I have never been great at food presentation. In fact, it’s been my Achilles’ heel for most of my culinary career. And now that I’m in Advanced pastry, which deals very much with making everything look pretty, that weakness is even more apparent. Case in point: last Friday we each did a fully decorated birthday cake with piped borders, icing roses, and cursive lettering. Awesome!
Today’s Recipe Impressions
We made a large batch of lemon curd, which we mixed with buttercream in order to make a nice lemony filling. The result was very tasty!
The main icing was a simple buttercream. My past experience with buttercream told me that it was rather heavy and had a strong butter flavor – not so. It all depends on the right recipe and the right mixing. Ours used a Swiss meringue base, to which butter was gradually added as it was further whipped up. Add a little vanilla or other flavoring if desired and powdered sugar to taste, and it’s done. We left ours on the lightly sweet side, which is definitely how I like my icing. But even without strong sweeteners or flavorings, I was surprised at the mellowness of the butter taste. I was very pleased with the icing, and I can see why so many bakers use it – it has so many different possibilities.
Today’s Lessons Learned
My cake’s initial frosting turned out very well, actually. I was good at making the sides vertical and the top very flat and smooth, with a well-defined edge. But when it came time to pipe on frilly pink borders and cursive writing, well… let’s just say I need some more practice. It wasn’t horrible, but my handwriting especially could use a course in calligraphy. The roses will take some practice to get down, but they ended up looking halfway decent. But what I may have lacked in piping talent for my frilly pink cake, I made up for in glib. In my best cursive, I piped the words “You’re Fired”. I think I’m going to give these cakes instead of pink slips to my future employees.
Today’s Lecture Notes
Today we saw a video demo on how to make roses from “rose paste”, a thick icing used to make sturdy roses that will set up well. Anybody can learn to do them with a little practice. All you need is a pastry bag, rose petal tip, and rose paste (easy to make at home). It also really helps if you have a “cake nail”, which has a wide head that you can build your rose on while spinning it between your fingers. You can do them with simple buttercream icing, too – check out a video demo for buttercream roses here.
Today was full of cakes of all kinds. My partner and I made chiffon cakes, yellow sponge cakes, a torte, and some genoise cakes. Sooooooo many cakes, and they’re still coming!
Today’s Recipe Impressions
The yellow sponge cake we made used the one-stage mixing method with “high-ratio shortening”. This is the artificial shortening that you can find in just about any prepackaged baked item (especially the ones that don’t go bad for years after purchase… I’m looking at you, Twinkies). This stuff came in a huge bucket and looked like Vaseline. NOT what you’d find in Gramma’s kitchen. Some commercial bakers like it because of its crazy long life and the ability to stretch the dough’s water and sugar ratios, but I am never going to use the stuff in my own goods.
Today’s “Little Lessons” (Screw-ups)
Today I think we screwed up at least one thing on every cake we made. Ugh. On one cake that told us to mix all liquids together, we forgot that eggs counted as a liquid in that recipe, so we left them out. One cake batter was threatening to fly out from our bowl in the last minute of mixing, so we turned it from high to medium. (Can’t do that if the recipe calls for high the whole time). We broke some egg whites. I think we overbaked a torte. We left the kitchen feeling beat down and ready to go crawl under a rock somewhere.
Baking is meticulous. In order to really get it right every time, you have to do it the same exact way every time. You have to be meticulous. It’s not nearly as forgiving as normal cooking. But that’s also part of the fun – if you get really good as a baker, it shows! (Whereas even mediocre cooks can just fudge the details and get away with decent food). I like both baking and cooking. But I really need to get into focus mode again in order to stay on top of baking – it really is a state of mind.
Today’s Lecture Notes
We didn’t have much of an in-class lecture today, but we did go over the coming days some. We will be using some of our cakes from today to design birthday cakes tomorrow – icing, filling, piping, hand-made roses, and all! If you’ve never done this stuff before, it can take up to four hours to decorate a single cake. But if you get good (and have all the stuff prepped), you can whittle it down to about 10 minutes! That’s a crazy gap. Again, the difference between good bakers and mediocre bakers is very visible.
