Cupycakes and life

Sorry to all my followers who have been waiting patiently for a post from me. It has been quite a long time since I have had the time to sit and write a post. Life has taken a strong grasp on me and shook me all about. For a little while my husband and I have been living in my parents basement while we do the college thing and try to get our own house. Well good news came for my father when he got offered a job in Florida. So it has been topsy-turvy trying to find an apartment and pack all our stuff and have mental breakdowns because this will be the first time for me to be away from my momma.
But through all of my struggles several of you have sent me well wishes even when you didn't know what was going on in my life. So I thank you from the bottom of my heart for putting up with my long absence and listening to my rants on twitter.
On to the fun stuff now. For thanksgiving the hubby and I and our besties made some cupycakes to take to a party. We made some black forest cupycakes and some peach cobbler cupycakes. They were the talk of the party after dessert. They were fun to make as well. Put a little batter in then a little of the fruit and then a little batter on top to make them layered. I can not wait to make them again and again, but I have a sneaking suspicion that they might be the reason that I can't seem to lose weight. Hahaha.
Thanks again for waiting around for me to write again. I hope you kept it mixed up while I was away.

Cake recipe.

It has been requested, so here it is! This is a recipe for a high-ratio yellow cake, meaning very fattening, but very good. The recipe calls for emulsified shortening, but as a substitute you can use crisco, or any other shortening, or even butter. Emulsified shortening is even hard for us chefs to find and can only be bought in giant tubs.

High-ratio Yellow Cake
Yield: 1½ to 2 Full-Sheet Pans

Cake flour
2 lb. 8 oz.

Granulated sugar
2 lb. 10 oz.

Emulsified shortening
1 lb. 4 oz.

Salt
1 oz.

Baking powder
2 oz.

Dry milk powder
4 oz.

Light corn syrup
6 oz.

Water, cold
36 fl. oz.

Eggs
1 lb. 4 oz.

Lemon extract
0.5 fl. oz.

1 Combine the flour, sugar, shortening, salt, baking powder, milk powder, corn syrup and 16 fluid ounces (480 milliliters) of the cold water in the large bowl of a mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Beat 5 minutes on low speed.

2 Combine the remaining ingredients in a separate bowl. Add these liquid ingredients to the creamed-fat mixture in three additions. Scrape down the sides of the bowl after each addition.

3 Beat 2 minutes on low speed.

4 Divide the batter into greased and floured pans. Pans should be filled only halfway. One gallon of batter is sufficient for an 18-inch × 24-inch × 2-inch (45-centimeter × 60-centimeter × 5-centimeter) sheet pan. Bake at 340°F (170°C) until a cake tester comes out clean and the cake springs back when lightly touched, approximately 12 to 18 minutes.

Also as a reminder, this is done by weight. A pound of flour will be more than a pound of sugar by volume. I messed up so many recipes at school and at home because I converted to cups and tablespoons and such, instead of just weighing it out. Hopefully that is all understandable to everyone, and continue to mix it up.

Buttercream and Cake! Finally!

Making buttercream icing is kind of gross to me, the fact I don't really like it topped off with now I know how to make it. There is so much butter in it, Paula Deen would be proud. So today I decided to share the simple buttercream icing recipe with you.

Simple Buttercream
Yield : 3 pounds 2 ounces

Lightly salted butter, softened
1 lb.

Pasteurized egg (optional)
2 oz.

Powdered sugar, sifted
2 lb.

Vanilla extract
0.3 fl. oz. (2 tsp.)

1 In the bowl of a mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream the butter until light and fluffy.

2 Beat in the egg (if using). Gradually add the sugar, frequently scraping down the bowl.

3 Add the vanilla and continue beating until the icing is smooth and light.

There you have it, lots of butter and sugar, but everyone loves it. When I made it in class at the end I added in some raspberry extract and purée, which made it a beautiful pink and added some good sweet flavor to it.
This takes a lot of mixing, so keep it mixed up!

Desserts for charity

In class we got the honor of making many, many, many finger sized desserts for a charity event held in downtown Atlanta. But it was also a learning experience for us as well. We made for the first time chocolate mousse and raspberry mousse. It was also the first time I messed up making whipped cream. Fun fact : if you over whip heavy cream it separates to butter and buttermilk.
We got to make éclairs for the first time too, which were a lot easier than I thought they would be. The chocolate glaze was easy and fun to make, plus licking my fingers was a bonus. For all this I got the honor of being chosen by my teacher to do all of the piping for the class. Meaning I had to pipe the mousse into the tartlet shells and then pipe cream on top of that. It felt like I did hundreds, but it was worth it. There is nothing better than to have an entire class watch you work and tell you how good you are for a real big confidence boost.
Hopefully you will all have a chance like this for some charity in your area. But always keep it mixed up.

Skulls and cakes

A little while back was our best friend's birthday. We all enjoy a certain book series called the Dresden Files by Jim Butcher. In these books there is a character named Bob the skull, obviously he is a skull, that talks. So for tony's birthday we created a cake shaped like a skull sitting on a shelf surrounded by candles reading a romance novel. Which he does constantly throughout the books.
Yes I know it happened awhile ago, but I am still proud of the work that I have done on he cake. It took a lot of hard work to make the top of the cake to look like wood. Also his skull is covered in runes, cause he is an entity and the runes are like a protective coating. The candles are fondant covered rice crispy treats that have been molded into tapered candles. Also, yes those are lights you see glowing in the eye sockets. In the books his eyes glow orange.
So thank you for letting me go back into my recent history. Hope everyone is keeping it mixed up.

