The Ballet Bash

The Sugar Plum Fairy made an appearance. 100 little girls in tutus tip-toed around the floor. An entire corner of the room was dedicated to making foam tiaras. It may have been the most entertaining party I have been to this year. Tutu School celebrated its Grand Opening of the Marin studio this past weekend in style. And, since one should always take advantage of having an in-house pastry chef/ballet teacher, I was the lucky caterer selected for the event. The director of the ballet studio, my boss, scanned my "holiday bite-sized dessert menu" and selected some truly tutu-terrific items for the pink polka-dotted dessert display. We re-created The Nutcracker's Land of Sweets pretty seamlessly... Even young Clara would have to agree.

The Menu
Mini Cupcakes with Pink Buttercream
Sparkle Caramel Lollipops
Button-sized Cookies
Snow White Meringue Kisses
White Chocolate-Peppermint Tartlettes

Taking on Trifle

Trifle: A traditional English dessert created to use up stale left-over cake. That's right -- when a cake has been sitting around for many days, has lost all of its moisture, and has basically become inedible, that's when trifle gets made. To mask the unfortunate state of the cake, you soak it in Sherry, pile berries on top, and cover everything up with a thick layer of custard. Packed with booze, fruit, and creamy pudding, what doesn't taste good? Since it has always been the dessert equivalent of the dreaded "kitchen sink casserole" in my mind, I was caught a little off guard when a client ordered four large bowls of trifle for her glamorous holiday party this year. I eagerly agreed to cater the party, but then had a moment of hesitation: Am I really going to make old cake? I decided that sometimes it's best to make a small break from tradition. These trifles were made from freshly-baked genoise cake, strawberries, raspberries, and blueberries from Berkeley's best produce market, the better part of a bottle of Cream Sherry, and a homemade vanilla moussaline. Sorry, Brits.

Turkey Day Truffles

I know. My sister had the same complaint: "It's Thanksgiving, Katie. No pie?? Are you completely crazy? It's not Thanksgiving without pie... It just isn't." Apparently she was not thrilled when I presented her with my menu mock-up for the big family dinner. I thought pumpkin pie, apple pie, pecan pie... so passe. How about something new and fresh? How about a candy bar! I thought I'd make little bite-size confections... chocolate truffles, peanut brittle, caramel apples, lollipops, pate de fruit. It would all be so colorful and fun (and gluten-free for my parents' new diet)! Especially when we have (the most adorable in this world) 5-year-old twin nephews coming to visit for Thanksgiving. Kids don't like pie. They like candy, right? And I happen to know that many adults can be convinced into some good ol' fashioned sugar bingeing from time-to-time. But if you've met my sister, you know her powers. After reading aloud (quite loud) every pie recipe listed on Epicurious.com, I raised my white flag of surrender. In the end, there were pies, and pumpkin pecan cheesecakes at our Thanksgiving table. Apparently, without their presence the holiday would have had to be called "The day formerly known as Thanksgiving." Luckily, I was able to slip one item from my candy bar menu onto the table: 70% dark Valrhona chocolate truffles enrobed in a Callebaut milk chocolate coating and tossed in coconut.

Lollipop Lollipop

Oooh lolli, lollipop! There's something about lollipops that just reminds me of having fun... maybe because I associate them with childhood, or maybe it's the adorable jingle referenced in the title of this blog entry that always makes a smile spread across my lips. People eat all sorts of foods off of sticks... frozen bananas at street festivals, meat in most Middle Eastern countries, cotton candy at the amusement park. It's just fun! And the treats pictured here are pretty sophisticated too: 70% creamy dark chocolate ganache truffles enrobed in a hard chocolate shell and then rolled in a mixture of cacao nibs and crushed, candied pecans. And you don't even get your fingers dirty.