Today we got to try every piece of chocolate that our class made the day before. At least that was the plan… we only got about half way through before we threw in the towel. Half of our class was ready for more, but the other half was about to throw up…
Today’s Recipes
Today we started out with some simple sponge cakes. We whipped up an angel food and a yellow sponge roll cake. I’ll go over the Angel food in detail.
Angel food – whip up egg whites until they form soft peaks and add in sugar (about half the amount called for in the recipe) to stabilize them. Add any flavorings you have (we used vanilla extract and almond flavor), and then sift in flour and the other half of the sugar while folding gently.
The key factors of good angel food are many.
Don’t overwhip the egg whites – make sure they are at the soft peak stage. This will let them expand in the oven more and give you a better rise.
Make sure all your ingredients are at room temperature. This will help the eggs whip up fast and keep their volume.
Get the cake right into the oven after folding to minimize lost volume.
A little acid like cream of tartar or lemon juice can help the egg white bubbles keep their integrity while whipping.
Never grease the pan when making angel food cake. It needs to stick to the pan walls in order to rise.
As for the yellow sponge cake, just remember that whenever you use egg yolks in a sponge cake you need to first get them (with the whites) warmed up to 100-110 degrees.
Today’s “Little Lessons” (Screw-ups)
My major screw-up today was writing down two size conversions of the same recipe side-by-side. I had a bigger-yield recipe on the left, and a smaller one on the right. And sure enough, I ended up looking at the wrong number on one of them, and I got twice as much flour as I needed for the angel food cake. It wasn’t pretty. It’s probably a good idea to keep them separate in the future!
Today’s Lecture Notes
Today we learned all about the different cake mixing methods. There are several different ways to mix up sponge cakes and high-fat cakes, and in order to really master them, you have to learn the reasons behind every method. You have to know what the different ingredients do to your cake, and what is going on on a molecular level with your batter.
Posting every mixing method is beyond the scope of this post, but there are a few general principles to follow.
Never Overmix. You will see this on boxed cake mixes, too. This is simply because flour and water make gluten. The act of stirring cake mix strengthens the gluten just as much as kneading bread dough on the counter. So this is why you always must be careful with your batter – when a recipe tells you to stir until just incorporated, follow it! If you mix until perfectly smooth, you’ll have one tough cake.
Use Cake Flour. You simply need to use the right type of flour if you want to make a good cake from scratch. Cake flour has lower gluten than all-purpose and bread flours, so it results in a softer product. If you don’t have any, you can make your own from A.P. flour by adding 10% of its weight in corn starch. Presto! Cake flour!
When to Grease. If you are making a high-fat cake (basically anything that’s not a sponge cake), it is important to grease the pan. It will also help to have a parchment paper liner on the bottom. If you are doing a sponge cake, however, it is important that you don’t grease. Cakes like angel food need to be able to cling to the sides of the pan in order to rise, so if you grease it… gourmet hockey puck!
That’s it for today. Stay tuned for more cakey fun!
Hi everyone. Today I’m starting up the regular blog posts again for our daily classes. Yes, culinary school has begun again! This term I’m in Advanced Pastry, where we learn all sorts of cakes, tarts, chocolates, and other forms of beautiful (and delicious) dessert art.
Today’s Topic
Today was our second day of chocolates, where we completed three types of chocolate candies per two-person team. And tomorrow we get to try all the candies in a big tasting session for the whole class! This might sound great at first glance, but take a second to do the math… that’s three chocolate candies times thirteen people, or 39 total varieties of chocolate. Even considering they will be cut up into little pieces, that’s going to be a lot of chocolate!
