Summer favorites...

 

What does summer mean to you? To me, it means listening to Sebastien Tellier, plenty of bossa nova, indulging in rosé wine and long beach/boat days on the water that end with a whole fried fish and a very sandy bed. 

I'm on a summer break, if you can call it that.. after being in college and getting about 5 months off a year, this 10 days off seems a bit cheap, but I'll take it. I finished off my Bread and Viennoisserie class with an A+ and my next is Advanced Patisserie Technique. Finally, I'll be knocking out some tiramisu and maybe even an opera torte. Rumor has it we'll be making frozen desserts too. Add a day or two in cannoli making and I will be on cloud nine.

Here is the rundown in photos of my last two weeks before break.

Channeling a fancy strawberry shortcake~ Napoleon filled with Bavarian creme and strawberry preserves

Handcut pithivier filled with almond creme... I have knife skills..

Cute sugar crusted miniature palmiers

Croissants worth writing home about

Chocolate croissants

Goat cheese, sun dried tomato & basil croissants

I was told not to make bear claws look like actual bear claws, but I couldn't help myself!

This is the "correct" bear claw formation, both filled with pecans, cinnamon and sugar.

Guava filled danish pastry

The second way to do a danish- covered in apricot glaze and flat vanilla icing, filled with apples.

A little slice of heaven if you love honey as much as I do... Baklava.

I brought it home to my mom to share with her friends.

And now finally to the summer favorites list... 

If you are like me then you LOVE sangria....here are two recipes I've been dying to try out: CHOW.com's Lambic Sangria looks like everything that's good in the world. Bon Appetit ( of course) has me salivating over their Rosé sangria with pinapple and guava.

I am kind of obsessed with having a bento box for lunch. A bento box is something so nice looking you don't want to eat it. Food art. It feeds into the Japanese side of me that I claim is real. I had a bento box today. Check them here. 

I like weird photos. I pride myself in collecting them. Find your own here. 

Art things. Bellwether Gallery. 

Fashion things. Les Nouvelles. 

Where I wish I was spending my summer holiday: Capri, of course. 

And now, I'll send you off with classic Tellier's "Kilometer".........

Sebastien Tellier - Kilometer from Lucky Number Music on Vimeo.

The grass is greener....

Ever been to Assateague? I only surfed it once during my random summer spent in Ocean City, MD, but I think about it often. It is a beach inhabited with wild ponies. They run the show. If they want to trample your towel and eat from your cooler, chomp on your beer cans and whinny all over your folding chair, then move over. I remember watching it from the line up and my jaw nearly dropped in excitement. The reason I recall that day, other than the territorial animals, is because I lived every moment as it came along. Each wave. Each conversation with my girlfriend surfing with me. The clouds. The air (chilly!). And the horrified look on a middle-aged woman's face as a proud pony snorted in her face and stomped on her woven sunhat and rattan beach bag, only to run off with its friends and start an all out stampede.

Sometimes we focus so much on what's to come, we forget to look at what we're actually doing. I am definitely guilty of that right now. I find myself constantly planning ahead, looking to tomorrow, next week, month, and so forth. But what about now? I had to tune back in today. I've been on autopilot. I've noticed it even more since I moved to Orlando. Now when I go to the beach, almost every weekend, I want to spend every minute like it's an hour, and you'll often hear me saying jokingly it's the best day of my life. But when I lived on the beach, I was unhappy, unsettled, and felt like I was wasting my potential... And the cycle continues....and so the grass is greener always it seems. I'm sure I'm not the only one with this habit.

It doesn't help that I've been in a Bread and Viennoiserie class for over a month. The concept of breadmaking is "hurry up and wait." Three and a half hours of this. Make your dough, let it proof, fold it, scale it, rest it, shape it, proof it and so on. I miss baking little sweet treats! Atleast we made puff pastry and did some different formations. There is a lot of photos because I have waited until now to post all the bread pictures. I figured it wasn't that exciting but maybe someone will be fascinated by it. In that case, feel free to drop me a line and I'll tell you all my bread secrets.

