Tasty Fibers

V(odka) Day

2012-02-13T20:10:00.000-06:00

These were hand decorated for a particular client, who's event is tomorrow (shock!). I need to be careful though; repetitive stress injuries aren't uncommon for pastry chefs.

CKCC... WTF?

2012-02-13T20:08:00.000-06:00

Chocolate Kahlua Cheese Cake. We sell lots of that, along with the Flourless, Vanilla Bean Cheese Cake, and the Margarita Cheese Cake. Here's a batch of 8 I did going to the freezer for storage. I pull them out, cover this particular one in chocolate ganache, slice it, and garnish each slice with a fresh raspberry... Decadent.... (but I had to do 42 of the bastards and 20 of them for two separate events during the Holidays... each also had the addition of a poinsettia hand piped in one of two colors with mint sprigs as leaves... in my exhaustion I forgot to take photos of that)

Zhena's Gypsy

2012-02-13T20:05:00.000-06:00

Given the weather and the constant sniffles, I thought with all my hard work I deserved something I like. I got some Egyptian Mint Tea, Loose, off of Amazon by Zhena's Gypsy. Awesome stuff. Discovered it at Earth Fare. No, the jar did not come with... that's a reuse item :)

Cake Tasting

2012-02-13T20:03:00.001-06:00

We put cake tastings together... this was a cupcake tasting specifically... It's in hopes that the bride will choose us to design and make her cake. And those are chocolate dipped coconut macaroons.

Ginger.... Wha?

2012-02-13T20:03:00.000-06:00

Knowing the two display pieces I did were going to be sitting out for a while, I opted to do them out of gumpaste for precision given my choice of subject and durability. I present to you San Antonio's Weston Centre (along with a random house...)

Miscellaneous

2012-02-13T20:01:00.000-06:00

A few randoms I found on my camera I needed to share

The Master Dogwood...

2012-02-13T20:00:00.000-06:00

The Masters Cake is cool, but it's not an original design, so I'm not uber proud... but that Ganache work happened on a hot day and that was pretty cool to have pulled off...

The bride showed us a photo with dogwoods in it.... and I GOT EXCITED....
The wedding cake I had to do in school involved dogwoods. I played on Home Turf. And Won.

They Call 'Im the Fireman....

2012-02-13T19:58:00.000-06:00

Another Yowser I pulled off... Quite proud of it! Gotta love the simple Bride's Cake...

Day of the Dead

2012-02-13T19:57:00.000-06:00

I designed the skulls myself... and executed them... the bride's cake was nicely sort of modern

More Epic

2012-02-13T19:55:00.000-06:00

This is the second time I've had to stand on a ladder to finish a bride's cake... I love the simplicity of the layers... but where the bride's cake was simple, the groom's cake more than made up for that... the dogs are actually rice krispy treats that are carved then covered in fondant.

More Simple Stuff

2012-02-13T19:53:00.000-06:00

I have Earth Fare to thank for teaching me how to do Chocolate Ganache dripping down a cake... the roses on the bride's cake were PHENOMENAL... I still don't know exactly what they're called but they smell heavenly. The reason for the blah photos is because I didn't get to personall drop the cake off... that's super rare... normally I do drop the cake off myself... but I was needed an hour away to finish a more detailed cake... About to post it

PITA

2012-02-13T19:51:00.000-06:00

PAIN IN THE ASS

That's 100 white chocolate wrapped cake shots... oh and 3 different custom designs... and they had an assorted dessert tray... and the Simple, and Fall Floral, and this guy, were all on the same day.... yeah....

Fall Floral

2012-02-13T19:48:00.000-06:00

Who knew I could hide a raspberry cheesecake in a wedding cake? Can YOU guess which tier?

Simple

2012-02-13T19:47:00.000-06:00

A Very Simple Bride's Cake....

Bieber...

2012-02-13T19:46:00.000-06:00

I refused to put Bieber herself on a cake... But a signature is okay I suppose

Epic, Post Sketch....

