Valentine's Weekend!

Since Valentine's days always seems to fall in the middle of the week, Hunter and I are having ours Saturday. I made him some tasty little heart cookies as a present. They turned out really cute but the vanilla dough was a pain to pipe and my hand was really sore after. I got the recipe from this great blog. I will have more pictures after tomorrow of our V-day dinner :3

Everyone Loves Homemade Cookies!

I plan to sew a whole batch of these cuties before the end of the month to hopefully raise some Christmas present money :) I have to say the bigger on is my favorite and I think I will make more of him. I have so many smaller scraps left that I will have to think of some little plushies to make as well. Maybe some cat toy sized cookies :3 

Christmas noms 1

With my German oral exam, final exams, Christmas shopping, and work I have had zero time to bake or blog. However, now that I finally have a break I intend to catch back up a bit. I LOVE watching the food network/cooking channel and I saw a Martha Stewart Christmas special the other day and decided to make some of her cookies. In my haste to get these cookies made as Christmas presents I did not get any pictures but I can assure (as can my boyfriend) that they turned out delicious. I made Martha's Noel Nut Balls and Chewy Molasses-Spice Cookies. The latter were by far my favorite and the only ginger bread type cookie I have found so far that I like. Maybe I've just had bad ginger snap experience (I know there's a difference but I had only had the snap so I thought they all tasted that bad). I am going to be doing some more baking before Christmas which is coming up fast. I have also been doing a lot of hand made Christmas presents which I hope to post pictures of soon (probably after Christmas so none of the receivers see their presents early :P ). If you are wanting to make some of your own decorations or just make something as a family, FamilyCircle.com has some great ideas on their site. I hope everyone has their shopping done and if you don't... good luck. More holiday baking, cooking, and crafts on the way!

*Picture from MarthaStewart.com*

Vegan MoFo Day 1!

This is my first time joining in durning Vegan MoFo so I will try my best to not disappoint! :) I think my plan will just be to share some of my favorite, easy vegan entrees and snacks. Since I just told everyone how good the vegan cookies are that I made I thought I'd start off with that one. I personally enjoy these with dark chocolate but feel free to add caramel, peanut butter, or whatever else tickles your fancy!

2 cups unbleached flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt cinnamon, to taste, optional
vegan chocolate chips, to taste
1 cup raw sugar (turbinado)
1/2 cup canola or vegetable oil
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/4 cup water

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. In a large bowl, mix together flour, baking powder, salt, and cinnamon. Stir in chips. Make a well in the center and set aside.
2. In a medium size bowl, add together sugar and oil; mix well. Add the vanilla and then add the water; mix well. Add the wet to the well in the dry. Mix it well but be careful not to overwork it. Add more chips if you need to. 3. Spoon onto ungreased cookie sheets. Put them in the oven. Bake for 5 minutes and then flip and rotate the sheets (top to bottom & 180 degree rotation). Bake another 4 minutes and check them. The cookies are done when they seem a little bit softer then you want them to be. They will harden up some as they cool. I usually go in two minute increments from here until they get to where I like them.
4. Take them out when they are done and move them to wire cooling racks. If they split or come apart when you try to remove them let them sit on the pan for 2 minutes before transferring them to the racks.
Enjoy!

Sadly this was the only picture with my cookies.

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! :)

My First cake!

Ok, this isn't the first cake I've ever made but it's the first one I've made since I decided to become a pastry chef. I made this cake for my boyfriends birthday last Saturday. I spent all the night before make the 3D chess pieces and board with candy molds. I had never used molds before so it was a bit of trial and error. Everyone thought I had hand carved the pieces lol Saturday morning I started working on the cake. The checkerboard cake pans made thing go pretty smooth. While I was waiting for my cake layers to bake I started making whole wheat pita bread from a recipe out of my Cooking Light magazine. They turned out very well. Great taste and very fluffy :) Assembling the cake was fun and easy as well. I felt like I was on one of the cake decorating shows I watch and new without a doubt that this is absolutely what I want to do the rest of my working life! It was also my first time piping a design besides names too. I definitely need to practice that some more as well. When everything was iced I placed the checkerboard chocolate pieces on top and popped it in the fridge until it was time to go. The molded chocolate pieces were very sensitive to warmth. Just in the time it took to place the pieces on the cake they started getting soft.
That night I took the cake over to my boyfriends house and when his parents got home I made him go in the other room while I set it up. When I was finished they all stood there in amazement. That was by far my favorite part of making the cake or anything I make for people. They were surprised once again to find that even the inside was checkerboard! Everyone loved it's looks and its taste which was a butter cake with dark chocolate. It was very tasty and I was very pleased with all of it. I also made snickerdoodles from a Martha Stewart recipe for my boyfriend's twin brother. He obviously enjoyed those as well since half the plate was gone by the time I left.
I had a great weekend baking and can't wait to learn more and try new things! I'm finally going to school to learn this stuff this fall. My birthday's this Sunday but I don't think I'll be making my own cake. Hope everyone had a good weekend as well. Take care!

Christmas Cookies

I am so behind on Christmas baking. I have been in the kitchen almost none stop for the past couple days. I wish I had more time, now my presents won't even get to where they need to go by Christmas =/ But oh well, treats still taste good a couple days after. I have made a bunch of different kinds of cookies and also some butterscotch caramels. I had a few cookies that I didn't know what to do with so I decided to try out piping for the first time. I think they turned out pretty good. For my first time at least =) I have to make roles and Christmas dinner dessert. I'll probably end up making cupcakes or something since my brother is picky. They have some really cute desserts on Martha Stewart's website. I love her stuff but some of it is kind of hard to make, especially the crafts. I finally found a cake decorating book that I liked. I'm going to attempt to use fondant soon. I'm kind of scared, I've read a lot of mixed reviews on it. Some people tell me I shouldn't buy the pre-made store stuff and others say it's fine. I've also heard that it's very sensitive to make and if you don't really know what you're doing it's easy to mess up. So if anyone has any suggestions I'd take them gladly. I am getting money for Christmas that I am going to use to buy some cake decorating and fondant tools. I might get some fondant at Michael's just to experiment with.
I am going to go see The Tale of Despereaux today. It looks really good and I hope it isn't full of little kids. I am all done Christmas shopping and am pretty much done baking as well. Now it's time to relax =) I hope everyone else is finished too. Other wise you are either very brave or very dumb to wait this long to shop, it's going to be crazy. Hope everyone has a good rest of the weekend!