Time to Taste Some Cake

I think it's a confirmed fact that making a wedding cake is hard. But try making just one slice of 5 different wedding cakes! Turns out, making a slice of cake is much more difficult than making the whole darn thing. I had a lovely bride-and-groom-to-be visit the palatial tasting room "Chez Grant Street" a couple weeks ago. I thought: I'll just make a few base cakes, a bunch of delicious fillings, a handful of different frostings and we'll mix and match to see what they like. Mmhmm. Sounds easy breezy.. that is, if you have never met me. I found myself in my kitchen at the eye of the familiar tornedo that surrounds me whenever I take on pastry projects. Passion fruit curd, mango mousse, milk chocolate ganache, dark chocolate ganache, passion fruit moussaline, strawberry buttercream, raspberry buttercream... they just kept flowing out of my head and into pots while I stirred and strained and stored as if in a trance. When the day of the tasting came, I just sat staring at all the sheets of cake, the miscellaneous containers of fillings and goo, and frosting. What was I thinking? But I put on my butcher persona and started hacking away at the cakes. I split them open, filled them up, stacked layers on top of each other and did my best to create the appearance of a slice of tiered wedding cake. I think it worked. The bride and groom wanted to take one of each. Oh no...

Grey is Just Not Appetizing

I had to break it to her. Of course, I fussed around with a lengthy pre-amble first: "Slate grey and yellow.. wow, such sophisticated wedding colors. So perfect for the invitation. I can just imagine the gorgeous yellow bridesmaid dresses with classy grey sashes around the waist. And the yellow flower bouquets with slate grey ribbon -- super chic." But after all of this, I had to tell my bride the honest truth: "No one, I promise you, will want to eat a slate grey cupcake." She didn't believe me at first. Though it pained me, I made her some muddy, grey frosting... flinching in my kitchen as I tried to decorate her taster-cupcake as elegantly as possible. One look, and she understood. With your eyes closed, it still tasted like rich, delicious vanilla French buttercream. But with eyes open, no one wanted to even approach the dull, grey specimen. Solution: I custom-dyed some fondant slate grey and cut out hearts to put on top of the (much more appetizing) cream-cheese-frosted cupcakes.

Happy Halloween, Harry

So what would you say if someone asked you to make a cake based on a book you've never read? I guess you could gracefully decline the offer and refer the client to another, more well-read, baker. You could quickly skim through book to try to get the general gist of the story-line and characters. Maybe you could even rent the movie version and watch a few frames to get some images and ideas to transfer into frosting and cake. All three of those options sound feasible. Unfortunately, I am basically incapable of saying "no," I don't read (sorry, Brown University education), and the Harry Potter movie scared the living daylights out of me within the first 5 minutes of sitting down to watch it. So I was in a pickle. I agreed to make a cake for a 6-year-old Harry-Potter-obsessed neighbor of mine here in Berkeley that would make her eyes light up and hopefully evoke the magical spirit of a story, and whole imaginary world, I knew nothing about. I tried to google "Harry Potter" and all the search results seemed to be written in a foreign language... words like "Hogwart" and "Quidditch" kept popping up. So I decided to talk to an expert... a woman who had read every book. She gave me the quick run-down, re-enacting a few scenes for me, and eventually I was able to piece together enough to make a cake.

Apparently there's a scene in one of the books where Harry is led to a room full of spiders, so I made lots of milk and dark chocolate spiders. Then I found an image of Harry's lightening bolt scar on his forehead, and hand-cut this shape out of rolled fondant. I made some topsy-turvy cakes, staked them asymmetrically on top of each other, covered it in frosting and purple and black glitter sprinkles and placed a chocolate "sorting hat" on top of a hand-made fondant stool. Our birthday girl was thrilled. Phew.

The Proof is in the Pudding

I always need a project. Something that allows me to research, take notes, and inevitably, forgo sleep for nightly games of mental ping pong as I toss ideas from the left side of my brain to the right side, and back again. I surround myself with cookbooks, scribble down ideas as I read and rifle through the pages of glistening dessert photos. Then, with a bundle of notes and primitive sketches under my arm, I forge into the kitchen like a warrior onto a battle-field. And then the same thing happens every time: I surrender all my plans and diagrams and formulas and make whatever feels right in that moment.

Project: Classic American Desserts Made Classier
First Attempt: Rice Pudding

Pictured above is a Maple Pecan Banana Risotto. A bruleed slice of banana sits on top of the spoon, dictating that your first bite of the dessert be one packed with the caramelized crunch of the sugar coated fruit. Candied Pecans lie on the plate to accompany the pudding, or to enjoy as tasty treats on their own.

