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Cream Puffs & A Cookbook Giveaway

Thursday, April 24th, 2008

Today has been so much fun for me because I had my first cooking class at Prep Kitchen Essentials, in Seal Beach, CA. What a dream place this is to teach in…fabulous food, top-notch equipment, and someone does your dishes for you too! I think I died and went to heaven! I was also so excited to have two of my blog readers come to the class! Well, I wanted to share a couple photos with you and one of the recipes too! In today’s class I taught how to make Buttermilk Cake with Lemon Cream and Fresh Raspberries, Mini Key Lime Pies with Toasted Meringue Topping, and Cream Puffs with Sweet Melissa’s Deadly Chocolate Fudge Sauce! The class was so much fun and I couldn’t help but want to share with you the Cream Puff recipe! This recipe is quite easy and so much fun for everyone. You can make these into profiteroles by substituting the whipped cream filling for a scoop of your favorite ice cream…doesn’t that sound yummy!

Servings: about 16 profiteroles/cream puffs

Pate a Choux:

adapted from The King Arthur Flour Baking Companion

8 oz. (1 c.) Water

5 ¼ oz (1 ¼ c.) AP Flour

8 T. Unsalted Butter

3-4 large eggs

¾ t. salt

Preheat oven 425 degrees

Put the water, salt, and butter in a saucepan and bring to a rolling boil. Remove from heat and add the flour all at once. Return the pan to the burner and start stirring vigorously. Cook over medium heat, while stirring constantly, until the mixture forms a ball. (About 1 minute or so) Remove from heat and let cool for 5-10 minutes, or until 140 degrees. Place the dough in a mixer bowl and beat in the eggs one at a time. Before adding the last egg check the consistency of the dough. Pinch the dough between your fingers and slowly pull apart. If the dough breaks easily, add the last egg. Continue beating for at least 2 minutes after the last egg has been beaten.

Place the dough in a piping bag with a #809 tip. Pipe the dough into small balls onto a baking sheet lined with parchment paper or a silpat. If a peak forms, then gently dab it with a wet finger.

Bake for 15 minutes and then reduce the oven temp. to 375 degrees and continue baking for 15 more minutes. The balls should feel like and hollow. Turn off the oven, open the door a crack, and leave the balls to cool for 30 more minutes.

Chocolate Fudge Sauce:

adapted from Sweet Melissa’s Baking Book

7.5 oz best-quality bittersweet chocolate coarsely chopped

¼ c. sugar

½ c. plus 1 t. light corn syrup

½ c. plus 1 t. water

¾ c. unsweetened Dutch-process cocoa powder

¾ t. instant coffee or instant espresso powder

1 T. liquor (cognac, brandy, Kahlua, etc.)

Melt the chocolate in a microwave safe bowl at 30 second intervals until the chocolate is completely melted. (You can also melt the chocolate in a double boiler set or simmering water.) Keep warm.

In a large saucepan over medium heat add the sugar, corn syrup, water, cocoa powder, and instant coffee. Bring to a boil, while whisking constantly. Once the mixture comes to a rapid boil, continue cooking for 1-2 more minutes.

Remove from heat and whisk in the melted chocolate and liquor.

Whipped Cream:

1 Pint heavy whipping cream

1 t. vanilla extract

Powdered sugar to taste

Whip cold heavy whipping cream with a whisk attachment until slightly thickened. Add powdered sugar to taste and vanilla extract. Continue whipping until soft peaks form.

Once cool, cut balls in half with a serrated bread knife and place small scoops of ice cream or whipped cream inside. Drizzle the chocolate sauce on top and enjoy!

Here are some more photos from the class!

To celebrate my happy day with my blogging friends and readers I wanted to give away a free copy of Martha Stewart’s new book “Martha Stewart’s Cookies“. This is a great resource for yummy cookies and I wanted to share it with one of you! All you have to do is leave me a comment with what your all-time favorite dessert is. I am looking to figure out new recipes to try and I want to know what desserts hold a special place in your hearts. Look forward to hearing your comments! The deadline is Saturday night!

Tags: chocolate fudge sauce, key lime pies, martha stewarts cookie book, Prep Kitchen Essentials, sweet melissa's baking book
Posted in Cooking Classes, Desserts, Products You'll Love, Recipes | 40 Comments »

New Cooking Classes

Tuesday, April 1st, 2008

I am so excited to announce that I will be teaching two new cooking classes at Prep Kitchen Essentials in Seal Beach, CA. These are the classes!

Baking Basics

Luscious Lemon Cake – Buttermilk cake with lemon cream, fresh raspberries and vanilla buttercream icing

Individual Keylime Pies with toasted meringue topping and graham cracker crust

Cream Puff Sundaes – Light and airy cream puffs filled with vanilla bean ice cream and homemade chocolate sauce

Date: Thursday, April 24th

Time: 11:00 – 1:30pm

Cost: $65

Elegant Easy Brunch Menus

Avocado Soup with Ancho Cream

Sweet Potato Fries with Sel de Mer

Cellophane Noodle Salad with Thin Sliced Beef

Vanilla Bean Custard with Seasonal Berries

Date: Tuesday, May 20th

Time: 11:00 – 1:20pm

Cost: $65

I am also currently trying to set up some new classes that are for people who want to learn certain techniques or dishes…so if you would be interested in coming to a Saturday class at Prep Kitchen Essentials that teaches either “How to Make a Purse Cake”, “Basic 3-D Cakes”, “Specialty Decorated Sugar Cookies”, “Mini Desserts”, or “Couture Cupcakes” let me know and if I have enough people interested I can add another class to their schedule. The Saturday classes are $75 and are normally from 9:00 – 12:30pm.

