Panda vs Pantry!
Posted on: December 1, 2011
I’ve recently been griping about how there’s absolutely nothing to eat in my house. Who’s fault is that? Well, I’d like to say it’s my landlady’s fault for not picking up anything more than ready-made beef patties and bacon from the store. But I have resolved to become an actual, responsible adult for a change and attempt to build a pantry that will allow me to make anything I wanted whenever I wanted it.
Seeing as I am an insomniac, I tend to want Pecan Pie at 3am.
I had also been craving for hot chocolate, and she had no cocoa. Sad panda.
So as part of this resolution, I’ve composed a list of things I always want to have in my pantry/fridge:
- Bacon
- Tomato Sauce/Crushed tomatoes
- Stuff for mirepoix (carrots, celery, onions)
- Potatoes
- Bay leaves
- Jarred peppers
- 70% chocolate
- AP Flour
- Baking soda/powder
- Cocoa powder
- 10x sugar
- Brown sugar
- Couple of different cheeses (cheddar, mozzarella, gruyere)
- White & Red Wine
You would be surprised how sadly empty our kitchen is. I’ve been busy with school the last 6 months and never really took the time to cook at home, but now that I’m in between school and an internship, I find that I’ve had way too much time on my hands that would have been better spent stocking up delicious food and making cupcakes.
Also, seeing as its almost time for the holidays, I better grab myself ingredients for sugar cookies and other things that will be fun to give away.
Are you a pantry stocker or a “want to make something, go get it at the store” type of person?
A Watched Dough Never Rises
Posted on: November 28, 2011
- In: Info | Patisserie
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(For future reference, anything posted under Info will probably a long and informative post instead of my usual rambling so this warning lets you know if you want to avoid such posts)
So I thought, as part of my blog, I should write some things actually relevant to the making of pastries. Today I thought I’d talk more about what goes on in bread-making and how not to drive yourself crazy in the course of doing so. So breads – they’re “organically leavened” dough, meaning they use a living organism found in nature (yeast) to rise, as opposed to quickbreads that use chemical leavening (baking powder, baking soda). Yeast is, as previously mentioned, your master. Treat it well and it will yield you delicious dough. Treat it poorly and you will end up with a flat mess.
Now, yeast. How to treat it right:
- Keep it warm – the ideal temperature for yeast growth is about 85 degrees Fahrenheit or roughly 29 degrees Celsius.
- Moisture is its friend – a nice moist environment will keep the yeast happy
- Salt is bad – avoid direct contact with salt. During mixing, it’s wise to dilute the yeast in the liquid and leave out the salt until the very end of the kneading process.
- Acid is also bad – yeast is, after all, a bacteria. So acid will effectively kill it
- Give it enough noms – the recipe should take care of this, but carbohydrates are food and food means happy yeast.
Keep those in mind and your dough will rise nicely and be the delicious thing you love. Now on to mixing your dough.
- Follow instructions carefully! Most recipes will tell you which ingredients go in first, and there’s a reason for it. Remember, yeast is your master!
- If your recipe calls for something called a “sponge”, it basically wants you to give your yeast a head start in the fermentation process and give it food to start giving you the gas you need for risen bread. This mixture should appear bubbly and gooey before you start mixing the rest of your dough.
- If your recipe says just mix all the ingredients together, my own advice is that you should probably dissolve the yeast in room temperature water and hold off on adding the salt until you’re almost done kneading. This is because you want to incorporate the yeast into the dough completely and give salt less of a chance to kill the yeast, and also, this speeds up gluten development in your dough.
- If your recipe has a large amount of fat (usually butter or some sort of oil), hold off until after the window test is done. This is because fat will cut through the gluten and you’ll probably never see a window test so you can’t tell if your dough is done or not.
- Kneading is the process of developing gluten in your dough by folding and turning, or mixing (if you’re using a Kitchen Aid). This takes a while, anywhere from 5-8 minutes.