This is our main bread oven. I wish I had a single oven this wide in my house. Maybe one day.

J'aime des baguettes.

 

White pan bread at its finest, aka white mountain bread if you shop at Publix.

 

Fresh sage, garlic, and rock salt epi formation with baguette dough.

And now in a fougasse (foo-gahz) formation.

And we made brick oven pizzas. I let my partner put meat on the pizza because I wasn't going to eat it.

Rosemary and rock salt focaccia.

Swirled pumpernickel loaf.

 Pain de campagne. Sounds fancy, tastes pretty standard. Contains animal fat. Meh.

 Ciabatta! Mussels marinara anyone?

 Soft rolls in several formations.

 Amish pretzels... they have little fu-man-chu mustaches..

Black sesame, poppyseed, and coarse salt bagels.

Apple cinnamon coffee cakes, double chocolate chip muffins, and cranberry chocolate scones.

Strawberry boulee formations of puff pastry.

Apple or guava turnovers.

Puff pastry pinwheels.

Rosemary olive oil cake with bittersweet chocolate chunks. I can't take credit for this one. I made it from Heidi Swanson's 101 cookbooks website. It smelled divine.

 Challah bread. Pronounced Hollllllaaa... Can I holla atchu?

 

And finally my brie en croute from outer space. My fluted round details on top really blew up. In hind site, a simple handcrafted leaf would have been better. But I am fond of my little cheese pastry martian.

And now, only 2 weeks left until my "summer break" which lasts 10 days. Can't wait to lounge in my bikini for the entire duration, slam coconut waters, use the ocean as a shower and live like an island child, because that's who I am.

Living with wanderlust.

Most days I have my head in the clouds about traveling. It's getting even worse.

Spending my weekend in the ocean helped. Vilano Beach sometimes makes me feel like I'm not in the country, with the orange crunchy shell floor and aquamarine seas. I like to leave the shells in my hair so I can be a secret mermaid in Orlando. By Monday night, I cave and shower.

I should be paying attention in classes.. and I am, somewhat, well, I am making A's atleast. But all I can think about is finding a hollow island cave and enjoying foreign cuisine that's so spicy I have to slam my glass of water (or beer) which in turn only covers my sunburnt lips with hot sauce extending the pain. ...You know what I'm talking about. I have perpetual wanderlust, I'm not sorry. But it is important to live each day as it comes. Today we made fruit tarts with pate sucree crust and lemon curd filling. I would make it for a spring/summer dinner party. Which makes me want to throw a dinner party next time I'm in St. Augustine..... hmmm.... stay tuned on that one.

Moving along, here are my little fruit tarts. Pate sucree, or sugar cookie crust, lemon curd filling, fresh fruit with a simple syrup glaze... too good looking to eat! But I picked one apart when I got home. Shocker.

Here is a rough batch of my darling cream puff swans. Usually they're dusted with a kiss of confectioner's sugar. I gave all mine away, they don't travel well.

Mid-size cream puffs. Makes me think of a mid-size sedan.. ew. These are delicious. Covered in chocolate ganache and filled with vanilla bean pastry cream.

Be careful if you make pastry cream at home.... you might want to pipe it right into your mouth instead of filling the cream puff. Don't confuse these cream puffs with profiteroles, they're filled with ice cream and are equally thrilling. Now you won't confuse them. I've got your back.

Ooo Creme brulee'... so many people like creme brulee'. They think it's decadent. I like it because it allows me to play with fire. Yes, I will use the largest blowtorch you have. These tasted like vanilla custard candy crack. Don't you love it when white girls refer to crack?

More creme de la creme... up close and personal.

 

Cheesecake. This one was especially exciting. I subbed 2/3 of the cream cheese with marscapone. You Italians and foodies know what's up. I was drooling and I can't eat dairy.... but I'd get sick for this one. Orange zest, chocolate ganache swirl, and oreo cookie crust. Heavy as a pillowsack of bricks. That's New York style.

