Cookies, continued

Tuesday we made pate a choux and pastry cream (praline and vanilla). Brief lecture to begin again.

Pate a choux is a a tasteless batter that is piped and filled with pastry cream. You can tell the batter is done when it looks like stalagmites and stalagtites connected in caves.

Combine water, butter, andd salt in a pot and bring to rolling boil until the butter is completely dissolved. Add flour at once, stirring vigorously until the dough pulls away from the sides of the pan (about 10 minutes, your arm will hurt). Mix on moderate speed with a paddle attachment until dough cools below 140. Beat in the eggs, one at a time until fully absorbed. Will be piped into rounds, Paris Brest (logs), or eclairs.

I was way more on time today - I got done plenty early with my mixing, and then the baking took way longer than to be expected. You're supposed to do about 15 minutes at 425 and then 5 at 375 to brown. You know it's done at the first oven when you can press on it and they don't collapse under your finger. Mine took at least 25 minutes. Probably because people were in and out of the ovens since I was the first in.

Took home some mexican wedding cookies and biscotti to give to a couple people at work.

Lessons Learned:

Practicing piping is important. Chef may not be the friendliest, but she really does help. She showed me how to stop at the end of the cookie, and then pull back up or roll around the edge so there is no tail.

Baking and Patisserie 2

Monday we began cookies. Things weren't really going well. Master and I partnered up. The night started with a lecture - some girl in the bathroom called Chef L a "nazi" - which, I hate that word. But then I pointed out to Master that we've both seen that girl out in the hall during class on the phone, so no wonder she failed the class twice - Chef L is really strict about the rules. But. We get out around 11:30.

Anyway we made madeleines, three versions of mexican wedding cookies, and biscotti. I don't know why, but I felt majorly rushed - I felt like I was way behind. We screwed up the madeleine twice - first time mixing the eggs in right away, and then the next the butter wasn't soft enough. But the third time, the batch turned out well.

But by that time, I was having these chest pains that were freaking me out. I was bent over trying to breathe while still putting together ingredients.
Mexican wedding cookies:
sift confectioner's sugar, then cream butter and sugar.
add pastry flour, vanilla extract, and chopped nuts to creaming mixture.
3 shapes: small ball, small ball rolled in nuts then thumbprint for filling, and icebox (log 1.25 inches in diameter) then slice thin.

They got dipped the next day: some in chocolate, the rounder version in powdered sugar as soon as it came out. This isn't our dipped tray - I accidentally dipped the madeleines in the wrong side. Oh well.


Lessons Learned:
We learned how to make paper cones for dripping chocolate our of parchment paper. This works really well for a thin drip. Fold the parchment to make two triangles (kind of like starting an origami crane). Then cut the triangle in half. Grab with two fingers along the hypotenuse, fold one corner into the tip. Roll the other side around, then shuffle your fingers to make the tip sharp as a point. You should be able to fill the cone without any water dripping out. Fill with chocolate, then cut the tip enough to drip out the chocolate.

Introduction to Egg Foam/Sponging Methods

Wednesday we made Almond Macaroons, Chocolate Brownie Cookies, and Baton Marechaux. These were hard! Each involves some level of meringue, and I haven't made that since 7th grade Home Ec because the procedure scares me off - you have to do it exactly right or your cookies fall. And fall mine did...

When using the foaming method, everything should be room temperature when whipped together (eggs and sugar). Then fold in the rest of the ingredients, taking care not to lose too much air. If you lose air, you can't fix it once the dry ingredients have been added - you just have to start all over. Make sure to fold, not mix - this will knock out the air.

Almond Macaroons: whip egg whites until foamy, then slowly add sugar. Once have medium stiff peak but still glossy, whip in vanilla (although this can also be folded in). Don't whask whisk against side of bowl, or you will lose air. Sift dry ingredients, then fold in, a little at a time. Folding should be done quickly and gently. Then pipe out into quarter/half-dollar size, using medium plain tip. Set aside to dry before baking (when touched with finger, should not pull away any batter). Bake at 350F convection.
As you can see, mine are way to runny. Chef helped me whip it, and he said it was the right stiffness, but I must have messed up when folding in the dry. Practice Practice Practice. Except it's on the practical tomorrow. Oh well. Tomorrow I'm whipping mine by hand instead of the machine - it just didn't work!
Chocolate Brownie Cookies: Heat chocolate over double boiler. Whisk eggs and sugar, add vanilla. Fold in cooled but still runny chocolate, then fold in dry. Fold in nuts (optional), and set aside covered for 5 minutes. Can either be scooped or piped. 325F convection 8-10 minutes. These turned out pretty well.
Baton Marechaux: Sift dry. Double boil egg and sugar, whip. Fold in dry. Pipe 3 inches long. Sprinkle almonds on top. Bake 325 convection. Also too runny.
We were there late today - it took forever to clean the kitchen. There were so many dishes! I don't know if our class ditched them, or the class next door (we share a dishroom), but oh man was it a mess. We always get stuck doing the final clean in the dishroom. Even if we weren't the last ones in there - they must tell their Chef it was us. I heard some of them complaining loudly while we were all in there that we had made the mess - but our people doing dishes said it wasn't our stuff. I mean, of course some of it was, but not all of it. I don't know. When I had taken stuff in there for the first and second recipes, I did mine and put them away, and there was nothing else in there. But when we finally finished our third, there were several stacks of a couple feet. Just like in the cartoons. And then Chef reviewed for the test tomorrow for fifteen minutes. I was very tired this morning when I got up.
Chef expressed some frustration with our class last night - he said some people had been done an hour and a half before the last people, so some people need to pick up speed. And then that people standing around doing nothing instead of helping made our cleaning take longer than it needed to. Again, I don't really understand what happened, but I don't doubt that some people who finished early didn't bother helping clean. Some partnerships are starting to break apart at the seam due to frustrations that people aren't pulling equal weight either in gathering ingredients, mixing, or cleaning. Tennessee continues to pick me, so I hope I'm doing my part like I think I am.
I'm at work, so I'll upload pictures when I get home. Speaking of, time to go meet some more case management kids, and then it's time to leave!

