Week 7: Eclairs and Cream Puffs

This week we got back to sweet stuff by making eclairs and cream puffs!  They are both made with the same batter just piped and decorated differently.

They were fairly simple to make, just very time consuming as you actually cook the flour mixture before piping it and putting it in the oven.  The flour is cooked in a boiled butter and water mixture until it forms a film on the bottom of the pot, then transferred to a mixer where the eggs are added slowly.  This mixture is piped out into either rosettes or lady finger (cream puffs or eclairs, respectively).  The batter has a very eggy flavour, but that doesn't matter since it's really all about the filling or chocolate on top :)


Once baked, the rosettes and lady fingers are hollow and easy to pipe.  You can either pipe it into the side/bottom or just cut off the top and pipe inside.  With the eclairs, we watered down pourable chocolate fondant, dipped the lady fingers inside and filled with whipped cream.  For the rosettes, I filled it with raspberry jam and more whipped cream :)











I think I will be making this recipe again!

Week 6: Bread

This week we did something different, we moved away from sweet things to bread!  We learned how to make different types/styles of bread with the same dough.

To make the dough, we used fresh yeast, something I'd never seen before.  It has a crumbly, slightly gross texture that comes in blocks like butter and smells not so pleasant.  This yeast can be found at many bakeries, but not readily in grocery stores.  Fresh yeast has a better flavour than dry yeast, but they can be substituted for each other using a formula.

To keep the yeast alive, it's important to add the right temperature warm water and have some kind of fuel for it, in our case, sugar.  Once the dough was mixed, we kneaded it for a while and covered it with plastic and a metal bowl to seal in all the warmth.  Once the dough had doubled in size, we pressed some of the air out, cut it up and formed it into balls.

We then used about 7 of these balls to make cheesy monkey bread :)  This is done by placing the formed balls in a greased cake pan, covering it with cheese and herbs, proofing and then baking.  It bakes together but pulls apart easily.

With the remainder of the dough, we made various rolls.  We learned how to make buns, knots and braids.  Since these were smaller and were going to be baked individually, they didn't need to be proofed and went straight into the oven after a covering of poppy, caraway and sesame seeds.

There's a lot of ways to experiment with this dough and mix it up to make different flavours.  It can be made savoury with cheese or sweet with cinnamon sugar.  Lots of different things to try :)

Week 5: Custards

This week we learned how to make custards.  Custards are a cooked mixture of milk/cream and eggs.  We made two this week, one set in the oven with eggs (Creme Caramel) and another with gelatin (Bavarian Cream).

We started with the Creme Caramel.  We made caramel to coat the bottom of the foil cups and drizzled extra on a cookie sheet to be used for garnish later when it hardens.  We made a wet caramel which is easier to make as it is less likely to burn.  The only difference is as it sounds, there is water added to the sugar at the beginning of the cooking process.  Adding the water gives it extra time before it browns as the water has to boil off.

The instructor taught us a good trick for cleaning caramel off the pot once you are done.  Just boil water in the same pot and the steam will loosen up all the hardened caramel.

The key with a custard is not to curdled the eggs.  This is done by slowly increasing the temperature of the eggs by adding the hot liquid incrementally.

We baked the Creme Caramel in a water bath as this helps to evenly bake the custard.

As that was in the oven, we made the Bavarian Cream.  For this we hand whipped the cream to stiff peaks, a first for me!  It helps to have your cream, bowl and whisk as cold as possible.

The Bavarian Cream came together pretty easily, just mixing the ingredients and doing the same slow heating of the yolks with the cream.  We had the choice of three flavours:  coffee, strawberry and chocolate.  I picked strawberry :)

To plate them, we unmoulded the custards from the foil and flipped them over.  With the creme caramel, we just ran a knife around the edge and flipped but with Bavarian Cream, it doesn't pop out as easily, so we had to rip the foil away.  

Once again, lots of food for sharing!

Week 4: Piping and Masking

This week was all about learning the basics of piping and masking. We used a cake dummie and commercial grade whipped topping for icing (this icing is equivalent to what most grocery stores use for icing).

The instructor taught us how to fill the icing bag by folding over the top to keep the edge clean. She suggested never to fill the bag more than halfway as it usually causes a mess and that it is easier just to refill.

We were shown how to do a crumb coat with an offset spatula and get the sides straight using a bowl scraper.

After masking our cake dummies, we practiced piping on a tray with a star and straight tip. We learned that it is easier to squeeze the piping bag from halfway through where it is filled so that there is less strain on your forearm. Once we practiced all the different piping techniques, we were instructed to decorate our previously masked cake dummies.

Here is what I made

Week 3 of Baking Arts: Bran Muffins and Tea Biscuits

Photo Credit:  Jerome Callender

This was a very busy class!  Lots of scaling ingredients and multiple recipes.

We started off with the bran muffins because the batter for that needs time to sit before going in the oven.  The baking soda and baking powder required time to react and the bran needed time to soak up liquid.

While it sat, we learned about the difference between baking powder and baking soda.  They are both leavening agents used in baked goods to help them rise in the oven.  Baking soda requires an acidifying agent in the recipe for it to react and release carbon dioxide to cause the leavening.  Baking powder contains baking soda but also another acidic ingredient (cream of tartar), so it does not require an acid in the recipe.  Baking soda is often used in recipes with buttermilk, chocolate or yogurt as these are acidic.

After leaving the batter for about 20 minutes (not longer or the leavening agents will no longer work), we scooped it out into muffins trays using a #10 ice cream scoop.  Using an ice cream scoop for the batter ensures that all the muffins were uniform size and cook evenly. 

 Once the muffins were in the oven, we started on the tea biscuits.  These were surprisingly easy, the key is not to over mix the dough.  Always err on the side of caution, opting to under mix with the mixer and finish it off by hand.

We rolled these out about an inch thick with the roller and cut them out with cookie cutters.  To get a nice shaped biscuit, you must get a clean cut and not touch it too much while setting it on the cookie sheet.  As you touch it, the warmth in your hands melts the butter and alters the way it will bake.  Also don't reuse the scraps around the cuts too many times as the more you work the dough, the more tough the biscuits will become.

Lots of food for the family this week!