- The window test is when you stretch a piece of kneaded dough out until it’s thin and opaque (like a window) without the dough breaking. Use a bit of water on your hands so you don’t tear into the dough. You’ll know it’s done when you can almost see through the dough. This means you’ve developed the gluten in the dough enough so it can hold its shape.
Well, now you’ve got your dough mixed and ready to ferment. Get a large bowl to put it in, even if your dough is small. It’ll get bigger, trust me. Remember to grease the bowl to avoid the dough from sticking to it! Again, if you follow the few rules for treating the yeast right, your dough will have no problem rising. You will know that your dough is fermented once its doubled in size (and the time it takes to ferment is usually included in the recipe). For home bakers, an oven that’s not on with a few squirts of water will make a good place to ferment your dough. If it’s too cold in there, turn it on just a bit to make it warm inside and turn it off before putting your dough in.
There’s a whole other bit about shaping the dough and letting it proof (ferment) again, but by then you’ve probably realized what you should and shouldn’t do when you have dough around. Like, let’s say, keeping your work surface properly floured. There is nothing worse than delicious dough that’s stuck to your table and not in the oven baking.
And of course, patience young Jedi. Making bread requires some waiting, so don’t sit there and wait for your dough to double in size. Go find something else to do while you wait. Don’t stray too far or you’ll end up with a dough monster!
I know a lot of pastry chefs that don’t like working with dough for the reason that it requires so much attention, but just look at what you get after all that hard work!
Sticky buns, anyone?
That, and so much more. So don’t let bread-making intimidate you! Hey, if I can do it, surely you can. 🙂
I’m not crazy, I’m a panda!
Posted on: November 26, 2011
I find myself needing to explain. I’m not crazy, I’m a panda.
This all started many moons ago. It was through random silliness with a friend, during a discussion on flying artichokes, dinosaur noises, and cats rolling watermelons that she decided I were to become a panda. It’s been an ongoing joke ever since. And besides, I really like pandas! They’re cute and furry and docile.
It wasn’t until pastry school that the joke would be taken to a whole other level. For the longest time, a bunch of my friends had already referred to me as “Panda”, but one fateful day during our sugar project that I would just completely blow it out of proportion.
Our sugar project was nearing the end of our program in school. Our graduation was on Halloween. So it was only logical that the theme we picked was Halloween. Well, during a discussion on what elements we’d like in our haunted town of sugar, we were all throwing ideas around. So things like a haunted house, a pumpkin patch, a spooky forest were all thrown out. As a joke, I yelled out, “Vampire Pandas!” and naturally, everyone looked at me like I was mad. “Hey, I just want to make vampire pandas. Think about it. I want to suck…bamboo!” Needless to say, my vampire pandas didn’t happen.
What did happen was, in the course of the next few days, I would talk about vampire pandas, insert it into a conversation, or just say it randomly (as I usually do with everything else). It kind of spiraled out of control until my classmates would also refer to me as “Panda!” One of my (totally awesome) friends also bought me a Panda hat. Which completely made my bad day better and I love her for it. Pandas just sort of have that effect on everyone, really. Pointing back, really, to my little mission of joy-bringing.
I embrace my awesome Panda-ness, however. Which returns me to my first point. I’m not crazy, I’m a panda!
Food Is The Best Medicine
Posted on: November 24, 2011
- In: Real-life
- 2 Comments
They say this about laughter too. I will concede to combining the two, however. Laughter + Food = Best Medicine.
I realize this after I hear about my friend who’s had to get blood drawn for a procedure. I don’t envy her at all. I abhor getting needles getting poked into me. That one time I had to get taken to the emergency room I almost fainted as the EMT jabbed me with a Benadryl shot. This happened while I was still in pastry school, so all I could think of was, “Gee, I wish someone would come out of the kitchen and hand me a cookie.” Because really, what situation would not be made better by handing someone a cookie? Minus a weight-loss kick, sweets solve every ache.