Lastly, a dessert that makes its own sauce. If you guessed flan.. Wrong. It's creme caramel. Orange creamsicle creme caramel. It really tasted like the popsicle. Getting so classy in the kitchen with white plastic plates.

Only 2 more weeks left in my basic pastry and baking class. We're working in groups of 4 to produce a sweets table full of petite fours. Alice in Wonderland is the theme for our group. Trying to sway more toward the creepy/weird Alice Through the Looking Glass, not new fun and cartoonish. I want to get some eclair caterpillars in the there and freakish acid flowers.

Alice in her Wonderland and myself consumed by wanderlust.... 

Spring cleaning and what not...

Spring in Orlando is humid enough to be summer, and thus far I haven't done too much cleaning. Cleaning doesn't have to be throwing away junk or using so much bleach on your kitchen floor that your eyes burn and drip with tears uncontrollably...It can be more of an inner cleaning, a mental renewal, and a time to focus on goals. I have never understood New Year's resolutions- do you know how hard it is to drag yourself to the gym or not have an extra generous portion of homemade coconut chocolate ice cream when everyone is covered in layers and generally miserable? Not happening.

With that said, I'm a big fan of starting good habits one at a time, and being a (future) pastry chef, I don't have any choice but to work out 5-6 times a week hard. I'm spring cleaning my attitude. I just got a job, typical food and bev in a high traffic area near the convention center. Am I psyched about telling our guests all about our enticing "starters" or "perfectly cool" cocktails? No. Do I like money? Yes. Do I want to own a bakery in the tropics soon? Yes. So Taylor, get to work. There was once a time to be lazy and daydream on the beach and surf twice a day. That time is over... for awhile.

This past week was all about quick breads. I was especially thrilled to bake biscotti, which was a regular treat my beautiful grandmother used to make for the family. We dabbled in muffins, banana bread, pie, danish butter cookies, and biscuits.

Day 1: Danish butter cookies with fruit filling. I didn't actually take this picture until I got home, and they might have been tossed around in the car a bit. Orlando traffic. Fail. However, quite scrumptious.

Day 2: Biscotti means to bake twice. First you bake the dough in a log, then slice it and bake it again. Vanilla almond with orange essence, drizzled in chocolate.

 

Day 3: Biscuits.... I will never buy biscuits again. This was not only extremely easy, but the technique created biscuits that were tender and flaky and HUGE. These are roasted garlic and cheddar biscuits. Next time I'd probably do sage and cracked pepper biscuits, maybe with a sharper cheese.

 

Day 4:  Apple pie. This was another common treat my grandmother made for every holiday. She taught me the lattice crust back in the day, what kind of apples to use, and always used fresh fruit. They gave us canned apples (Gag.) I was rusty on my lattice skills but it still came out nice. 

Right out of the oven in class

 

Day 5: Blueberry mountains, or muffins, and banana bread. I've made better blueberry muffins, and I wasn't crazy about this recipe. I like to use a lot of fruit in my muffins and less sugar. The banana bread was so-so. Banana bread is kind of my thing. Banana mango, banana chocolate chip, sometimes with coconut, sometimes blueberries... Anyhow... this one I topped with streusel and sanding sugar. It was filled with miniature chocolate chips. 

Next week is all about pate a choux, pronounced pot-ah-shoo..... which means eclairs and cream puffs! Maybe even a cream puff swan. When I was in grade school, I used to walk to a little French pastry shop called Denoel on Charlotte Street in St. Augustine and buy one cream puff swan. With cream on my nose and confectioner's sugar on my plaid uniform skirt, I'd wait on the corner for my mom to pick me up. Denoel is still in the same place, and I happen to be going home for Easter weekend, maybe this time with a swan that I crafted. Let's be honest, if said swan is made, I'll be walking to my car with cream on my nose and sugar on my chef's coat. Nothing has changed.