Pre-Cooking Time!

Today is the day I typically start all my shopping and pre-cooking for the 4th, so my favorite store Winco welcomed us with open arms this morning!

Last year we didn't really do anything to celebrate, as a matter of fact, I don't even think Flo was with us. We had just finished our camping trip, and he had went back to Long Beach, and I went back to Menifee with Emma. I think I created my "American-Style 4th of July" playlist, blasted it while my Dad and I bbq'd, cooked and drank about 15 lime margaritas (each!) to ourselves.

This year will be different, though. Although I really love and adore my parents, Flo, Emma and I are going to go to a good friend of ours house so Emma has some kids to play with, and we have some friends to wind down and relax with. I don't think they were expecting us to text them this morning with the list of things we're going to bring, but nonetheless, I don't think they're complaining either.

Contribution this year:

• BTR Slaw (making dressing today, adding to the cabbage on Friday night)
• Mini Cornbread muffins (baking on Friday)
• Honey butter (making on Friday)
• Celebration Jello Shots, which I found here on pinterest (making today)
• and some dry rub for the meats that they have, that of course, we'll be barbequing :P (been made, dry rub lasts forever!)

I'm really excited for this year, it's really the first year Flo and I can contribute to whoevers house were celebrating at.

Emma's all set with her American flag dress that were going to puffy-paint some silver stars on, and I'm almost equipped with my "Time to get Star Spangled Hammered" shirt, which I saw online, but was unable to order it in time, so I too, am puffy painting it onto a shirt!

We're all patriotic this year, so much fun!


When I complete all the recipes, I'll be sure to make a completion post with pictures...or I may just edit this post if I feel lazy. :p

<3
-C

Macaron Madnessssss

Okay guys, so I don't know what triggered this rampage; perhaps it was me looking at the pictures from week 1 in class with the raspberry macaron, but I haven't been able to get my mind off of macarons. I've been told that that's the spell they put on people, I'm a sucker, I guess. I had to do something about it. The raspberry ones were not made by me, but by my chef instructor who decided to take over the macarons as there was no oven space for 4 trays of macarons. I've attempted to make them in another class before, at least 3 times, attempted being the key word. They not only turned out horrible looking, but horrible tasting. I couldn't believe that all the hype over French macarons led to...that. A woman in my class at the time, told me not to base my opinion on macarons using the ones we made, due to the recipe not being a very good one, but to try a place in LA called Bottega Louie. I go to Long Beach often to see Flo, so I wrote it down thinking I'd give it a shot, but the spark never ignited.

After having one of Chef Annie's raspberry ones, I was impressed. I was impressed that I even gave them a 4th chance. I actually liked them, I guess it's always like that when someone else makes them (especially when that someone else is a trained professional.) I delicately ate one and moved on. It took two weeks, but that little French gift from God somehow entered my mind, and I haven't been able to get it out.

I began looking through pinterest the other day using the keyword "macaron" just to look at the endless flavor combos and beautiful bold and pastel colors they come in. I oohed and awed, but didn't consider making any because of my previous luck I've had with them. I looked and looked and looked. I looked for a few hours, tried to distract myself, looked for a few more hours, tried to sleep, woke up, went to Winco and bought almond flour. The deed was done, and now I HAD to do it.

I don't know what made me buy that almond flour, but I'm glad I did. FOR REAL.

I came home and made a batch of chocolate macaron's filled with a salted dark chocolate ganache.

I did a bit of research before hand, on tips for making macarons, and I believe it helped along with the tips I learned in school, but I think the key to them rests in 3 important steps:

1. get the almond flour as fine as possible. I threw mine in a blender, food processer, anything I could find to get it almost like powder. I'm not sure why I think this helps, but I do in fact, think it helps.

2. after piping the macarons, let them sit. forget about them if you can, and let them dry out before you put them in that oven. the outer shell has to get dry so the feet can develop in the oven.

3. use a convection oven. This goes for anything delicate, ovens have hot spots and uneven spots, no matter the make and model. Convection seems to be the only thing to get the heat evenly dispersed.

I watched anxiously throughout the process of my chocolate macarons, and I was actually pleasantly surprised with them, even after each step. the only thing is that I have to get the piping down right so there isn't a little lip  on the shell, other than that, it was great.

