Chef of the Day (COD)

Chef of the Day or as the kids like to call it COD is our final project at school. We have to make 6 items and present them to our 3 chefs who then judge each item as well as our table set up. The items we have to make are:

A tart

A cake

A bread

A breakfast pastry

A chocolate

A plated dessert

It was a tough call - but a fun project. I think like any obsessive person I began thinking about this project the first quarter I started at school. I wanted something

simple and clean, using good local products if possible (although as it is winter quarter - there isn't a whole lot of produce available... and I don't know how a cabbage cake would work out...)

So my menu was:

Cake - A Honey Yoghurt Baklava Cake. Last quarter I tried making this cake that had this really tart, zesty mousse on top of a muesli base. It was pretty gross actually - so savory it was basically plain yoghurt on top of muesli. So I jazzed up the mousse a bit, added fireweed honey as my invert sugar used this amazing honey flavored greek yoghurt and added more milk chocolate to the mousse, and it worked really well.

Underneath that mousse I have a praline layer (basically

hazelnut, sugar and a smidge of salt), this layer melts, creating a type of syrup, rather than a crunch to the cake. It's the layer of caramel color that you see beside the cake. Under this there is a toasted sesame bavarian layer.I simply toasted sesame seeds, roughly ground them and then steeped them in hot milk for half an hour.Then there is the final layer, a roasted walnut sponge cake with a ed honey sponge.

I was really happy with this cake - it had the tang that I wanted from the yoghurt, the richness of the honey and the warmth of the sesame seeds and walnut.

Tart - An onion tart. This is a savory tart

made with a red wine onion confit (local syrah used), with a strong and seriously ripe muenster cheese, a creme fraiche custard, thyme and potatoes. It's a pretty pungent tart, made for small slices and best eaten when slightly warm.

Bread - the miche. This was such a beautiful bread - how could I not make it?

A breakfast pastry - Simple whole wheat croissants with a preferment. I love these croissants, so buttery, slightly sweet and slightly nutty. They are also slightly larger than your normal croissant (3oz as opposed to 2.5oz) which I have to say appeals to me as well. Just what I want for breakfast.

Chocolate - This is my beehive. It's a buckwheat honey ganache filling (the honey is from a local apiary) and a liquid honey center (which is simply

buckwheat honey). It has a milk chocolate covering. For those who don't really know buckwheat honey the descriptions I get when people smell/taste it are: horse, hay, farm. It's an incredibly earthy, natural taste which pairs brilliantly well with the warmth of milk chocolate.

Plated Dessert - This is a goat cheese cheesecake made with creme fraiche. It is covered in hazelnut toffee - so it has this earthy, nutty, crunchy texture/flavor. The sauce is a caramel blood orange sauce. The sorbet is a grapefruit and Gewurtztraminer (from a local winery) sorbet and it sits atop a rosemary sucree.

So that's it.

It's been so very draining, I didn't do a whole lot of baking outside of school because I was so intent on figuring out the baked goods for school.

Sorry once again!

Croissants - The First Batch

I know it sounds like the title of a rather bad horror film, but the croissants I made at home worked out all right. An insane amount of labor went into these guys with me laboring for an hour over the final sheeting (a sheeting is where you roll out the dough - usually with a sheeter) where I had to get the dough down to 3mm in thickness.

This is the recipe I used (I halved it though, and so everything in the recipe is on a smaller scale and done by hand). It has a lot of steps, but I've put it in here to remond me how to go about making these guys again.

Note: To make the beurrage, you beat the butter (with a rolling pin - usually a French one) between two pieces of parchment paper into a rectangle that is around 10mm (1cm) thick. I really should have some diagrams for this but I hope the photo's help!

Straight Dough Croissants
Full Recipe (I used half this makes a ton of croissants!)

Ingredients
4Lb 8oz bread flour
8oz granulated sugar
2oz fresh yeast (or 40% dry yeast - saf yeast?)
1.25oz salt
20oz milk
16oz water
2.5Lb butter (for beurrage block)

Method
Day 1
Heat milk to 80F and dissolve the yeast in the milk. Pour in the bottom of a 20 quart mixer.
Add flour, then salt and sugar.
Using a dough hook mix at first speed. Wait 3 min and see if all the flour has been picked up off the bottom. If not, add water.
Dough should be a little lumpy, you don’t want to over mix.
Flour a large bowl and round the dough and place in the bowl. Cover with plastic wrap.
Leave at room temp for 1 hour.
Refrigerate overnight.
Make the beurrage (either sheet it between two silpats into a rectangle at 10mm, or about the size of a 1/2 sheet pan). Refrigerate.

Day 2
Roll out the dough by hand so that it will fit the beurrage block in the center with the two sides of dough covering the butter like a door.
Place the beurrage in the center. Fold the flaps over so they meet in the middle of the beurrage.
Seal the edges with pressure from the rolling pin, as well as sealing the center the same way.
Sheet the dough with the middle closure parallel to the sheeter. Sheet until you can do a simple tri-fold on the dough.
Refrigerate 30 min.
Repeat step 4, but face the open end of the sandwich towards you (make sure to flour the bottom of the sheeter to prevent sticking and stretching).
Refrigerate overnight.

Day 3
Final sheet to 3mm thick (make sure to do width first, then length).
Use (see pictures below for croissant shapeing. Make sure to roll to 3mm thick, and each triangle should weigh 2.5 oz).