Today’s Recipes and Tasting Notes
My team’s recipes were as follows:
PFJ’s: a bar made from dark chocolate, praline paste, toasted sliced almonds, and chopped dried cherries is dipped into milk chocolate and then topped by a dark chocolate design. The flavor on this bar was just like it sounds – nutty, slightly fruity, and deliciously chocolaty.
Mint Meltaways: these meltaways are incredibly simple. They are simply a combination of melted chocolate and coconut oil, which then has flavors added and is poured into a frame to set up. They are then cut into small rectangles and tossed in powdered sugar. Because coconut oil is solid at room temperature but rapidly melts at body temperature, these little guys really do seem to melt away in your mouth. Instead of using peppermint oil, we made a batch with malted milk and a batch with
Pumpkin Caramel Ganache: this is a great filling for dark chocolate shells. You make a simple caramel by melting sugar with a few drops of lemon juice, add in some glucose syrup and hot cream, and then some pumpkin puree and gingerbread spice. Bring it back to a boil and pour the hot mess over milk chocolate. Let it sit for a couple minutes (this is very important), and then stir it up from the center out to create an emulsion. Then add in a bit of brandy for kicks, and you’re in business! This makes for a nice smooth caramel ganache with hints of pumpkin and spice.
Today’s Screwups
Oh, there are too many to list! Again, chocolate is picky. The biggest lesson from today was to be sure your chocolate is hot enough when you’re pouring it into molds. If it is, when it sets up it will contract a little and pull away from the sides, making it incredibly easy to tap the chocolates right out. But if it’s not hot enough (like with the shells for our pumpkin ganache chocolates), you’ll sit there rapping on your chocolate mold until you collapse from fatigue or boredom. And even worse, the beautiful orange-green-gold luster on a lot of our chocolate shells was ruined! All that work…
I also learned that malted milk doesn’t dissolve in chocolate. At all! It stays gritty, which is a shame when you’re trying to make a silky-smooth meltaway. A good way to get around it is to dissolve it first before adding to the chocolate, or just use it as a dusting powder combined with powdered sugar.
That’s it for today’s trials. Stay tuned in for more recipes, techniques, and other daily lessons.
One of the most common complaints among seafood-haters is that they don’t like the “fishy” taste. Well I’ve got news for you: if it tastes fishy, it’s not fresh! Trust me, if you passed judgment on the entire seafood category based on a crappy carp fillet that you got from the clearance bin, you are really missing out!
So how do you know when fish is fresh? It’s not hard. In this guide, we’ll go through easy tips and tricks to make sure your fish is as delicious (and un-fishy) as it can be.
Whole Fish
When you’re dealing with an entire fish or partially-dressed fish (anything that still has the head on, basically), it becomes nice and easy to figure out whether or not it’s fresh. Just look at a couple of key things:
It’s All in the Eyes
I know it may seem kind of morbid, but look deep into the eyes of your prospective dinner. Are the eyes clouded over or sunken into the head? Bad sign! You don’t want a zombie-fish. Are they bright and clear as they day they came from the ocean? Bingo! That’s a great sign.
Look at that guy. You can practically see yourself in there, can't you?
Scales and Body
Now check out the body of the fish. Do the scales look nice and bright, or do the colors look faded? Again, bright is better, and there shouldn’t be any odd areas of discoloration. Now lightly test the firmness of the flesh with your fingers – fresh fish should be nice and resilient, not soft or mushy. Even through the plastic wrap, you should be able to tell whether or not there is a slimy film on the skin. I bet you can guess if that’s a good thing. (Hint: no.)
Bright-eyed and fresh from the sea
Pre-sliced Fish Fillets
So what if you want to buy a pre-sliced fish fillet? Many of the rules remain the same, but now you don’t have the eyes to check, which are usually the dead giveaway. But not to worry! You can still use the touch and color tests to get a good idea of the freshness.
Touch
A good, fresh fillet should generally be resilient to the touch, springing back when you lightly prod it. If it feels overly soft or mushy, that’s not a good sign. Also beware of a slimy film over the fish.
