A Weekend Well Spent

This past weekend I had the honor of taking a two day baking class with renowned cookbook author, Carole Walter. It was an amazing experience that I will remember forever.

The first thing you should know about Carole is that she does not let her age get the better of her. She rolls in on her electric scooter, props herself up on the counter, and commands the class. She reminded me of Julia Child's personality a bit in that she is outspoken and strong-willed. The look she gave me when I said that I don't own an electric mixer will always be burned in the back of my mind

Our first day was spent focusing on dough. We learned two doughs that served as the base for the recipes we covered: sweet dough and croissant dough. The great thing about these doughs is that you can make them ahead of time and freeze them so you can always have them on hand. In the interest of time, Carole demonstrated the croissant dough, and we all made our own sweet dough. We also shaped several croissants, some of which we ate that afternoon. The others were consumed at the beginning of day two.

Things were much more intense on day two. We were put in teams of three and given a specific coffeecake recipe. My team was assigned an apricot braid, which we got a lot of compliments on by the teaching team. As people finished their assigned recipe, we all filled and shaped pain au chocolats.

After a lunch break, we tasted all of the coffecakes we made-swedish tea ring, apricot braid, cheese kuchen, crumb buns, babka, pain au chocolat, brioche, and croissants.

I'm definitely looking forward to having company soon so I can bake these for people!

A Brief Hiatus from Healthy Food

I know I fail at updating as regularly as I planned to. I don't have any new healthy recipes to share, so instead I'm bringing you a recipe that isn't healthy, but tastes amazing. It's for a cake!

A friend commissioned me to bake a birthday cake for her earlier this month, and of course I was happy to oblige! The recipe was originally for cupcakes, but I converted it into a layer cake.


The cake of birthday goodness

Port Wine and Cherry Cake with Marscapone Frosting
ingredients:
1.5 cups port wine
1.5 cups cherry pie filling
2 sticks butter
6 T + 1.5 cups sugar
2 cups chocolate chips
1/2 cup cocoa
2 cups flour
2 tsp baking soda
2 eggs
2/3 cup sour cream

16 oz. marscapone
1 cup heavy cream
1 cup confectioners sugar
cherries

directions:
simmer port and cherries in saucepan for 10 minutes. Remove 1/4 cup of liquid and set aside.
Add butter, 6T sugar, chocolate, and cocoa to saucepan and whisk until melted. set aside and let cool.
in a medium bowl, combine flour, baking soda, and remaining sugar. set aside.
in a large bowl, whisk eggs and sour cream. add port mixture and mix briefly. add flour mixture and mix briefly. pour into two greased cake pans. bake at 350 for 25-30 minutes. Allow to cool in cake pan before transferring to wire rack.

Beat marscapone, heavy cream, and confectioners sugar until a stiff peak form.
spoon remaining port mixture on each cake layer before frosting.

BIG NEWS!!!!!

As many of you, my main foodie passion lies in baking. Don't get me wrong, I love a fantastic homemade indian dish as much as the next foodie, but I have a deep respect for the art and science of baking the perfect cake. So imagine my excitement when a friend reached out to me and offered to pay me to bake her some brownies!

Earlier that week I had baked some brownies for a meeting we had to work on a group project. When she tried the brownies, she immediately told me that they were amazing and that I should sell them. Later on, I posted on facebook that I wanted to hold a bake sale to pay for horseback riding lessons and asked if anyone wanted to buy some brownies from me. She messaged me and asked if I could make some for her in two days. Naturally, I said yes!

There is a bakery around the corner from my apartment that is hiring for a salesgirl position. I am tempted to drop off my resume and see what happens...