I often get asked why I decided to become a pastry chef. My most used answer is, “I love sweets!” and it’s not just to be snarky. I do enjoy my days gorging on double-fudge brownies and ice cream. And I’m pretty sure a lot of people do too! That time your boyfriend dumped you, didn’t you just jump into the freezer and helped yourself to an everything-in-sundae? Or you’ve just gotten yelled at the office for something you didn’t do, wouldn’t you feel better if someone just handed you a cupcake? Somehow, throughout history, patisserie has been synonymous with joy. Even as a child, you always look forward to when grandma made you little sugary treats, and love going to birthday parties because there’s always cake and ice cream. Growing up, you binge a little less, but it’s not less enjoyable.
So I fancy myself bringer of joy. It’s not as pretentious as it sounds. That’s just how sweets tend to work on people. Because when someone eats a cookie, they’re most likely not reminded of the worst day of their life when their dog was crushed by a giant cookie rolling on the street. They remember kindergarten when they unpack their lunchbox and eat their sandwich and find a cookie at the bottom.
Even if it weren’t sweets, some days you feel like you’ve done your hard day’s worth, and you deserve a double cheese burger and a soda. I know I’ve had a lot of those days and I definitely feel happier after. Food, for me at least, isn’t just to make my tummy stop growling. It’s food for the soul. I don’t encourage eating your emotions, but some days food is the best you can do for what you feel.
Suppose today is just one of those days when I really need a pick-me-up and all I can think about are chocolate cupcakes and cheese fries. (As opposed to every other day when I only think about cheese fries) I’m sure you have your own sad-day-make-it-better food?
Obey Your (Bread) Master
Posted on: November 22, 2011
- In: Patisserie
- 1 Comment
Have I mentioned I’m really, really in to metal? Thought I’d put that out there.
Today I thought I’d share how immensely entertaining it is to make bread. This is besides the point that the bread sections of our curriculum is terrifyingly fast-paced. Seriously, ever seen your classmates like chickens with their heads cut off? I don’t deny the fact that I am easily amused by other people’s terror. You could see it in their eyes. How do you make five different kinds of breads in a day? Well, you obey your master, of course.
And by this, I mean your dough. See, bread dough, unlike other pastry dough, have a live ingredient we call yeast. Yeast is pretty much bacteria that is cultured for fermentation used in a variety of things (besides bread, it’s used in wine and beer production). Our friend, or master, I should say, has a few rules for you to follow in order for it to work well and for you to be able to be done in time to get out of school before your grandkids are old.
You need to keep it in a moist, warm environment; you shouldn’t heat it up too high or you’ll kill the yeast, but warm enough for it to grow and be happy. You have to give it plenty of noms (carbohydrates) so it burps and creates Co2 to make your dough rise. This is definitely key to making bread well, and quickly.
Bread-making is sort of like having a pet to look after (for cat owners, you know what it’s like to have a “master”). You need to be aware of when it’s ready, when to start fermenting, and when it’s done fermenting. Then you shape it to however you want it to look like, ferment again, and then bake. It’s a lot of love and care that goes into it. Did I mention it grows to about twice its original size after fermenting? It’s a freaking monster.
Back to my very distraught classmates. Our bread program was very intensive. We made at least 5 breads a day for a good 12 days (this was set into 2 different classes). After the first five we thought it was all over, alas. We had returned to it more horrific than ever. I recall a day when we had accidentally set some parchment paper on fire (it fell behind one of our ovens and caught fire) and caused the entire school to evacuate. During that time all I wanted to do was crawl into the freezer (it was a good 100 degrees out).
But looking back at it now, it definitely was a taste of how a production kitchen really goes. Besides, when you set your kitchen on fire, it’s hard not to be entertained.
For now, if you really want to make some bread, um. I’d give it a second thought. It takes a lot of love to make delicious product, so – your choice!
Panda vs Pastry 