Grace Cooks!

I'm a girl who loves to cook, bake, of course EAT, and now grill and decorate cakes! I'll be sharing recipes that I have made and my thoughts and feelings about them. I am also here to answer any food-related questions you may have!

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Kitchn Baking School Day 18-Dessert Sauces I have made many a ganache, but not really too many others. I had egg yolks left from the macaroons, so I decided to whip up a creme Anglaise. Egg yolks, sugar and milk. It was good, no clue what I'm gonna use it for yet though. Suggestions are welcome, cake today!

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Kitchn Baking School Day 17: Cookies I. Love. Cookies. I think I have made every cookie imaginable, except for macaroons. So...thy time has come. Only a few ingredients: coconut, egg whites, sugar, almond extract and salt. They were quick, easy, sweet and delicious! The coconut was sweetened with sugar added, but they weren't cavity enducing.

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Kitchn Baking School Day 5-Sourdough Breads

I know I’m like super late with this one, but sourdough starter takes 5 days, and I had another setback so I couldn’t actually make the bread itself. I actually don’t like sourdough bread, so I briefly thought about skipping this week but I at least made the starter.

These pics are from each day that I made it. It’s basically equal parts flour and water, added a little each day and giving it time to ferment in a warm place. That time allows yeast to form and it bubbles and grows over time. I had to take it home for the weekend, and my mom decided to name it Ralph. Sadly on my way back to school, Ralph decided to open and stain everything. The starter was very sour, I thought it tasted horrible and because of the explosion, I didn’t have enough starter to make the bread and don’t have the patience to make the bread. I did get the starter done though, so here it is! Now I can end yeast week, officially.

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Kitchn Baking School Day 16-All About Sugar and Baking

This is the final week (sadface), and it’s all about sugar!!! Sugar is an extremely important ingredient in baking, but I didn’t know it was this important. I always figured it was there for sweetness, but it does so much more than that. It helps keep goods from drying out, it can provide crunch and texture. It makes soft, chewy goods tender, and keeps drier goods tender. Sugar also builds structure, whether creaming it into butter to make cookies or with egg whites to make meringue, like we did back in Egg Week. Under heat, sugar provides color to a creme brulee, or a garnish to snowy sugar cookies around the holidays. Simply put, sugar is awesome stuff! There are so many different types too, but I’m only going to discuss what I have in my kitchen.

Granulated Sugar-also known as white sugar. The most common variety, highly refined and used in almost every baked good. If a recipe simply states “sugar”, this is what you want.

Powdered Sugar-also known as confectioner’s sugar. Dissolves very easily, common in glazes and frostings.

Brown sugar-I have both light (left) and dark (right) in my kitchen. Dark has a higher molasses content to it, is all. I love brown sugar on its own. Many use them interchangeably, but I prefer to use light in most cases. Some cases, i.e. apple pie around Thanksgiving, I use dark. If a recipe does not specify light or dark brown sugar, I usually use light.

There are so many exciting assignments this week, and I can’t wait to really crack!

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Kitchn Baking School Day 15-Croissants

Confession: The only croissants I have made before this day have been in those blue tubes where you pop them open, tear along the preforated edges and roll up. After I overworked the puff pastry dough though, I felt I had something to redeem. The dough process was very similar to puff pastry, but had the addition of yeast to make them puff up and rise.

I began with a poolish, which is basically a mini-dough to give it a more yeasty flavor. The rest of the dough-making process was very similar to the puff pastry process, so I’m not going to speak much of it. I rolled them up with some bittersweet chocolate tucked in, which I definitely should have chopped finer. It was a bit clumpy, didn’t melt enough and burned. I also put on too much egg wash and had them too close to the top of the oven, so they got much darker than I thought. They did taste good though, nice and light like a croissant should be.

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Kitchn Baking School Day 13-Rich Yeast Breads and Sweet Breads

I know I’m a bit late, but I was really busy yesterday and bread is less forgiving than other stuff. That said, here I am now!! Rich yeast breads are set apart for their use of eggs, sugar, fat and/or dairy. Examples include brioche, cinnamon buns and challah. They tend to be softer, less chewy and more flavorful. They also make fantastic French toast and bread pudding, from what I hear.