Strawberry Shortcake

If I knew your were coming, I'd have baked... strawberry shortcake. I know I once swore to be faithful to wedding cakes -- til death do us part, making, baking, decorating, and obsessing over those frosted frilly layers of Bridezilla cakes. But what can I say. I want a divorce. Or at least an open-relationship. I'm just over it. Why spend so much time making the fillings and the cake, just so you can carefully, and painstakingly cover up every inch of it with what is, let's face it, a thick coating of sugar and butter? I want to make a dessert where I can see all of my hard work, and lust over the flavors, textures and smells that I will enjoy when I take my first bite. I want to eat with my eyes and feel satisfied without ever opening my mouth. And that's what makes strawberry shortcake the perfect dessert. You see the lucious whipped cream cascading out of the sliced-open shortbread biscuit while you smell the meyer lemon zest baked into the dough. The strawberries, so red and supple, invite you to take a juicy bite. The rose-infused sauce, pooling around the edge of the dessert just taunts you to dive in with your spoon. That's what I want my desserts to be -- inviting, irresistable. No more hiding the sweet gem inside a chasitity belt of buttercream.

Here Comes The Bride

No mom, I'm not getting married. But recently my landlady's living room has become the "tasting room" for hip brides and grooms -- potential cupcake clients. The engaged couples, sometimes with parents in tow, navigate their way to the East Bay following my less than exact directions to a blue trimmed house nestled in the quiet residential bliss of North Berkeley. Awaiting them is milk, water, napkins, and at least 5 different kinds of cupcakes for them to taste, each one with its very own "cupcake name tag." The couples taste, compare, and hopefully, order dozens of cupcakes for their wedding receptions. So far, so good.

If you happen to be getting married in the Bay Area and want to taste cake or cupcakes, you too can attempt the scavenger hunt to the "Berkeley Bliss Tasting Room." Email info@sweetpeony.com (That's me, if you didn't already know.)

Pro Bono Tarts

As I was slicing each apricot and delicately placing one sliver on top of another, making sure that just the right portion of each segment was touching the other, a friend walked into my kitchen and sat down next to me at the table. After a few silent moments of watching, she asked how much I would charge for a tart like this. I thought about it, took a brief fantasy trip to the adorable bakery I own in my dreams, mentally crunched one or two numbers about ingredient food cost... and then returned to reality. "This is a pro bono kind of dessert," I concluded. "The kind I only make for family... or maybe a really good friend. It's not for sale." Between the organic blanched almond flour I biked 4 miles to retrieve for the crust, the homemade creme patisserie and nut butter I made and mixed together for a tasty filling, the slicing and painstaking arrangement of fruit on top of the tart, and the shiny glaze I apply to each piece of fruit with a little brush... there's just no possible way I could charge a price that anyone would pay to buy this tart. I'm sure I could cut some corners, be remarkably more practical (drive to the store instead of bike, perhaps), make the tarts en masse with the same design each time, and assemble the tarts like desserts instead of art projects. But... alas. These are sacrifices I don't want to make right now. So for now, it will remain the Pro-Bono Tart.

The Reign of Rhubarb

A freshly cut stalk of rhubarb is firm and glossy, the color ranging from light pink to crimson red and a secret light green circle may reveal itself once sliced open. If you were to take a bite of the raw stalk, chances are your lips, like mine, would pucker and your eyes would squint holding back tears from the burst of tartness exploding in your mouth. Better this than the even more unpalatable reaction had you eaten the leaves of the rhubarb stalk which are, in fact, toxic due their content of oxalic acid. Why then, knowing these things, am I so in love with rhubarb? My passion for this stalk is so deep that I spent every Wednesday and Saturday morning for an entire summer trying to befriend a grouchy old rhubarb farmer just to feel a little closer to my favorite produce. Despite my overly cheery 9am smiles, zealous "Hello there! How are you?" conversation attempts, and consistent patronage, it took about 2 months to finally get this farmer's eye contact, and another couple weeks to win a wave from him when he saw me coming. My relationship with rhubarb itself, however, has always been solid and loving. I use it in everything... pies, crumbles, tarts, even savory dishes like rhubarb-glazed roast pork. For this summer tart, I candied thinly-sliced rhubarb and fanned it out over a caramel covered frangipane tart.