2012-02-13T19:44:00.000-06:00

Here's the Groom's Cake... Pistol Pete... Yeah, I carved him and such :) WIN

This is me with the Bride's Cake... We pulled it off. Each tier was a different flavor, and it stood about 5ft OFF the table....

A photo with the bridesmaids' bouquets as well as the bride's bouquet surrounding the cake.

Money Shot.

Epic

2012-02-13T19:41:00.000-06:00

This is the second wedding I did a cake for... here's the sketch of the bride's cake... I'll post it and the Groom's Cake in a second

I"ll never get this blogging thing down

2012-02-13T19:39:00.000-06:00

Been working my tail end off as a pastry chef... that's the big thing going on.. there are some other things... here's some visual highlights from the job...

This is the cake that got me the job... I pulled it off in less than 48 hours... oh and below is the Groom's Cake... I freehanded the top based on a small sketch

Tea and cookies, please?

2011-07-05T23:05:00.002-05:00

Sometimes life gets me down. Especially with finances, job hunting, and family all around me. Now and then I need some escape.

I update my feeds that I follow roughly quarterly, and I don't think I've updated so that tastespotting is on here. With how my routine reading of my feeds goes, I'm not entirely sure that's something I want to update that particular item. For any theoretical readers, I must warn you that there are sometimes over 200 updates in a single day. However, they're typically only a titled photo that, when clicked, will link you to a separate blog where the food in the picture will be explained, sometimes with recipes, sometimes without.

I could list the specific blog that I found this chocolate chip cookie recipe on. Yes, I abandoned mine because this one seemed vaguely interesting since it used melted butter and the beautiful picture was so very poetic. Maybe I'll take the time to find the link. But I tested said recipe tonight and aside from seeing how the cookies age, as well as a second run, it may well be a keeper.

I had a prospective job not call me today, and yesterday was when they should've called if I had made the cut. With so few opportunities right now, it gets hard seeing me not fill an open position. I know that obviously it wasn't meant to be, fates, God, etc. But I can't help but be human and somewhat disappointed.

Couple that with pulling up 4 rooms' worth of carpet, and I was rather exhausted and spent a fair bit of time sleeping today. I opted to test this new recipe, and make a cup of my favorite egyptian mint tea. I'm afraid I'll need to place an order with Zhena's Gypsy for some more here soon.

I managed to run through 1 quart of yogurt in 2 days, and I'll need to cut back. I made more last night, adding about 1/5th of my volume as cream, and 1/2 cup of powdered milk for a 1/2 gallon batch. I put it, of course, in my 1 litre WECK jars. I also held the milk at 185F ish for 30 minutes before allowing it to cool. It is significantly thicker and I'm quite pleased with the results. My parents never showed true interest in the pear butter I gave them a while back and it paired nicely with the yogurt. I may try just plain honey tomorrow.

Hopefully things will turn around soon. I'm severely missing my friends back in Florida, and I can't very well constantly call and harass them because I'm feeling lonely without them, as it was my decision to leave in the first place. Maybe my attempts at making friends again here will pan out and I'll find that sweet-spot of community once again.

In the mean time, I found the cookie recipe and I think you should try it. They're dead easy and very tasty. Don't overbake as always though....

And go get some tea- it's underappreicated.

Reflection on a Lesson

2011-07-04T01:23:00.002-05:00

I just had me a second bowl of yogurt and cherry preserves.

The yogurt has had time to chill in the fridge now and thickened significantly. The preserves thickened quite a bit too. Also, I like my yogurt chilled.

A 1am snack that normally would have been healthy in my old house, but with my parents other things are available (popsicles, cookies, etc) I'm proud of myself for having choosen yogurt.

It was very tasty- I still would like to try it even thicker with the afore-mentioned methods.

But: Overall WIN

A tasty lesson

2011-07-03T12:26:00.002-05:00

It’s no secret that I’m, well, strange. I thoroughly enjoy techniques that seem ‘lost’ to most of ‘normal’ society. Knitting, scratch baking, sewing, vegetable gardening, cooking both locally AND in season, organics, antique cocktails, how to make liqueurs, canning, building furniture, vinyl records… it’s a long list that just gets longer as I learn more.

