Sunday, May 31, 2009

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

Friday, May 29, 2009

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. 

Thursday, May 21, 2009

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.

Friday, May 15, 2009

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?