Red, White, and Blue

I don't think theme desserts are my thing. But Independence Day comes but once a year, so I thought I'd give it a shot. Brainstorm with me for a minute... How many blue foods are there out there? There's the obvious -- blueberries. Other than that? I couldn't think of anything, and I had no blueberries. Solution: I dyed some white chocolate blue and then used it to cover almonds. Voila! Tacky, perhaps, but this red cherry, strawberry, blue almond, white chocolate-covered tart did the trick for our 4th of July picnic.  

The Women's Group

My mother called me in mid-May asking when I was coming home for a visit, and specifically what date I might be available to cater a luncheon at the house. Turns out the Unitarians were anxious to organize their summer calendar of "Women's Group" meetings. They meet twice a month and rotate the host house so every member takes a turn opening up her kitchen table to the group of women to share stories... and snacks. The first time the ladies came to our house, my mom asked if I could throw some refreshments together. I whipped up a quick curry chicken salad, snuck past the ladies tumbling into the house, and headed off to the beach. Apparently, the Sunday following the meeting at our house, the church buzzed with reviews of curry chicken salad instead of the usual religious banter. Each year after that, attendance at our house seemed to grow, and I continued to make more and more elaborate snacks. This year, not only was the group larger then ever, some ladies even brought their own "to go" bags.

The Menu
Cream-puffs filled with chocolate ganache
French macaroons sprinkled with powdered sugar
Home-made salted caramels
Candies walnut, cranberry, and goat cheese sandwiches
Toasted bread with hummus, radish, cucumber, and kalamata olives
Fresh fruit frangipane tart

How Much is That Peach in the Window?

"5$? Are you sure? Can you weigh it again? There must be some mistake." I tried to reason with the shop-keeper, but apparently it was indeed possible and nonnegotiable -- my one, single peach was going to cost me $5. How can this happen? A confluence of realities with which I am all too familiar: An adorable boutique farm-stand serves the wealthiest clientele of an already famous resort island. Most likely, they could charge $50 for that same peach and most of their shoppers wouldn't blink an eye. How did I fall into this ridiculous scenario? One simple answer: I smelled the peach from across the room. It called to me, and I came running. At least it made a delicious tart.

Fields of Cakes

Who knew that 200 cupcakes is quite a hefty order? I do now. And so does my dining room. I successfully covered every inch of the old mahogany table in our beautifully formal entertaining space. Lined up by flavor -- chocolate (with caramel sauce inside), vanilla (with lemon curd filling), and strawberry -- the 200 cupcake soldiers dominated the house... and my morning. Now frosting all 200 tiny cakes... that took care of my afternoon hours.

Who Needs Cake?

Maybe I don't need to be sweating over my oven in this Berkeley summer heat, or constantly finding dabs of crusty frosting on my face at the most awkward times. I've found another totally satisfying and aesthetically pleasing side of the dessert industry: Homemade Cake Stands. I did some savvy shopping and researching on the subject, and I found that on average, a cake stand costs between $30-$60. (!) That's probably more than you are charging for the cake on the stand. So I decided to make my own. Mine are the white porcelain tiered cake stands on the right and the black-stemmed stands on the left. Check the blog soon to see some of my more funky designs I'm working on! If you are a chef, caterer, or just a cake-stand-lover and want to purchase one of my stands, contact me. They're for sale!

Polka Dot Parade

I know I should branch out. I know I should experiment with basket-weave, swirls, rosettes, shell borders, fancy icing designs. But I am tragically in love with the simplicity of the polka dot. I take out my Wilton manuals and archaic cake-decorating magazines from decades past, flipping through all the "how-to" decorating lessons. I practice all the standards -- classically elegant and hideously outdated -- I skip none. But then it comes time to dress up my cake, and without even realizing it, I start polka-dotting every frosted surface. Maybe it's "my thing." Can I do that? Claim the polka dot as my trademark? I'll look into it... but I think I better keep practicing my basket-weave... just in case. 

It's Birthday Season

Happy Birthday to you... again. This cake is a pretty funny story. Aside from the fact that it looks like I swiped it right from under Barbie's nose, this is actually the second time I am catering Reyna's 4th birthday. Her first party was at the ballet studio where we had vanilla cupcakes with pink frosting and purple sugar roses. Reyna's mom placed another order for the family party today at their home. The girl knows what she likes: Pink frosting again... Purple flowers again. Can't wait to see what 5-year-old Reyna will want! 

