Culinary Classes

I have been very busy in both my Culinary and Baking classes. Sadly my phone is retarded and did not want to take any pictures for me. I brought my camera instead but guess what?! It died as soon as I tried to use it...Someone does not want me to take pictures of my work lol I might buy a disposable camera to take to my classes. Here are just a few pictures from some older labs. I made Almond Tuiles, Chocolate Chip Almond cookies, and Fancy Tea cookies.The next week me made Chocolate Dipped Eclairs, Swans, and Cream Puffs.Of course I did not try them but I brought a swan home to show off my work to my boy friend and he said it tasted wonderful. :) This lab was fun and easy just time consuming. I would like the make the chocolate dipped and swans again.

We made pasta from scratch in my last cooking lab. It was so much fun! We made Goat Cheese and Herb Ravioli, Shrimp and Cheese Tortellini, and Vegetable Lasagna. They turned out lovely. I really wish I could have taken a picture, especially of the tortellini, but my phone would not cooperate. This week in my baking lab we made tarts. The week before we made three different kinds of pie: Apple, Cherry, and Coconut Cream. The tarts we made this week: Pear Almond tarts and Fresh Fruit tarts, both topped with an apricot glaze. I didn't care much for the glaze, it made the tart look messy after spending all that time arranging the fruit. I took this picture before adding the glaze and I'm glad I did.
I will try and take more (and hopefully better) pictures while in my labs. I know I could always make these recipes at home but what would I do with all of that food?! Anyone care to buy some baked goods? Just email me! :)

New Cookbook!!

I just bought the new Vegan Yum Yum cook book yesterday. I've been following her blog for a while and always look forward to the next recipe post. I have already made her Super Quick Tomato Basil Cream Pasta and it was delicious. The pictures and recipes look amazing! I can't wait to dive in and try these wonderful looking dishes. Thank you so much for the beautiful book Lauren!

Sourdough

I have always wanted to make a sourdough starter but was always so intimidated by them. They sounded hard to start and like they took a long time before you could use it in bread. But I found a really easy step-by-step website and took a shot at making a sourdough starter. I only took a couple of days before it was ready to make bread out of. I didn't let it rise long enough so it didn't turn out as tunnel-y as it should have and it was not as sour as I had hopped. Not bad for a first attempt though. I now have plenty of sandwich bread :) I have another starter growing in the fridge and hopefully I'll do better with this one. I love the taste of the bread but that starter smells terrible! I guess it lives up to it's name in not only tasting sour but also smelling sour.If nothing else, being in my baking class is helping me at home. My bread turns out much prettier and is a lot easier to handle now that I know what to look for and what order to go in even if the directions for the recipe don't tell me. I can't stop playing in the kitchen! At least I know I will not get tired of baking and that this will be a great career choice for me. Hope everyone had a great weekend. Back to work and class tomorrow!
Oh! If you have yet to see Julie & Julia, you HAVE to drag your husbands/boyfriends to go see it! My mom paid for my boyfriend and I to go see it because she thought we needed to see it that much. He wasn't to thrilled about going because we both thought it was going to be a chick flick (which neither of us enjoy) but boy were we wrong! It was far from being a "romantic comedy", it was hilarious and a wonderful, true story. We were both laughing the entire time. I highly recommend it. I know movies are pretty pricey now a days but go to the matinee!

It's the Nannerpus!!

*sigh* I miss that commercial... But I have some amazing banana recipes to share! I love making whole wheat pancakes with oat flour and bananas and recently I found a new light and fluffy recipe. I did not have my usual recipe with me so I looked around online and found a vegan blog called Holy Cow!. This is her wonderful recipe for whole wheat pancakes:
Whole Wheat Vegan Pancakes

Ingredients:
Dry:
1 1/2 cups whole wheat pastry flour
3 tbsp sugar
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
Mix the dry ingredients well and set aside.