I’ve read up on several things. Fortunately, when it comes to the food world, I have a rather significant number of resources available to me. Might have something to do with the library I accrued while going to school for such a thing.

I canned some cherries that I’m not too happy with. No, the canned cherries are fine! Don’t get me wrong- I just didn’t get to do it totally on my terms. We bought a couple bags earlier in the week so I could cook/bake/preserve them as I saw fit. I grabbed them Friday night out of the fridge…. And subsequently threw away over a pound’s worth in moldy/rotten fruit. So…. It was more of a reactive canning than a well-planned experiment and lesson to myself.

I ended up with two quarts of pitted cherries that were useable. I pulled several resources and the answer I kept coming up with varied, so I sort of amalgamized a number of recipes. My cherries weren’t sour so I couldn’t follow most of the things I found. I combined them with 4 cups (2lbs) of sugar and let them sit overnight. By Saturday evening, it was a few cherries bobbing in thick gritty syrup. I added the juice and zest of one lemon hoping to amp up the tang. Then I cooked it to 223F and it just didn’t set quite right. I added a box of sure-gel (probably totally did it wrong, looking back at the instructions, but oh well) and eventually settled rather than overdoing it.

This is the first time I ACTUALLY got to use my WECK canning jars. I have a half dozen of the 975 style (cylindrical 11.5floz) and the same number of the 908 style (cylindrical 35.2floz). I used the smaller for this task, and got them all sanitized for the job. I separated out the syrup from the fruit and added the fruit to the 5 jars I had prepared (I totally guestimated, and it ended up being perfect, who knew?) and then poured the liquid evenly between the jars. Seals on lids, I capped the jars and put the clamps on. 10 minutes later of boiling water and I pulled them out. It worked like a charm.

I have read several people complaining that their WECK jars didn’t seal right, because the seals were all off-kilter and thus it didn’t stay. I had one jar that sealed nicely, but the seal was off-center. I choose to open this one first. I also followed a nice little piece of information I read- 3 clamps are recommended for pressure canning, so I went ahead and used 3 on each jar and I think that was the ticket. Also, I pulled the lids out and they cooled slightly as I applied the seals, and I think this also aided in handling. No complaints other than that they needed significant wiping down since the water here is very hard.

Well if my preserves weren’t the thick solution I wanted, then I needed to come up with some realistic ways of eating my product. Not terribly hard for a pastry chef, but hey, I might as well learn what I can while I can.

I really do enjoy a nice bowl of yogurt, and that seemed the logical choice. But I wanted to make it myself! I read basic instructions, and I had milk, some other yogurt (not the plain everyone said was so necessary). The only thing I didn’t have was a heating pad or yogurt maker or some other thing to maintain a temperature of 105-115F. But I’m resourceful, and turned to Harold McGee’s On Food and Cooking. According to him, incubation will take longer, but it is definitely an option in the 80F’s. So I did that. Success. I. Made. Yogurt. How cool? The culture was from blueberry yogurt and it worked fine, so phooey on all those people that say you have to have a powdered culture or only plain yogurt otherwise. And I didn’t have a special set-up for incubation that would maintain my heat, just sort of insulate (I popped it into a thermos I lined with a napkin, the napkin to make removing the large jar easier).

There are a few changes I would make- and I would still use the larger WECK jar for this process. I read that I could use a percentage of cream or half and half. I would like a higher fat-content for that wonderful mouth-feel. Also, I would like it thicker. This can be achieved supposedly by cooking the milk longer (holding it at 185F for 30 minutes) and adding 1/4c milk powder per quart of liquid. Afterwards, straining is the other thing to get the thickness. I have read several times about cheesecloth, but I’m not a fan of using cheesecloth for the majority of regular kitchen tasks unless I’ll be composting the cheesecloth. I wonder if I had a loosely-woven cloth (think flour sack) that I could wash, if it could be used to this purpose. Something to dwell on.