Stop and Smell the Sweets

This weekend was my busiest yet for my under-the-radar cake making business I've been trying to start up. Five orders in one weekend: 50 cupcakes for a party at a bar, 2 sets of pink cupcakes for ballerina birthday parties, 2 elaborate cakes for a 4-year-old birthday girl, and a cake and cupcakes to be used as props in a film being made about a pastry delivery service (!). My hands feel overly moisturized with butter, regardless of how many times I hold them under burning hot water. I just found some frosting on the cuff of my favorite sweat shirt. My red hair has spots of white, not from aging, but from fly-away flour from this morning's baking. Sometimes I just need to take my cupcakes and look at them lovingly. I place them carefully on a cake-stand, cover them with a gorgeous glass dome, and enjoy their company while drinking a cup of tea in the living room. And then... Back to work! 

The Devil's in the Details

I started decorating this cake for my friend, Scott. No big deal. I just filled a vanilla cake with some strawberry rhubarb preserves (one of my students made this jam for me in class the other night -- yes, rhubarb just might be my favorite stalk). Then I frosted it with vanilla buttercream and thought I'd give it a little chocolate tease with some piped decorations. Originally I was thinking something subtle, sparse, free-form. Then I remembered that I don't really have any of those three words in my vocabulary. I got the icing in my piping bag, sat down over my cake, and started making individual, tiny chocolate dots: One circle around the edge of the cake... then another circle inside that circle... then another.. and another... Damn you, Detail Devil! One hour later I finally plopped my last little chocolate polka dot on Scott's "simple" cake.

I Scream. You Scream.

We all scream for ice cream. And why shouldn't we? It's delicious! And now.. I've been churning my nights away making my very own ice cream. It's a beautiful sight to watch milk, cream, a little sugar, and egg yolks gently simmer together, cool down, and then spin their way into a fluffy, frozen, fantastic scoop of ice cream. It's even more enchanting to be able to make ANY kind of ice cream you want. Dark Chocolate? Lavender? Caramel Swirl? Strawberry Rose? Blueberry? Anything!

Here we have Almond Vanilla Bean Ice Cream.

Tart Triathlon

My landlady's son came into town for the weekend. He planned a Bar-B-Q for his old Berkeley high school buddies he hadn't seen since his move to L.A. Knowing his mom was renting a room to a Pastry Chef, he sent me a sweet email asking if I would make a dessert for his soiree. Still acquaintances, he is not yet familiar with the way I do things. When someone asks to me make A dessert, inevitably I hear MANY desserts. And so it happened as it always does: I made three different types of tarts and two kinds of homemade ice cream. 

The Berkeley Bar-B-Q Dessert Menu: 

Almond Pate Sucre Tart with Chocolate Ganache Filling

Layered Tart with Raspberries, Chocolate Ganache, and Fresh Glazed Berries

Rose Pastry Cream Tart with Fresh Blueberries

Creamy Smooth Almond Ice Cream

Chocolate and Almond Chunk Ice Cream

Ballet and Baking Need Each Other

I grew up a dancer, then danced my way right into the kitchen and started baking. One might think I had to choose between these two passions when it came time to start a career. Nope. I make my living teaching dance classes during the day and teaching pastry classes at night. Sure, there are downsides. Like, for instance, the fact that I live my professional life in costumes: A purple corset with fabric roses and jewels, a matching tutu that sticks out a foot from my body on all sides with tuile, pink tights, ballet slippers, and a diamond tiara at the ballet studio -- An oversized starched white chef coat and baggy black and white checkered pants with clogs and an apron at the pastry school. But I don't think I would have it any other way. It's balance. For every student's souffle I have to taste for my job at night, I dance at least 4 hours the next day. It's a constant cycle -- Consuming butter and sugar, then burning energy. In fact, my two passions, my two careers, sort of need each other. And to integrate things even more... Chef Ballerina Katie makes the cupcakes for the birthday parties at the dance studio every weekend. Always the same -- pink icing with homemade purple sugar roses -- but it's one more way to tie these two careers into one. 