Wet:
1 1/2 cups soy milk
2 tbsp flax seed powder mixed with 6 tbsp water
3 tbsp canola oil
1 tsp vanilla extract (optional)
Mix together the wet ingredients and add to the dry. Mix gently until the dry ingredients are just moistened. There should be some lumps remaining in the batter.
Heat a nonstick or cast-iron griddle. Smear lightly with a few drops of canola oil. Pour about 1/4 cup of the batter on the griddle and let it cook until bubbles appear at the top of the pancake and the underside is golden-brown. Flip over with a spatula and cook the other side until it is lightly browned.
Serve hot with a pat of vegan spread and maple syrup.
They were wonderful! I enjoy topping mine with some Earth Balance and 1/2 cup of fresh-from-the-yard blueberries. A great way to start your morning.
Last night (instead of studying) I made some banana bread out of my room mate's forgotten bananas. I just can't resist blackening bananas :) I found this recipe on VegWeb and it turned out a lot denser than what I'm use to but forgot all about that once I took a taste. Best banana bread I've ever had! No offense banana bread baking family members. A brown sugar/cinnamon, slightly hardened crust formed on the outside giving it a sweet, slight crunch. I can't wait to make this again for family dinner around the holidays!
Moist and Delicious Banana Bread

Ingredients (use vegan versions):
1 1/2 cups unbleached flour
1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
2 very ripe bananas
1 tablespoon cooking oil
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup brown sugar
2 tablespoon water
1 tablespoon cooking oil
2 teaspoon baking powder
Directions:
Preheat oven to 325 degrees. In a large bowl, mix flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, and a pinch of salt. In a small bowl, mash bananas, and add 1 tablespoon oil, vegan sugar, vegan brown sugar, and vanilla. In a separate small bowl (I use a short drinking glass) mix 2 tablespoon water, 1 tablespoon oil, and 2 teaspoon baking powder. This is to substitute using an egg. It gets fizzy, but don't panic, it turns out great. Add this mixture to the first small bowl and mix well. Add the wet mixture to the dry mixture and stir until well blended. Pour the batter into a greased loaf pan. I like to sprinkle some extra cinnamon on the top to make a nice crispy cinnamon crust. Bake at 325 degrees for 50-55 minutes, or until the top is golden brown and a wooden toothpick stuck in the center comes out clean. Let the bread cool for about 10 minutes, and slice it up!
Serves: 1 loaf
Preparation time: 15 minutes
Enjoy!

More bread

Not only have I been making a ton of bread in my baking class, but I have also been busy kneading away at home. I never get tired of playing in the kitchen ^.^ We braided challah and made knot rolls two weeks ago and then this past Friday we made cinnamon rolls and brioche. I forgot to take a picture of my most recent work :( But I did get a picture of the challah. My friend Rachel recently went to Europe! (so jealous) She was nice enough to think of me and bring me back a beautiful bracelet and a jar of real Italian pesto! It has some Parmesan in it but hardly any so I looked past the fact that it was not vegan and used some to make bread. I got the recipe from one of my favorite blogs have cake, will travel. I made the Spelt Pesto Bread. It turned out fantastic! It made two loaves so I froze one and enjoyed the other. I made some little "mozzarella", tomato, and basil sandwiches with my new bread and they were delicious. Money's been kind of tight here recently due to having to buy everything I need for my culinary classes among other things so I've been trying to bake a lot of my own bread. I can't wait to try out some more of Celine's recipes! They all look so beautiful and delicious. I highly recommend checking her blog out if you love baking, especially bread. I'm going to have to watch my waistline though lol hard to stop eating hot, fresh bread. Mmm... ^.^
Went to the Exotic Animal Show in Raleigh yesterday. There were a lot of corn snakes, ball pythons, and leopard geckos. I was hoping for a bit more variety but it was still a lot of fun. My room mate wanted some more corns so she had a good variety to choose from. It's fun to see all of the different creatures people bring and allows you to meet a lot of breeders that you might not have known about other wise. Hope everyone has a great labor day weekend! Don't forget to stop wearing white by Tuesday :P