Appearance
Look for bright, even color over the whole length of the fillet. There shouldn’t be any bruises or discoloration, and watch out for fillets that look like they’re drying out at the edges. Basically, you want it to look like good sushi. (Even if you’re not a big sushi eater, most people have seen pictures of it). That’s what you want – bright, vibrant coloring (especially with salmon or tuna), a smooth, even texture, and a glistening-moist exterior.
Who's hungry?
The Golden Rule
And of course, there’s one rule that applies to just about all cuts of fish: if it smells distinctly fishy, it’s not fresh! It can smell like the ocean, maybe, but it should not smell like the stuff that you feed your goldfish. If it smells or tastes fishy, it’s been out of the ocean for much too long!
Behind the Deli Counter?
When you buy fish from behind a meat counter at your local grocery store, you are reduced to judging it purely on appearance. You can still do the eye-test for whole fish, but fillets will be trickier. So in this case, go straight to the source for information – ask the clerk at the counter how fresh the fish is.
Getting good fish from a grocery store’s meat section ultimately comes down to the grade of fish that they order, the time it takes to get there, and the method of preservation. Top stores will rush in new catches every day, but this becomes more and more difficult (and expensive) the further away you get from the ocean. But once you find a store that does stock consistently fresh fish, take full advantage of it, even if it means spending a couple of extra bucks. Your taste buds will thank you!
A Quick Word on Frozen Fish
Freezing methods have made it possible to get decent quality seafood to even the most land-locked areas at a reasonable price. Of course, you won’t want to throw sushi parties with the stuff you get from the freezer section, but it can be used for plenty of tasty cooked dishes. Here is a quick break-down of the freezing methods for fish:
Flash-Frozen: This fish was quickly frozen on board the ship or in a processing plant within hours of being caught.
Fresh-Frozen: This fish was frozen while it was still very fresh, but the freezing process itself wasn’t done as quickly. This can slightly increase the damage that freezing does to the fish’s cells. Still, it’s a good option for frozen fish.
Frozen: No guarantee on freshness at the time of freezing, no guarantee on freezing time.
Glazed: This fish has been frozen with a “glaze” of ice all around it, which protects it better from freezer burn. It can maintain its flavor longer this way, but just being glazed alone does not guarantee the freshness at the time of freezing, which is important.
“Fancy”: This is simply a code word for pre-frozen fish that has been thawed out and thrown into the deli counter at your grocery store. Pretty fancy, huh?
That’s it for this guide to spotting the freshest of the fresh fish! Trust me, if you’re someone who has been fish-traumatized because of one bad experience, you owe it to yourself to try one amazingly fresh, perfectly prepared fish fillet. One bite, and you may find yourself singing a different tune!
So I’ve recently decided that I should be updating this blog more often – like, daily often, or at least three times a week – with stuff that’s going on in this crazy culinary world. So, let’s start with what I learned today.
Chicken Galantine
Now this stuff is interesting. (And I mean interesting as in “the sea cucumber was interesting”). We’re doing Pate and other cold hors d’oeuvres this week, and I can’t say they’re my favorite. But still, I’ve learned some interesting skills because of it. Like how to skin a whole chicken, for example. (Hint: make a slit down the back like the zipper of a dress, cut away any connecting membranes, and presto, naked chicken.)
We took those whole chicken skins and laid them out flat on a cutting board. Then we seasoned fresh-ground chicken with our choice of herbs, spices and vegetables, flattened it on the chicken skin, rolled it up like a sushi roll, wrapped it tight in saran wrap and aluminum foil, and then boiled the whole thing. Most students put down blanched spinach or prosciutto slices on the skin before adding the chicken. To grind the chicken meat, we used a meat grinder attachment for a kitchen aide mixer, which worked just dandy. Tomorrow we will cut the cooked rolls and coat them in aspic, or a gelatin coating.