Continuing My Education

Is there a such thing as graduate school for Pastry? Let me know. Until I find out about this illustrious institution (that I'm pretty darn sure does not exist) I'm on my own to forage around for classes to learn more about this chosen field. I've made phone calls to community colleges, other baking schools, and most recently... a 2-car-garage-sized cake decorating supply store in Berkeley asking the same thing: "Do you offer classes? For people who have already gone to pastry school and become chefs?" Usually the answer is something about how I should be off making money baking instead of spending more to re-learn things I already know with novice students. Alas, I kept calling and finally enrolled in "American Cake Decorating" at afore-mentioned tiny cake decorating supply store. It's a 4-week course meeting one night a week in a make-shift kitchen resembling that of a small house-boat galley kitchen. Each week we bring a frosted cake and the "Sugar Art Guru" instructs us in how to make egg-yolk-yellow sunflowers, pastel pink rose buds, moss-green vines, and strangely-enough -- fuscia famingos -- all out of a powdered sugar / crisco special she calls frosting. If this is American cake decorating, please, someone whisk me away to France.

Did I Do Something Wrong?

I've been hearing those words a lot from my students -- Especially in our first few weeks of the course as they learn to navigate the kitchen and attempt to use equipment they have never even seen before. But most often, questions arise at the beginning of the process, or when a student is about half way through making a recipe and his or her bowl of ingredients resembles scrambled eggs instead of a smooth creme anglaise. Usually, we can catch the error, come up with a remedy, or... start over. But this instance was different. Lovely Student brought me her final cookie that she was about to present at our "Final Tasting" at the end of class. She handed me her Meyer Lemon Shortbread cookie and with pleading eyes she sincerely asked the fateful question: "Did I do something wrong?" Wanting to inspire confidence and show off my amazing, problem-solving taste buds, I shoved the entire cookie into my mouth before delivering my diagnosis. All at once, my mouth seized up unable to chew the rectangle of cooked dough inside. My teeth felt frozen, my tongue stinging with pain. I ran to the compost bin, tried to spit out what I could, and took 4 glasses of water to wash the remaining cookie down. The mistake was painfully obvious. Lovely Student had replaced all of the sugar in the recipe with... Salt. Take a look at the picture. Could you tell the difference without tasting it?

Pastry Professor Katie

They just couldn't keep me away. After graduation, I became the assistant pastry teacher for the next session of the Professional Pastry Program at my school. At many points in my life, I have considered going back to graduate school, perhaps getting a PhD in Public Policy, Social Work, or heck -- maybe even Statistics. In fact, I've been to the optometrist an embarrassing number of times begging him or her to find some defect in my eyes that would necessitate my donning academic-looking black rimmed glasses. (Sadly, my eyes always test 20/20). I've enjoyed many a night snuggled in my cubicle among the library stacks, I've purchased every shade of high-lighter and every shape of post-it note. Studying, researching, analytical writing, power-point presentations -- the true spice of life. But I also have this bug for baking. So here's my recipe-test for combining my ambitions: Academic meets sugar. I'm the new Pastry Professor.

Pomp and Circumstance... and Cake!

Somehow, February melted into March. And March became a rushing river leading us all rapidly to the finale of our course. After much design time, practice runs, garnish experimentation, success, and disasters... it was time for Graduation. We were allowed to create anything we wanted. You name it: from macaroon cookies to full-size wedding cakes, brioche bread to creme brulee -- the world was our sweet little oyster. Because our program was so short and intense, recipes were divided up each week among the students -- hence, not everyone made everything each week. So I decided I would try to combine as many of those techniques I hadn't yet done during the course into my final project. I knew I had not made praline (a hazelnut, caramel paste), homemade Nutella, gelee (a clear gelatenous glaze), or jaconde (a pastry staple cake type). Then the real work began. How do I combine all these elements into one cake? Here's what I came up with:

A hazelnut and chocolate chunk jaconde cake base
Layered with homemade nutella, praline bavarian, white chocolate frangelico mousse, and caramel gelee
Garnished with dragee hazelnuts, crushed hazelnuts, white and dark chocolate shavings

I passed! And graduated from Pastry School!

Happy Valentine's Day!