Busy Baker

Wow, I have been the worst blogger! I have just been so busy. I had a bake sale to try and help raise money for non-profit animal shelters. I sold cupcakes and cookies for a dollar. I ended up making around $50 all together. Not too bad but I was hoping to make more. I had a couple people order a dozen cupcakes. One order was chocolate peanut butter and they turned out wonderful! Everyone loved them especially my peanut butter loving boyfriend who, of course, had to taste test for me. :P He loves his job. I ended up making way too many chocolate chip cookies though. One batch made about 50...So I ended up just giving most of those away.
I started school last week at Wake Tech. It's so nice going to class and learning about cooking and baking! We even made yeast rolls and baguettes in my lab Friday. I was not able to make them vegan since they wouldn't turn out the same as everyone else but I can always tweak the recipe and make them at home. I took my creations home for everyone and they did not last long. A friend of mine asked if I would make her son's birthday cake last weekend. She wanted something kind of detailed but I told her I would do my best. I found a picture of a cake online and just went off of that. This was my first time playing with fondant so I wasn't 100% sure that I was doing everything correctly but I did my best and I think it turned out alright. The only thing I really had a problem with was the paint. I used egg yolks and food coloring gel. It didn't work too well but I got by. There has to be a better recipe or a place to buy paint. If anyone has any suggestions or links it would be greatly appreciated because this was all I could find. Her son, his friends, and their parents all loved the cake and kept asking where she got it. Hopefully I'll get some more business soon. That would be an awesome way to make money while in college!
I'm all moved into my new place and have already baked in the kitchen a couple times. Today I thought I'd try a recipe out of Vegan Cupcakes Take Over The World. I bought it about a month ago but haven't really had a chance to make anything. So, as I previously stated, since my boyfriend loves peanut butter so much, I decided to make the Peanut Butter Cupcakes. He won't even be able to tell they are vegan (especially since there is only one vegan ingredient in them). I had one while I was cleaning up and they are so yummy! I highly recommend this book if you like baking cupcakes whether you're vegan or not.

Birthday Cake and Kitty Treats

I made my first Birthday cake since my Wilton classes! It was for my little twin cousins. Their favorite colors are pink and purple so I made pink and purple flowers. The butter cream was a bit too thin so they didn't sit as nicely as I wanted them too but they turned out alright. I thought I would make fondant butterflies to add to the cake but I ran out of time and Michael's didn't have any fondant so I made chocolate butterflies instead. I got the idea and instructions from a fellow blogger (Cake on the Brain). My butterflies were no where near as pretty as hers but they looked pretty good for my first time. It doesn't really matter what I think of the cake because my little cousins LOVED it! They both gasped and then gave me a hug. I had plenty of left over butterflies just in case and they had me decorate each of their cake slices with butterflies. My family also Oowed and Ahhed over it which is very rewarding :) If they like this level of decorating skill, I can't wait to see what they do when I am able to do much more complex decorating. One cake down, two more to go.

Today I am making kitty cookies =^..^= I had to take my baby to the vet Monday and felt terrible about it. Especially when they told me he needed his rabies shot (even though he never leaves the house...). He was such a good boy and never even mewed when he got his shot, I think that deserves a treat. I looked around till I found this recipe from Healthy Recipes for Pets:

Cat Cookies

• 1 cup whole wheat flour
• 1 tsp catnip
• 1/3 cup CATMILK
• 1/3 cup powdered milk
• 2 T butter or vegetable oil
• 1/4 cup Soy flour
• 1 egg
• 2 T Wheat germ
• 1 T Unsulfured molasses

Preparation & Cooking

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Mix dry ingredients together. Add molasses, egg, oil and milk. Roll out flat onto oiled cookie sheet and cut into small, cat bite-sized pieces.

Bake for 20 minutes and let cool. Store the cookies in a sealed container.

I didn't have soy flour of catmilk so I used flax meal and a mixture of 1/2 milk 1/2 water since milk is not good for cats. (Just as a side note, do not give your cat soy milk, especially if it is a male. It's extremely bad for them, it can cause infertility and liver damage.) He seemed to enjoy them :) Probably would have liked them better if I had topped each cookie with some smoked salmon.

I have been a busy baker this week! I also made some vegan whole wheat bread. It is so yummy! I was worried when it called for molasses but you don't really taste it. I got my recipe from Vegweb, great place for recipes and answers to vegan questions. Hope you like the pictures and the recipes!