The fun part of today was taking the extra ground meat mixes and making burgers out of them! We had fresh baguettes from the bake shop, so it made for a heavenly sandwich. I made my chicken mix with garlic, minced shallots, red pepper flakes, salt and pepper, and parsley.
Speaking of sandwiches, today one of my sandwiches was featured on our sandwich bar. It’s an old recipe from my first restaurant, but it was always my favorite thing to get there. It starts with a herb-butter grilled bun. Then you add salami, ham, provolone, and roasted artichoke hearts. (Coat the hearts in olive oil and sprinkle with salt, pepper, garlic, parsley, and your choice of herb, then roast in a hot oven.) Now take the sandwich and toast it under a broiler or salamander, or even microwave it if you want. Whatever melts the cheese. Add romaine and/or your choice of veggie, and you have yourself one mean sandwich.
That’s it for today’s report. I promise I’ll do better on posting up pictures from now on! Email me if you have any questions, recipe requests, etc.
So you’ve loved cooking since you were little, and now you’re wondering what life would hold if you decided to pursue your passion full-time. Do chefs get paid well? What about stability? Benefits? Would you really be able to do well in life as a chef? Well, here’s a little list to get you psyched up about your prospects!
5. You never starve.
This is the most obvious of the reasons, but it still deserves a mention. As a chef, you always have an abundance of food! And not just any food – if you play your cards right and get hired at a place that serves food you love, you get to be in gastronomic heaven every day! (Just be sure to get a gym membership when you get hired). Seriously, you can get spoiled from all the tasty food you get to sample every day.
4. Pay
Contrary to the popular conception, there are some very handsomely salaried positions out there for career chefs! If you pursue your education and move up to advanced positions in one of the tens of thousands of resorts, hotels, cruise ships, or other hospitality purveyors in the world, you can easily make six figures! Many of my current Culinary Arts teachers have been employed in Executive Chef or Food and Beverage Director positions at salaries well over $100,000 a year
3. Stability
People always gotta eat. That will never stop. (If it ever did, I’d shoot myself anyway). Every person on earth enjoys a good meal. If you can provide that good meal, you’re in business as a chef. Sure, individual restaurants can be affected by economic tides and troubles, but this industry as a whole still provides some of the most long-term stability imaginable. (Unlike record companies and newspapers).
2. Travel
This goes hand-in-hand with the section on stability – people all over the world like to eat! And thus, there is opportunity all over the world for those who like to feed people who like to eat. Want to see the world? Become a chef on a cruise ship. Always wanted to visit Italy? Find an internship at an Italian restaurant. Excellent work experience in a beautiful foreign country you wanted to visit anyway? Can you say “win-win”??
1. Passion
Sure, you can find plenty of good-sounding statistics for any industry, even crappy ones. (Multi-level marketing, I’ve got my eye on you…) But I believe this is what it really comes down to: if you are fulfilling your passion, your greater purpose in life, you will be content. You will be happier than you would in any other field, no matter how great the money and perks would have been. And you will find new ways to innovate and revolutionize the field where you are truly passionate about your work – not something likely to happen when you dread going in every day. No matter how you slice it, it’s just 1000% better if you have the passion for what you do.
Note: Chefitude = Chef + Aptitude. (Not chef + attitude, that is a subject for a different post).
The following list contains five sure-fire ways to increase your cooking abilities and general “chefiness”. I am not legally able to guarantee the following, but the wise employment of these strategies will probably result in instant self-confidence, abundant attention from the opposite sex, and millions of dollars in tax-free income.
Chef tip #1: Get your learn on.
If you don’t already, find ways to keep up on the latest cooking trends, new ideas, etc. Subscribe to a favorite food magazine (I like Bon Appetit). And there’s always the Food Network if you have cable. Note: beware of becoming a Food Network Zombie, who sits and stares at the delicious things on the screen without ever trying to make the food themselves! Apply what you learn to your cooking. And don’t even get me started on the Internet; there is a huge treasure trove of information out there on just about any food topic that you can imagine. Just make sure you get your info from sites that you trust.