I know I might be the only annoying one out there... but Valentine's Day REALLY is my favorite holiday. I know. You hate me now. In fact, it has nothing to do with hugging and kissing and getting all dressed up for a fancy date in my mind. As I said back in college, and still believe, "Valentine's Day is not about love... It's about love-handles."
My love for sharing sugar, butter, and general sweetness in the form of food naturally shines on this glorious holiday! So... Cheers! Hope it was a good one!
I wore three different shades of pink today, made a wedding cake, delivered egg-cartons full of mini-cupcakes to friends, and ate an entirely pink and red dinner (including cocktails) with my honey. I love you, February 14th!

High Maintenance Dough

Talk about High Maintenance... Laminated Dough. I wonder how many people know just how many hours and complicated steps go into making their buttery little croissant or danish breakfast treats. Scale, Mix, Laminate, Fold, Rest, Fold again, Rest, Roll, Shape, Bake. It's a seemingly never-ending cycle of giving the dough tons of attention and muscle, rolling it out and folding it in on itself, and then leaving it alone in the cooler to "rest and relax."
Who knew that croissant dough basically requires spa-like treatment? Apparently the gluten needs just the right amount of handling to develop... but then gets nervous and shrinks when you over-work it, necessitating a little "massage" of sorts to calm it down. And the butter in the dough is so temperamental that it gets all heated up and requires a "cooling, resting period" of about an hour in the refrigerator every time you try to roll it out. Give me a break, laminated dough. You are too much!

My Wedding Cake, All Grown Up

I had trouble sleeping this week. I knew on Monday that Saturday would be the Big Day. Many a young woman around my age might refer to the "Big Day" as the one when she wears an ornate white gown, carries a bouquet of her favorite flowers, and parades down a long aisle to marry the man of her dreams. Oh no. Not for Little Miss Pastry Chef.
The Big Day for me was when we finally made wedding cakes at Pastry School. It was all that I had hoped for and more -- lots of excitement, a little stress, and a tiny dose of "cold feet." But in the end, all three tiers of our giant orange, cardamom genoise cake filled with thick layers of ginger buttercream stood tall and proud at the tasting table.
Happily ever after... until we sliced into it and ate it! Ah, the ephemeral beauty of pastry. A happy, intimate relationship that lasts just the right amount of time. And when it ends, it always leaves the sweetest taste in your mouth.

Parade of Purple Roses

When I say there were roses everywhere in my new Berkeley kitchen... I am not exaggerating. Those who know me well are aware of my "tendency towards hyperbole." But this time, I am serious. On plates, on cutting boards, on pizza bricks, on the wooden table and the tile counter-top... The sugar roses took over! All those hours I spent glued to the computer screen practicing along with cake-decorating YouTube videos are finally starting to pay off!

Bread, You Scoundrel

I feel strangely guilty. Like I am cheating on a long-time, innocent partner. I tell myself I'm just intoxicated by the smell of the fermenting yeast, mesmerized by the rising of the dough, and that I need the kneading it calls for. The smell of the French Levain almost ready to come out of the oven wafts and dances through my kitchen and nearly knocks me over. It wakes me up from my love affair just in time to say: "Bread! You dirty scoundrel!"

That's the terrible thing about being in love with Pastry. I was so sure that cakes... wedding cakes, especially.... were my true confection obsession. But since getting into breads, my monogomy with Cake has fallen into question. Nobody told me this experience would be so similar in nature to a Soap Opera.

Alas, I will have to learn how to pull the strings of my heart (and the work of my Pastry Chef hands) in multiple directions... Bread, Cake, Bread, Cake... Regardless: It's good to be in love. Even if it's confusing sometimes.

Email me if you want some fresh bread delivered to your Bay Area doorstep!

Oh, The Holidays...

Since my last post much has happened, like, for instance: 2009! Also: Christmas, New Year's Eve, 3 separate trips to Philadelphia, a visit to Maryland to see 3 nephews and 2 nieces, quality Jersey time, and a Manhattan adventure. Other things I have done more related to this Blog include: Caramel Lollipops, Banana Caramel Pound Cake, Coconut Pastry Cream filled Cake with Shredded Coconut Frosting, and of course, some cupcake-making with my favorite 4-year-old baking helper, Sam. Wish I had more photo-documentation of these things, but I think the title of this post says it all.... "Oh, (sigh) the Holidays..."