I made challah for this assignment. I used to attend a summer camp under Jewish ownership, and those are the only times I ever had challah. I love the stuff though, even though it has been 7 years. Challah is similar to brioche, not quite as rich since it's made with water and oil. Oil though is mainly for kosher reasons. Although I am not Jewish and do not keep kosher, but I used oil anyway.

Braiding the challah was nowhere near as hard as I thought it would be. I decided to go with the 6 strands, because I’ll probably only make challah once. The final result came out a little under, but I was running late to my next obligation so whatever. The bread was so soft, but I have had much better challah before. I think French toast or bread pudding might be in my family’s future this week. ;)

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Kitchn Baking School Day 12: Basic Yeast Breads

I have made bread several times before, so I wasn’t really nervous. It just took so damn long!! The dough took 8 hours to rise, followed by another hour after that. I made it up before I went to class in the wee hours of the morning, and gave it ample time to rise. Then I had to oil it and then let it rise another hour, let that yeast work its magic!! Then they had me put a big pot in the oven at 450 degrees, which I thought was odd. Yes, that is the vessel you are baking your bread in. Gather it into a smooth ball (like a baby’s bottom) and bake it for 30 minutes with the lid on, then 15-20 off. I had a slice with some mushroom soup, and the bread was great!!! It was crunchy on the outside, soft and chewy on the inside. The soup was good too, very flavorful! My mom would have loved it (don’t worry Mom, I have leftovers!). I want to marry this bread, I freaking love it!!! Sweet bread tomorrow, yay!!

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Kitchn Baking School Day 11-All About Yeast & Baking

This week is focused on yeast. Out of the 4 ingredients, this is probably the one I use the least. It’s a great ingredient though, otherwise we would have flat bread. I used active dry yeast, because it’s what my crappy grocery store sells. Yeast is a really sensitive ingredient though, and needs to be treated with care.

My assignment for today was to proof yeast, which I have done before so it wasn’t intimidating. First, start with warm water. Yeast is happiest between 70 and 80 degrees, but you can go as high as about 110. Yeast is dormant in cold water, and boiling or hot water will kill it right off the bat. So like Goldilocks, the water needs to be “just right”. Adding sugar to the yeast feeds it and helps the bread rise faster. Simple sugars ear much easier to break down than the complex sugars in the starchy flour. This creates bubbles, or if I may, allows the yeast to burp. This is good (note the bottom right picture).

Salt is not good for yeast. I actually once swapped the two by accident in proofing, and by dough did not rise like it should have. Salt, however, does play a role in bread so don’t omit it. Fat being added to bread produces a better rise and crispier crust. Dairy will slow down yeast activity.

I have also done this: do NOT eat raw yeast dough. Your stomach will feel bubbly and icky, and you don’t want that. Trust me.

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Kitchn Baking School Day 10: Puff Pastry I know I'm super late with this, but I was so afraid of making puff pastry! It is extremely labor intensive and delicate, two things I don't deal with very well. The picture on the left is the lean dough: flour, water and salt. I had to layer this with a 4x4 block of butter. Chill them both separately, fold the butter in, turn the dough twice, chill, turn 2 more times, chill again, turn 2 more times chill again...it takes a long time!!! Luckily, everything came out really great!! My mom said she wanted palmiers, so that’s what I made. They were pretty simple. Roll out the puff pastry, put some raw sugar in the middle, roll them up, cut and bake. They were delicious, sweet and crunchy and flaky. My mom liked them too. My dad is also a cookie monster, so they’ll be gone by Wednesday.

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Kitchen Baking School Day 9-Pâté Brisée Ahh, more big scary French terms!!!! Don't worry, it's only pie crust. I usually only make 1 pie a year, and I am embarrassed to admit that I often take the store bought route. Hey, I am thankful for Pillsbury. I don't have a food processor or a pastry blender at my ghetto apartment, so I had to cut the butter into the flour. This is were you want cold butter, because flaky pie crust is the reason for living. Right, mom? Anywho, I made a double crust and froze it for later use. I am eager to try lattice crust for thanksgiving this year!