Chef tip # 2: Find a class
Local cooking classes will help you get out of your cooking shell and into your local foodie community. Find them on sites like Craigslist and Meetup, or any local sites that you have available. The best classes will have you participate in the cooking so that you can try out new techniques and recipes. Interaction with the instructor and class members will give you plenty of new ideas to work with. And best of all, you’ll make new foodie friends!
Chef tip # 3: Make yourself try something new every day
Don’t get into a rut. If you’re in a rut, bust yourself out of it tonight. Make some Thai Curry or a Satay. Find an ingredient that you’ve never used before and taste it, then make something with it. Have you ever had a cherimoya fruit? It tastes like magic. Find one that is soft but not mushy, cut it open, and eat it with a spoon. Serve it to your family/friends/love interest – they will be blown away! We live in the Information Age, and there is no excuse for sticking to the same old thing. You have a million books, web pages, magazines, and TV shows that are hurling new ideas at you all the time. Pick one thing, find a recipe online, and make it!
Chef tip # 4: Critique your meals
Whenever you go to a restaurant or have a meal that you didn’t have to cook, analyze it in your mind. Contemplate and savor it. Pick apart its flavors; imagine how it was made. Think about the balance of flavors, texture, and all-over mouthfeel. What would you change? If you don’t like the dish, how could you make it good? Remember, this doesn’t mean that you have to be the Simon Cowell of your Bunco group’s pot luck dinner. (“This is an insult to Risotto. Italian grandmothers everywhere are spinning in their graves.”) I think you’ve gone too far when you can no longer enjoy any food without first assigning it a catty remark. This doesn’t win you many friends.
Chef tip # 5: The next step: find a part-time cooking job
Are you really serious about upping your Chefitude quotient? Then it’s time to hit the classifieds and find yourself a cooking job! Cooking jobs help you solidify your chef skills like nobody’s business. In order to master cooking skills, you need repeated, systematic practice. And what better way is there to get that practice than to get paid while doing it? It puts you on a schedule. It puts you in a real kitchen with real chefs. And it gives you a great motivation to learn. I still have the things that I learned from my very first kitchen job deeply ingrained in me – I use them every day.
Sure, there are drawbacks. In a restaurant, you are an employee, so you learn what the employer wants you to learn. (Which is not always what you want to learn.) And with entry-level jobs, the pay isn’t great and the jobs aren’t always glamorous. But if you really want a nitrous-boost to your cooking skills, this is a great way to do it. For best results, choose a restaurant and a position that fit your own interests. If you want to decorate cakes, get hired on at a bakeshop. Interested in large event planning? Work for a catering company. Want to learn gourmet main dishes? Get hired at a gourmet restaurant as a disher or busboy and let them know you have a passion for cooking. (That’s what I did, and they started training me in the kitchen soon after).
Now we come to the conclusion of this Chefitude-boosting seminar. Remember, local renown as a superstar chef is closer than you think!
Cookies and punch are now being served in the back foyer. See you next time!
P.S. If you happen to live in the Utah Valley area, I am planning to start a local cooking group of my own! It will be plenty of fun and delicious to boot. If you are interested in details, contact me at classes@vicariousgourmet.com.
10. Long hours
9. Blazing hot or freezing cold kitchens
8. Doing all those dishes
7. Getting yelled at by chefs
6. Standing for the majority of the day
5. Tuition fees now require your firstborn
4. Cleaning out walk-in refrigerators
3. Cleaning out walk-in freezers
2. Cleaning out whatever the hell is hiding behind the stoves
1. Looking like a walking used napkin 5 days a week
One Reason for enrolling in Culinary School:
1. Because you’re a chef, dammit. This is your passion and your calling, and you’ll be happy with no other.