Lessons learned:
In a commercial microwave, you can put in stainless steel bowls. But it must say "commercial" on it!
Pistoles are small coin-sized chocolates
To make meringues fluffier, heat egg and sugar to 11-120F in double boiler before whipping. Stir while over double boiler. This does not take long to get to this temperature.

Creamed Cookies

I feel like I’m learning to live with less sleep – I didn’t even drink coffee at work yesterday, and I felt like I was functioning fine. Although, I did take a 1.5 hour nap after school, and I struggled a bit after that. Luckily, Rico brought me a vanilla latte (she works at Starbucks), and that was really good. But I think this might be okay – when I’m busy, I don’t feel as tired. We'll see how today goes - I went to sleep around 1am, and I think I remember waking up a lot during the night. And I already miss working out. I see the beautiful sky reflecting against the lake and skyline and people dressed in shorts and sneakers, and I think, oh man I wish I could go running.
We made cookies Tuesday night – Chocolate Chip and Spritz. We were also supposed to make Oatmeal Raisin, but apparently our oats did not come in. Again, it’s not like that is a hard item to get or used infrequently in kitchens – why doesn’t purchasing work properly at a culinary school?
Anyway.
Both cookies use the creaming method. We worked individually today because the school takes student cookie products and uses them for meetings, open houses, and orientations. Since we worked individually and I didn't pick up a mixing bowl until after I had my mise en place, I got stuck with a baby mixer.
I consider these kind of lousy professional mixers. As you can see, it is tiny. And not very strong.
Cookie dough is really soft, so it's okay to use these machines for that, but still, it was an irritating process. I just didn't like it as well as the bigger ones.
Here's my large tray of chocolate chip cookies.
These are a flat Tablespoon portion sized (as opposed to rounded). If they spread flat, it means your dough was too soft/warm. If you don't work fast enough portioning them out, just stick the pan in the refrigerator for a few minutes until they're harder again. As you can see, I tried to fit too many onto the pan - after this I still had dough left over, so I ended up needing another pan anyway, but they were getting soft so i couldn't move the portioned dough... No big deal, they turned out the right shape and size. Even though we weren't supposed to "discard" any until the good ones had been packaged for storage, I took my quarter sheet pan of six to take home and bring to work.
These are Spritz cookies. This is a very basic recipe where the point is the shape and additions. They can be made into rosettes:
figure 8's:
bars:
or shells.
They can then have drops of jam added (rosettes and figure 8's),
or dipped in chocolate and/or nuts (all).
Or you just leave some plain. My piping has really improved since Culinary Skills I. I haven't been practicing, but I think maybe this stuff all just becomes easier the more you work with everything and learn basic rules with the tools. Or maybe I'm just a natural.... ha. I liked these in their pre-baking state - the piping is so clear. Then they spread a little when baking and become more flat. Chef says that's what they're suppsoed to do, but I just don't think they look as pretty. As soon as they start to show color on the edges, pull them out and cool.
With all cookies (and everything else, really), there is carry-over cooking, so you want to bake almost just under and then pull out. Then cool on the sheet pan in a cooling rack. This is obviously not possible in a home kitchen, so I usually do about 1 min on the pan, and then move to wire racks.

Lessons Learned:
Never put oil or butter a pan for cookies. Just use parchment paper. There is enough fat in cookies to make them not stick to the pan.
Confectioner’s sugar is just regular sugar ground down. There are two types of confectioner’s (powdered) sugar when bought commercially – 6x and 10x. It is the degree of how many times the sugar is ground down. Use 6x when the sugar will be mixed into the dough. Use 10x when it will be visible, either for dusting or in frosting.
Chefs always use unsalted butter when baking cookies, as it gives them more control over how much salt goes into the cookies. However, if you are using a cookbook, judge based on what the recipe says, as most are written for home cooks who are likely to have salted butter in their fridges.