Mmmmmm....... Chocolate!

Making chocolates was amazing to learn, and is super easy! We melted the chocolate on a double boiler and the poured it into a mold. Then we layed them inverted over a bowl to let them drain a little while still coating the bottom and sides of the dish. Then when they cooled a little we scraped off the excess and put them in the cooler. While the chocolate hardened we made a raspberry chocolate ganache to put in them as a filling. Once the molds were hard enough we put a little dollop of the ganache in them. Then we poured just enough chocolate over them to cover, and once again we scraped off the excess. Next was the fun part, when they were completely done and hard we turned them upside down and banged them on the table to get them out.
These treats were so easy to make and delicious to eat, I can't wait to make them again around the holidays for stocking stuffers. Hope everyone has a great thanksgiving, and keeps it mixed up.

Birthday cake

Today we are celebrating the birth of Tori. My husband, my best friend (kristi) and her husband and children, and myself have made a 4 tiered cake. It was so much fun and kind of hard, but it turned out beautifully. Sorry it isn't a long blog, I just really wanted to share the pictures with everyone. I hope everyone's days are going good and keeping it mixed up.

Sweetie pie........and tart

We have recently learned how to make pie and tart doughs, which are similar but still slightly different. Tart dough is sweeter than pie dough. Something I didn't know before hand was that you actually bake the pie dough a little before you put anything in it and bake it again. Or if you are doing a custard or cream pie you have to bake the pie dough completely before using.
So in class we made apple cinnamon crumble pie, and pumpkin pie along with a fresh fruit tart. For the tart we had to make pastry cream to put the fruit on top of, along with making a glaze to seal in the freshness of the fruit(and make it look pretty).
This week was a lot of fun, and delicious. I didn't get a picture of it, cause we ate it to quickly, but we also made a chocolate cream pie. It was so rich and wonderful, I can't wait to make another one.
Thank you to everyone who got to try my pies and gave me the good reviews, and sorry to all those who didn't get to try.
Everyone have a good day, and keep it mixing.

Full of puff and fluff

Our next encounter in our baking and pastry class we learned all about puff pastries. One dough can make so many different things, but we made only 2. It all starts by making a dough. Once that is made it is wrapped around butter that is somewhat pliable but still cold. Then we roll it out, and then we fold it tri-fold style. Then it is rolled again and then tri-folded again. Then rolled out again to fit in a half sheet pan. After that we let it cool over night to be used the next day. Also so you know the dough and the butter in this recipe have third own special names in french. The dough is called the Detrempe, and the butter is called the Beurrage. They sound pretty much how they look, sorry I couldn't find the phonetics for those particular words.
That next day we made two completely different things out of the dough. We made cream horns and napoleon. For the cream horns we took the dough and cut it into strips and then wrapped the strips around metal cones. Then brushed a little water on them before rolling them in some sugar, and then into the oven with them. For the napoleons we just rolled it out to fit in the pan again and docked it. Docking is when you pierce holes in the dough with a fork so it can let out the steam and so it doesn't rise to much. Then it went in the oven.
Once they came out we filled the cream horns with cream (obviously) and cut the other dough into wide strips. We then put some cream on top of the pastry before laying another strip on top, and then just repeat that again and you have a napoleon. In the picture the. Ream horns are in middle and the napoleons are on the edges.
Hope you all enjoyed, and keep it mixed up.

Baking breads

The most fun thing we have done in class so far is making bread. I had never had a focaccia bread as good as when we made it ourself. It was huge and full of fresh cut onions and other fresh spices. It's the one that is on the right in the picture.
We also made delicious fresh yeast rolls from scratch. Those are the ones that are scattered all over in the front of the picture. Making the loads of wheat bread was so much easier than I thought it would be.
After that we made a traditional Jewish holiday bread challah (sounds like "halla"). Now that was amazing!! We got to actually braid the strands of dough. We ended up using it to make french toast at home, it was the best french toast of my life.
We are a lot farther down the road than when we started, but the end is still far away. I have confidence in myself on achieving my dreams, hopefully you do too. My next entry will be about pies and tarts. Until next time, keep on mixing it up.

Mise En Place [meez ahn plahs]

Mise en place in French means "everything in place". It is the first thing that my husband and I learned in culinary classes. It all started several years ago when we fell in love and dropped out of school. After years of working and just floating through life in each others arms we finally decided to figure out our future. So we sat down with our best friends and mapped out the rest of our lives. So Jon and I studied our butts off and went and got our G.E.D.s, then we went on down to the Art Institute of Atlanta. We were enrolled within a heartbeat and were running down our path towards the horizon.

So now that we have everything in its place we have been enjoying our cooking classes and have made some amazing food. Last week we took our midterms in our third quarter, and we are still loving it. So over the course of getting my diploma I will be posting pictures and recipes and all of my experiences. I value all of the support of my friends and family, and look forward to sharing my life with you.