As far as flavor of this experiment goes, the yogurt is nice and mellow, and I’ll be tampering with that in the future, seeing what options I realistically have. The cherries are rather sweet, and will probably need some help through the entire batch. But there’s an ever-so-slight caramel note in there that is simply wonderful.

If I didn’t cover a specific on something, feel free to ask away!

PS- the Woodland Shawl is about to have skein 3 added to it!

Some tasty goodness

2011-07-03T01:04:00.002-05:00

This is the woodland shawl :)

It's some silk that I got in a swap. Pretty awesome.

Here's an early photo of the shawl

I finally got to use my WECK canning jars: here's some cherry preserves I made. I don't know if they actually came out though.

Speechless

2011-07-02T03:56:00.000-05:00

"Speechless"

I can't believe what you said to me
Last night when we were alone
You threw your hands up
Baby you gave up, you gave up

I can't believe how you looked at me
With your James Dean glossy eyes
In your tight jeans with your long hair
And your cigarette stained lies

Could we fix you if you broke?
And is your punch line just a joke?

I'll never talk again
Oh boy you've left me speechless
You've left me speechless, so speechless

And I'll never love again,
Oh boy you've left me speechless
You've left me speechless, so speechless

I can't believe how you slurred at me
With your half wired broken jaw
You popped my heart seams
On my bubble dreams, bubble dreams

I can't believe how you looked at me
With your Johnnie Walker eyes
He's gonna get you and after he's through
There's gonna be no love left to rye

And I know that it's complicated
But I'm a loser in love
So baby raise a glass to mend
All the broken hearts
Of all my fucked up friends

I'll never talk again
Oh boy you've left me speechless
You've left me speechless so speechless

I'll never love again,
Oh friend you've left me speechless
You've left me speechless, so speechless

How?
Haaaa-oooo-wow?
H-ooow?
Wow

Haaaa-oooo-wow?
H-ooow?
Wow

And after all the drinks and bars that we've been to
Would you give it all up?
Could I give it all up for you?

And after all the boys and girls that we've been through
Would you give it all up?
Could you give it all up?

If I promise boy to you
That I'll never talk again
And I'll never love again
I'll never write a song
Won't even sing along

I'll never love again
So speechless
You left me speechless, so speechless
Why you so speechless, so speechless?

Will you ever talk again?
Oh boy, why you so speechless?
You've left me speechless so speechless

Some men may follow me
But you choose "death and company"
Why you so speechless? Oh oh oh

Saranac- The First Sweater

2011-06-18T15:16:00.003-05:00

The First Sweater (for me)

I fell in love with this pattern several years ago. It’s actually the first sweater pattern I ever saw and liked for ME (Ravelry was barely born at that time…. I didn’t know about Rav for another 6 months via Franklin Habit’s Blog…). But I was a new knitter and this seemed WAY out of my league. Finally the time came when I had the money for the yarn, enough yarn of one color/dyelot/etc, and my confidence were all in line.

I knit the final version of this sweater in less than 120 hours. There were two prequels.

The first, I cast on the sleeves, and started to work on it, using magic loop and one long pair of needles. I got side tracked and learned abou

t m1r and m1l and how much nicer it looked after making Stephen West’s Clockwork. I decided that I wanted to use this on my sleeves, and ripped them out. (Sometime last October?)

Attempt two had me making the XL given my chest size. I was a bit worried as it called for 10.4 skeins of 220 and only had 10. I cast on, got through the band, and knit 2 balls of yarn into the sweater over the course of 4 months. As I added #3 the other night, I thought it looked a bit big. I put it on to some extra circs so I could try it on. There was over 8 extra inches of fabric…. and that’s WITH ease, not clinging. I furiously ripped it out and decided to do things MY way.

I essentially rewrote the entire pattern, making it top down:

Using Judy’s Magic Cast-on, put 42 st on a needle (and 41 on the lower needle, making sure the lower needle is longer than the top needle, both circulars). knit 2 rounds and join as for tubular cast on (see Eunny Jang’s video on YoutTube). You now have 83 st. on the needle. Knit 5 in of 1x1 rib for collar. ALWAYS slip the fir

st stitch of each row either knit or purl wise to get a clean edge. Decrease 1st in the very center at end (provides symmetry).