Tags: Baking Basics, Chef Melody Brandon, Cooking Classes, Elegant Easy Brunch Menus, how to 3-D cakes, how to cupcakes, how to make a purse cake, how to mini desserts, how to specialty decorated sugar cookies, Prep Kitchen Essentials
Posted in Cooking Classes | 14 Comments »

Sculpted Chef’s Head

Thursday, February 7th, 2008

Well, here is my 2nd cake from my trip to Chicago where I attended Bronwen Weber’s class at the French Pastry School. Bronwen first made this cake for a chef’s conference…it was a chef’s head on a plate! This cake was quite tricky since almost all of the face design is done by using your hands to sculpt the fondant covered cake into a realistic face before the fondant dries on you. I hope you enjoy seeing the photos from the class and realize just how much of a cake genius Bronwen really is!

The cake is started by stacking layer upon layer of cake & buttercream and then attempting to carve out the basic features of the face.

These are the two carved heads…the first one is Bronwen’s & the second is mine.

Next you cover the head in buttercream.

After covering it in buttercream, you cover the whole cake in fondant and quickly, but carefully, shape the face with your hands. Detail is added with gum paste tools.

Here is my head after I finished the face sculpting part…then it was onto the details, like hair, eyebrows, sideburns, etc. The hair accents were made out of modeling chocolate and the tie and jacket were made out of fondant. Sadly, we ran out of time and didn’t get to make the chef’s hat, but it was an interesting technique. Since the hat was made out of rice paper, it was completely edible (not that I would want to eat it!)

And here is me with my chef’s head!

Tags: Bronwen Weber, cake, chef's head, fondant, French Pastry School, modeling chocolate
Posted in Cakes, Cooking Classes, Desserts, My Travels | 7 Comments »

New Cooking Classes!!!

Wednesday, February 6th, 2008

Just wanted to let anyone know who lives in the Orange County/LA area that I will be teaching a new cupcake class at Kitchen Outfitters in Belmont Shores. Here is the information for anyone interested in the class…

Upscale Cupcakes

Monogramed Cupcakes – Perfect for weddings, birthdays, or bridal showers

Beautiful Flower Cupcakes

Baby Shower Cupcakes

Chocolate Heart Transfer Sheet Cupcakes

Also, learn how to make the perfect chocolate & vanilla cupcake, frosting, and fillings!

Once you learn the basic techniques to decorating & baking cupcakes, you can dream up any cupcake you’d like!

February 16th & March 1st

Posted in Cooking Classes | 1 Comment »

Bronwen Weber’s Sculpting Class

Sunday, February 3rd, 2008

This past week I had the privilege of attending one of Bronwen Weber’s cake decorating classes. As I said in a previous post, she is the owner of Frosted Art in Texas and is also a frequent competitor on Food Network’s Challenges. She is an amazing teacher and I would highly recommend taking any one of her classes…hopefully I will have the chance to take many more! This class was held at the French Pastry School in Chicago and was an amazing experience for me. The class was on cake sculpting, which was something that I had never really done before, so I was definitely excited, but also a little nervous. Each person in the class did their own cake and we had to finish both of them in 3 days…which might seem like a lot of time, but when you are sculpting a 2 foot dinosaur and a person’s head, time seems to fly by. Although everyone in the class completed both cakes, as you will see in the photos, we didn’t have time to put the finishing touches on them…like covering the cake boards and other details that help the whole cake come together, but nonetheless I hope you have a fun time checking out the photos and seeing how crazy the process is to make a dino out of cake.

As you can see in this photo, the whole cake structure was made out of PVC pipe, which as a pastry girl I really haven’t used to often. At least my dad is a plumber though, so next time I make a 2 foot dino I can get the PVC for free!

We covered the arms, legs, and head in modeling chocolate, which is basically just chocolate and a sugar substance like corn syrup or glucose and tastes somewhat like a Tootsie Roll. This is such a great technique to use since the modeling chocolate stays right where you put it and will not fall down…amazing! You can also mold it just like you would play dough and then it hardens slightly to hold its shape. Two places you can buy modeling chocolate are at Surfas Restaurant Supply or Pastry Chef Central. You can also make your own modeling chocolate. A recipe for that can be found at Epicurious.com.

After we covered the body with modeling chocolate, we stacked the cake onto the body frame and carved it into the shape of a dinosaur’s body…or at least we hoped it would come out that way!

Next we covered his body in buttercream. After he was nicely lathered up, we covered his arms, legs, head, and body in fondant. Right after we covered the dino’s body in fondant we had to work very quickly to make impressions into the fondant with our hands, so that we could add a life-like quality to him and give his body some definition. You can buy fondant at multiple places like your local Michael’s, cake decorating store, or online at places like The Baker’s Kitchen. You can also make your own fondant and you can find a good recipe at What’s Cooking America.

We then spray painted his body to give him even more definition. I had never spray painted a cake before so this was quite a learning experience.

And finally here is my finished dino cake. I really wish I had the time to add some rough terrain to the board to make it looked like a finished project, but overall I was pretty happy with my first sculpted cake. As you can see by the photo of my dino and I, he is quite large and so sadly I couldn’t bring him back with me on my flight to California. Come back soon to see the new cake…a chef’s head on a plate!