Both of Monday’s breads required long sponge fermentation times. We started by making the sponge for the stollen, a mixture of milk, yeast and flour. Chef increased the yeast by 10 g to speed up the process and placed our covered bowls in the warm proofing cabinet for an hour....
I based these chocolates on the Grand Marnier recipe from this book. My coworker gave me a generous amount of frozen yuzu peel from Japan. I took a heaping tablespoon, minced it and used it to infuse the cream. For added citrus flavour, I put a few drops of natural orange oil ...
I was able to find pastry flour (Bob’s Red Mill unbleached) so I used that in place of all-purpose. Five medium-sized organic Granny Smith apples were enough to cover this tart, but they were odd-shaped slices, especially the part around the core. Next time, I would use more a...
Lots of flavourings in this classic tiny cake recipe: orange blossom honey, orange blossom water and orange zest. There’s some ground almonds too, which Yard says she uses for flavour and lightness. The recipe says to chill the batter for 2 to 4 hours; I was tired after coming...
I brought the big bucket of starter dough to class on Monday night which we used to make the walnut bread. It was a bit on the dry side but the dough came together nicely. We added walnuts and raisins in the last few minutes of kneading (so they wouldn’t break up too much). Be...
The cast of characters in this recipe included apples (5 Spy, 3 Granny Smith) and kamut flour (filling in for spelt flour, who was absent from my fridge). The batter was pasty and was my first indication this cake’s texture might be off. Apples form a huge layer in the cake; t...
One of the first things Chef did was to hand out a revised version of last week’s New York Rye. As I had predicted, this recipe had more yeast and less rye flour. These loaves were much softer and much more edible than our initial versions.Monday’s class featured baguettes, so...
My father gave me a clipping from Maclean’s a while back describing “the best cookies in the world”. I totally missed the discussions about this cookie, as a recipe first appeared in the LA Times back in 2003. Anyway, I tried making it last night using the modified version in ...
I was planning to make the cinnamon-hazelnut chocolates but found my own blog post (!) so I altered the spicing of this recipe. Instead of cinnamon, I infused the cream with fresh ginger, added ground ginger (about 1 tsp) to the ganache and also some candied ginger puree. For ...
I made the filling earlier in the week, gently cooking 2.5 pounds each of Spy and Braeburn apples. After draining the cooked fruit in a colander, I refrigerated the mixture and let it come back to room temp before using it. Some candied ginger puree added to the filling gave i...
We’re the first class to take this brand new course, one our instructor said she spent 8 months developing! She originally wanted to call it Art of Breads 2 as she wouldn’t be able to cover things like flatbreads (e.g. naan) or griddle breads (e.g. English muffins) in such a s...
For the last class before I can obtain a Bakery Arts diploma, I’ll be taking the six-week course entitled International Breads.Week 1: Cheese and Onion and New York Rye Week 2: Olive Thyme Baguettes and Mountain BreadWeek 3: Walnut Bread and SchiacciataWeek 4: Hot Cross Buns a...
This is a brand-new book full of traditional and inspired Asian desserts. I tried making these baked doughnuts to use up some Spy apples and sweet potatoes. The batter contains evaporated milk and I substituted yogurt for buttermilk. After the initial rise, I made the mistake ...
This is the last bread I’m making this week with the starter. One interesting aspect of the mash recipe is the use of altus (soaked bread) which I made by taking cubes of the whole wheat mash bread and soaking it in water. Both the mash and soaker were very, very wet. Another ...