Bread's done!

All right. Let me make one thing perfectly clear: I am not, by any stretch of the imagination, a yeast whisperer. You give me the ingredients for dough, I'll mix them together, and somehow they won't even rise. I don't understand how to make bread happen at all.

That said, if you give me dough that already exists in a decent state, I do know what to do with it.

Below are the results of my Advanced Artisan Bread class, which I only gained any enjoyment from when I was a) making existing dough into shapes or b) eating the results of the day's lesson. Those big decorative platters, aka The Fun Part, aren't edible (the dough is designed to be modeled, not eaten - they would taste like Play-Doh), but everything else on the table is:



My group's decorative pieces are at the leftmost end - the one with the wine bottle is baked around an empty bottle, which can then be removed and replaced with a bottle of whatever you're planning on serving at your big fancy dinner, for maximum classiness. That one had its specific design dictated to us by Chef, hence the three wine bottle holders all looking the same, but our second decorative project was left up to us... it's only a coincidence that they're all hearts, or maybe it's because my class is 90% female. As for all those nifty shaped loaves on the table, they're all just plain dough like you'd use to make a baguette, and three of them (the long jagged one with seeds, the one opened up into diamonds - that one's mine! - and the one curled into an S) are basically baguettes that we continued to shape afterwards. The long one with the chevron pattern on it, though, has garlic herb oil brushed between its layers, and was extra delicious.

Here are some closer shots of my group's decorative wine bottle holder and heart basket, and a shot of the decorative-dough portion of my practical, on which we were given pretty much free rein to design however we wanted:



(You don't want to see the sourdough and baguettes I did for the other part of my practical... they fall under the umbrella of "Well, at least I passed.")

As for what else I've been doing for the past two weeks? Here.



And now... I want a sandwich.

I lied. I must post about cookies.

I'm such a liar.  The reason I started blogging today is so I could show off these cookies:

Nick helped me put all his toys away today so I told him we could make cookies. We decided on apple cinnamon raisin cookies with glaze.

He was actually a very, very good helper.  He helped me out by adding the measured ingredients to the bowl, whisking the dry ingredients together by himself, and operating my Kitchenaid stand mixer.

Here's my little sous chef at work!

One more, since I'm on a roll.

Random food porn:

Same meal, two angles.

Pan grilled pork tenderloin seasoned with Lawry's, rosemary, sage, and thyme, served with a bed of white rice and a salad.

The salad is as follows:

Spring greens
1 mcintosh apple
6 strawberries
1/4 cup roasted pecans
1/4 cup red onion
1 tsp garlic fiesta seasoning

With balsamic dressing on top.

I would've added feta to it. Feta would have made it ultimate. Still, hubby ate it. So, it was a win.

More Original Social Networking

We went to Rob and Cindy's place last weekend for another fondue party.  We started it all with the dessert fondue party we had on new years and they decided to step it up a notch and do a meat fondue.

And so, we arrived, and the table was beautifully set up with beef, pork, shrimp, chicken, veggies, fresh bread, cheese dip, and batter.  There were also sauces:  shwarma, sweet thai chili,  death from above, barbecue, buttery buffalo, and shrimp sauce.

Then, the oil was brought out and the dunking began.

Tempura battered chicken with thai sauce was my favourite. My husband and Rob enjoyed tempura shrimp. I couldn't have it because shrimp makes me physically sick (even though it's delicious)

The one thing that Rob and Cindy and I really enjoyed, though?

Tempura fried broccoli or cauliflower, dipped in cheese.  Fuck yeah.

After dinner, Rob and Alex and I enjoyed a glass of port that Rob made. Chocolate raspberry port. Fuck yeah, again.

Stew!

Awhile back I made an awesome beef stew using this recipe and a couple modifications.

First modification is I browned the beef in a pan with some olive oil before I added it to the slow cooker.  Second modification is I added more veggies than it called for. Third modification is I waited until halfway through the cooking time before I added the vegetables so it wouldn't be mushy.

Here are some pictures of the process, and at the end, the final product.

We ate our stew with a loaf of rapid-bake cheddar onion bread. So good together.

Meat!

We bought some.

And that's it for cakes

Nine days of this class were harrowing, especially day eight - the first day of the practical exam, in which I barely got everything done in time and ruined a great deal of chocolate trying to get the collar for my chocolate mousse cake made - but on day nine, everything was all better. For the first time ever in that class I was able to make the chocolate behave, and I was able to actually recover from mistakes (this is highly unusual for me - I have joked that I am the Doctor Frankenstein of pastry: if something doesn't turn out right, throw a tantrum and murder it)... I overcooked the eggs for the Bavarian cream while I was struggling to get the gelatin to bloom on my second cake for the practical, and somehow this was no big deal, I redid the eggs and it came out fine.

And by "fine" I mean "these are probably the best things I have ever made." Please disregard my apron strings and towel that managed to sneak in to the top view picture.




And now I'm starting Advanced Artisan Bread. Ohboy...