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Kitchn Baking School Day 8: Pâte Sablée

I know French names are intimidating, but this one is super easy! This is a shortcut pastry, and is the sweetest of all of them. Why is it so sweet, you may ask? Because it has the addition of powdered sugar to the dough. It also adds an egg yolk.  Pâte sablée is most commonly used for a tart shell. You’ll see a tart come out of my kitchen later! ;) Unlike with a traditional pie crust, you start with softened butter. “But Grace, you said pastry dough should have cold butter so it’s flaky”. Yes I did, but this is an exception. We need to incorporate the butter and sugar into the dough completely, so this is why we use softened butter. It also chills before you roll it, so it will get cold again for you soon enough.

Captions in pics, have a great day!!

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Kitchn Baking School Day 7: Buttercream I didn't even break a small sweat over this lesson!! I have made thousands of cupcakes in my time, so buttercream is something I am very familiar with!! I didn't know that there were so many different types though!!! The lesson listed 6: American, Swiss meringue, Italian meringue, French meringue, German and Cooked-Flour. American is probably the most common one, I've made it like 100 times. That's also what I did today! Butter is the bulk of a buttercream, as the name suggests. It gives the frosting structure, which allows it to be piped of spread thick. Sometimes you will see a frosting made with shortening and butter or all shortening. Shortening makes it more stable and prevents it from melting. Cream cheese frosting is a whole different type, since it has a stronger flavor. Anyway, onto my homework. I made an American buttercream and flavored it with salted caramel sauce, which I will use in a later project so stay tuned! More details in the pics!

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Kitchn Baking School: Day 6-All About Butter & Baking

This week’s lessons are all about butter, which is a super important ingredient in baking. It makes frosting creamy, pie crust flaky, and provides structure to other baked goods.

You notice in this picture that you see two different sticks: salted and unsalted. Which one should you use in baking? There is one answer: unsalted. But then why do baked goods often call for salt? Control. Depending on the brand and stick, there could be a varying level of salt to butter. If you are going to use salted butter (which please don’t), then check the salt level before going on. If it’s less than a teaspoon, just leave it out. If the recipe doesn’t call for salt (i.e. buttercream), then use unsalted. A salty buttercream would be...yucky.

Temperature is also a very important factor in butter. A lot of times, a recipe will call for softened butter, i.e. for cookies, cupcakes or frostings. You want your butter to be soft so it creams well with your sugar and the fat is more evenly distributed that way. The best way to do this is to leave it out at room temperature for at least an hour. Some people will warm it up in the microwave, which is not good because some of it will melt and it won’t hold air as well. If you forget to take it out of the fridge, then cut it into smaller pieces or flatten it with a rolling pin. When you’re making pie dough or biscuits, you want your butter to be cold. If your fat is not cold, then your pastry will not be flaky. You should be able to see pieces of butter in your butter, and they will melt while baking and create air pockets. One good way to do this is to freeze a stick of butter and then grate with a cheese grater.

This week, I’ll be making buttercream, pate sablee, pate brisee and puff pastry. I’m very excited for this week, but a bit nervous for puff pastry.

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Kitchn Baking School Day 5: Souffle I have never made a souffle before, and I decided to go savory because all these desserts are gonna make me fat!!! Anyway, so it wasn't really hard at all. Just whip egg whites like I've done before, make a bechamel and add egg yolks, and then bake. It browned beautifully and rose nicely as well. Best of all, it was delicious!!! Creamy and eggy and puffy, I would totally do it again!!! Sadly for me though, that's a wrap for egg week. Next week, bring on the butter!!

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Kitchn Baking School Day 4: Meringue

I have made things similar to meringue before, so I wasn’t overly intimidated by this assignment. It’s just a very nitpicky process. These are French meringue cookies. Getting the oven to such a low temperature, whipping them forever (with a hand mixer, nonetheless), and I had to pipe them out without my bags and tips. They did come out right though; crispy on the outside, chewy on the inside.

More details in the pics!!

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Day 3: Pastry Cream

This was like making vanilla pudding, except better!!! Egg yolks supply the fat and creaminess in this, and it was absolutely delicious!!! I almost believe in pudding again after making yhis

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I decided to combine lessons. I took the choux pastries from Tuesday, fill them with the pastry cream, and top with chocolate ganache. It was quite tasty, almost like Boston cream pie. The next question is, what do I do with the rest of the chocolate?