Follow Garter rib pattern with front slit as deep as desired. Work back and forth until it’s deep enough. As for the spacing of markers/increases- you want 3 repeats in front, 3 repeats in back, and 2 for each sleeve. The increases should be every other row on either side of a garter ridge (i did my increases on the plain knit row for simplicity, using m1l and m1r as you feel comfortable).

Regularly steam block the piece as it will give you a more realistic

idea of what the garment will look like (and save you ripping over an entire ball of yarn out as I had to do). Don’t be so set on trying it on, but try to match it to your favorite fitting sweater. For me, that meant increasing to 11 full sections in front and back, and 10 allocated to each arm. I dropped the sleeves with no under the arm increasing, as I tried this once, was dissatisfied, and ripped it out. If you body type or the recipient’s requires under the arm increases, add 8st to provide for one full repeat to each arm.

I read in another person’s notes that they decided to stop knitting the body once they finished the first ball of yarn and pick up and knit both sleeves. I decided to try this, as my major complaint with top-down last time was that twisting the body around and around while knitting the sleeves was a PAIN in the @$$. It was like knitting a scarf, not messing with a sweater this time around. I decreased at the

center under each arm, keeping in pattern save the garter strip down the inner center of the sleeve (echoing the increases) after losing 4 full repeats (i decreased 2 stitches every 6 rows) I knit 6 rows of repeats of the pattern (12 rows) with 6 sections around. This was not quite long enough, but I cut the yarn, and decided to come back for the cuff.

Repeat above for other sleeve, and then pick up and knit the body of the sweater.

I found that using short-row shaping across the back helped the fit a lot. I put 2 stitch markers inside the stockinette portion of both of the outside most repeats on the back at the center of the section. I knit to the second marker on a rest row, wrapped and turned, followed the flat instructions for the pattern to go wrap and turn the first marker (think sock heel), and then went back (as it was now a rest row) and picked up my stitches. I did a full regular pattern/rest/pattern between each of the five back ‘gussets’. This gave me the extra inch to really help the fit.

I figured out where I wanted the sweater to stop, and ended on a rest row.

I grabbed 2 circular needle

s, used Judy’s Magic Cast-on, and did another tubular cast-on with half the number of body stitches, but this time in the round. I knit my bottom band, (14 rows of 1x1 rib) and attached it with a ‘3 needle bind off’ (I prefer to use a crochet hook, as it seems more efficient, and if I go up a couple sizes it seems more elastic too). I repeated this for both of the cuffs.

Zipper-

I whipstitched the zipper opening shut prior to doing anything else, making sure that it was as neatly aligned as I could get it. When sewing, I use water-soluble double-sided tape to hold zippers and other difficult seams in place. I decided to use this technique here and it proved to do the trick neatly. I did my best to steam block the zipper area and then applied my tape. I stuck the zipper where I wanted it, and then ironed it to be extra sure it stayed in place. Starting at one top side, working my way to the bottom of the zipper, and then back up the other side, I back-stitched it into place to hold firm.

Weave in ends, and gift/wear accordingly.

These are my short-hand notes on the pattern. If you have questions/comments or need any clarification to follow, feel free to message me.

And NOTE- My sweater is not near as baggy as the original design as a tighter sweater is my preference. I also used less than 6 skeins of yarn (less than 1300yds, a far change from 2200+ yards)

NOTE 2.0- By doing the bottom band/cuffs (and next time I may do my collar that way) it allows for easy removal, as collar/cuff/band (and elbow, but that would need a patch) are typically the first parts to be damaged from regular wear.

Boeuf Bourguignon

2011-06-08T12:54:00.001-05:00

So I decided to do something tasty with the family.

Here it is :)

Yes, this is the Original Julia Child Recipe, right out of Mastering the Art of French Cooking.