portuguese Sweet Bread, and I need to get over to the campus library so I can get some books.

I'll leave you with some pictures from today. From top to bottom are biscuits, lemon poppyseed muffins, sour cream raisin bran muffins and corn muffins.

Rolls, breads, and muffins...oh my!

Hot. Sourdough. Fresh from the oven. That was definitely the highlight of the day. Yum! We sampled from two loaves, and then sent the rest off to Chef A's Advanced Dining Room class for them to use at lunch service.

The class is run on a four-day rotation for each segment, and each day each table is responsible for different items. Today, like yesterday, my table had soft rolls, blueberry muffins, and honey wheat bread. Tomorrow, we'll be on French dough and biscuits. It's amazing what the learning curve is like from day to day. I already felt more confident going into class today. I'm still learning my way around, especially as far as what ingredient bins are under what table, and where to find which tools. But skills-wise, I think I'm doing all right.

We got another lesson in rounding and rolling the baguettes, and we all did better with some different wording during the demo process. Then we learned how to stipple (cut/score) the tops of the loaves before they go into the oven. I had to do a whole pan, and finally Chef L. guided my hand in the right motion. It didn't feel any different from what I had been doing, but the results were different so I must have been doing it wrong. That's a skill I'll definitely need to work on.

Our first quiz is tomorrow, on the methodology of mixing and the steps of bread-making. I think I'm on top of that pretty well. I need to get my class notes typed up, and do my journal for yesterday and today. I was so tired last night that I was asleep by 9:15, and didn't wake up until 5:50 this morning. Oops. I still got to class with time to spare, but there I was at 6:55 standing outside the door trying to finish my bananna before the day began.

We're fed by the culinary classes doing hot food prep, and today was yummy. I had French Onion Soup, fried eggplant, carrots and greenbeans, a potato pancake, and beef with a mushroom sauce. Needless to say, I didn't eat the mushrooms. But everything else was good :) Thankfully, I'm sure I'm burning it all off running around the kitchen!

In which I wear a funny hat

Yeah. That would be the hat that's part of my uniform. Think Pillsbury Doughboy. Or, as Other Half said when she saw me in it, "Oh! You look just like Bad Girls." Seriously, though, I'm loving school! It is crazy, and busy, and exhausting and exciting all at the same time.

Yesterday we spent most of the day learning about the bakeshop and nasty things like math and formulas. Oh yeah, and we got our cool toy chests (pastry kits). Today we dove right in and got baking. I got to demo hand mixing some muffin mix to the whole class, and learned how to round and roll baguettes. I egg-washed some soft rolls, and had adventures with scaling (in pastry chef-ese, scaling is basically weighing, instead of measuring, your ingredients. And we follow formulas instead of recipes). Did some time in the dish bin (aka the pot sink). Tried to be helpful. Not sure how that went. This afternoon the GYDs had our other classes, Career Management and Food Sanitation. Neither will run the entire trimester, though in Sanitation we have five class meetings and then self-study on the other days.

I feel like a pack mule. This is what leaves the house with me every morning: chef's coat in a garment bag; messenger bag with laptop, notebook, and other supplies; pastry kit; textbooks; water bottle and breakfast for eating in car; bag with change of clothes for work/non-lab classes; knitting bag on work days. When I'm feeling ambitious, I come home at night and half-pack the car. I'm hoping I'll get better at this figuring out what I really need each day. But, I want to have my laptop on work days because Syl lets me use her wireless internet. We have to keep a portfolio with daily journal entries and typed up class notes each day. I'm going to try to stay on top of this as much as possible, so that I'm not playing catch-up the night before our practial.

And a note: the shoes are *really* uncomfortable. I ended up buying insoles tonight, because my heels hurt so badly. Basically, there are no arches in these shoes. OK, it's not even 8 pm and I really need to go to bed now....

Orientation Tales

Boy, is my head spinning! Yesterday I started orientation for culinary school. This was an interesting experience, because the majority of the orientation events are designed for new Freshman, and the folks in my program (GYD) already have a bachelor's degree.

Yesterday was a lot of hurry up and wait. I began the day (after a lousy night's sleep) by arriving at motor vehicles at 7:15 to renew the tags on my car, one of those adult tasks that's a pain in the you know what that I've been putting off for six weeks. For those of my readers not in Colorado, here you get a 30 day grace period on your tag renewal. So, while mine were up at the end of August, I actually have till the end of September to renew them. Yeah. I figured I'd have little time once school starts, so off I went first thing yesterday. Then I headed off to campus. Stood for 45 minutes in line to check in, 'cause you know the line for end of the alphabet names that's never long anywhere else was the longest one at check in! Waited in line for 20 minutes to get my student id. Schlepped down to the student union to wait in line to get a parking pass. $225 and a parking pass later, took myself over to health services to find out about the hold that was supposedly cleared in July (which kind of was/kind of wasn't). I'm still not entirely sure what is going on with that, since the guy I talked to seemed kind of clueless. Back to the Financial Services building to get a bookstore voucher, and then over to the bookstore to get my uniform.

Talk about an odd experience. The uniform process felt vaguely army-like to me, in that once you were appropriately sized, someone walked you down the line of supplies and checked off your form as you were given: 3 chef coats, 2 pairs checked pants, 6 side towels, 4 aprons, and 2 hats. And shoes. I told Other Half last night that I kept expecting to get sent for a haircut! The folks in culinary get additional gear for front of the house classes, but BPA people get standard chef-wear. I did pick up an extra coat and pair of pants, though I think I'll get another pair of pants on Monday when I go to pick up the pairs that got hemmed. I really don't want to be worrying about laundry at night during the week. And, I think, another package of aprons and towels, and an extra hat. They recommend commuter students carry an extra shirt, hat, apron, towels and socks in their cars in case they forget. Sounds like a plan to me. The only thing we didn't get were neckerchiefs and slides because they were out of them. There will be ironing. In the afternoon, we had an orientation specifically for transfers and GYD students. That was incredibly helpful, as it answered a bunch of my questions. Chefs C. and P. are the advisors for the GYD students, and I've kind of made two friends already. M. and K. are also in BPA, and we'll all be in Bread Production together first rotation.

Today was a specific culinary orientation with all the students who'll be majoring in BPA and Culinary Arts. I felt very old. One girl sitting way in the back got called out by a chef for texting on her cell. People weren't paying attention, especially with regards to the uniform policies, and kept asking the same questions over and over again. Oy.

Nothing tomorrow. I get to go out for breakfast with Other Half and all the in-laws, and then the "girls" are buying, cleaning, and dividing up 4 bushels of green chiles. I won't be partaking in that fun. Instead, I'll be coming home and cleaning in the basement. I need to clear the area near the ironing board so that it's free of pet hair, and I need to deal with some older clothes that I'll never wear again to make room for my uniforms. I need to wash everything (coats, towels, aprons, socks, shirts, hats) and iron the coats and aprons. That's at least two loads of laundry in addition to the other regular laundry. Monday I'll do the same with my pants. I also get to watch/listen to my Patriots play the Chiefs tomorrow! Yay!! I've been so not invested in anything football this year. Maybe I just need a good game to get me in the mood.Wow, that was a long post! I'll try to update more now that things are getting interesting.