Another tip that I not only read about, but experienced first-hand is to wait to eat them. They will taste great freshly filled, don't get me wrong, but waiting to eat them until the next day is the best thing you can do for your taste buds. I, or my family, didn't have the patience to wait for 24 hours, so by day 2, there were 5 left, which I ate, which leads me to this opinion. They were so much better after aging. The wait is worth it.


They were so damn good, that I had to make more.

I came home from school today, and noticed Emma wasn't yelling, "Mommy's home!". I remembered that my mom and aunt had promised to take her to Chuck E. Cheese this afternoon, so, I sat there. I made something to eat and sat there some more. I got really bored, and then those sneaky macaron's crept into my mind again, and my body followed.

I had to make more.

I tried to think of a different flavor, a fruity one. I stepped outside to get inspired, and I saw our lemon tree being weighed down with ginormous vibrant lemons.

LEMON MACARONS.
bingo.

again, more success. that's all I can say really; that and: I THINK I'VE GOT THE MACARON BUG.


I look forward to making more.
and more.
and more.

Here's some pictures from my two days of macaron madness!









THEY HAVE FEET!





 

Emma helping me make the salted chocolate ganache


 

Finished Salted Chocolate Macarons

 





Finished Salted Chocolate Macarons

 

 







Station ready for the lemon macarons

 

 



Lemon Macaron shells


 



Inside of the lovely lemon macarons

 

 



               

Finished lemon macarons





SUCCESS!

The catering job at UCLA was a success! I was completely stressed out, but the help from everyone definitely helped me. Everything was amazing, and there was no "Plan B" put into action! I was also told personally by the cast and crew that everything was delicious on a whole new level, and was even asked for business cards. Here was the menu:

Friday:

• Bagels and other bread items for breakfast (this wasn't cooked by me as I got into LA at 3 AM the night before, breakfast at 5 was just unattainable.)
• For lunch, a Mexican style taco bar with cilantro lime chicken, spiced pork, and mango lemon beef. Sides of Spanish rice and salad were also served. Devils food cupcakes were served as a dessert and it was also a crew members birthday.

Saturday:

• For breakfast we did miniature pancakes on skewers with fresh berries
• Lunch today was lasagna. A total of 5 lasagnas were made, 4 with an Italian sausage and ground beef meat sauce, and 1 spinach and veggie alfredo lasagna for the vegetarians of the C&C. A fresh garlic bread was also served and honestly disappeared within 10 minutes of being sliced and plated.

Sunday:

• Only lunch today; baked garlic brown sugar chicken with a side of rosemary smashed potatoes that also were gone within seconds. A side salad was also served and roasted sprouts.

All in all, everything was amazing. This was my first time ever catering for a large group, and I was very pleased with everyone helping me and how the event turned out.

My special thanks:

• Joe Orlando, for making this whole catering event possible for me, and allowing Emma and I to stay in his house and use his kitchen to make all this food.Also for letting Gema, Daniel and I watch him film part of this amazing movie. Everyone, remember his name, he'll be receiving an Oscar very soon, mark my words.
• Jake Orlando, for calming me through all the chaos, and also picking me up and taking me back to the house. Your work and help definitely lessened stress, and I hope you know how much you really did.
• Susan Kline, for helping me that first day, since I was solo, and also for watching Emma the rest of the days so I wasn't stressing about her. She was in good hands!
• Gema Arreola, You calm me down, help me out and make me laugh all in the same time. I need you all the time!
• Daniel (Last name) you definitely came in handy! Thanks for doing a lot of foot work and dirty work that Gema and I didn't want to do, you're amazing!

Here's some pictures for you guys:

Day 1; C&C preparing their plates 

Day 1; Taco bar.

Chicken, pork, beef and Spanish rice.

Pancake faces!

Cooking the pork.

Extremely cheesy lasagna.

Day 2; lasagna. Almost gone by the time I took this picture

Veggie lasagna, also almost gone.

Baked brown sugar and garlic chicken for day 3.

UCLA

I have been asked to cater a 3 day event at UCLA! Flo's uncle goes to the prestigious school for film, and is filming a movie for class, and asked me to cater for his cast and crew! I couldn't have answered faster. I'll be leaving Thursday night so I can prep and cook for Friday, Saturday and Sunday! Gema and her boyfriend, Daniel will also be going to give me a hand with cooking and Emma...thank God for them and their help! Ill keep you all posted with the experience and pictures when I get back, I'm sure I'll be far too busy to post each day.

Birthday Prep

Well, The Em's turns 3 tomorrow. I'm so excited but so behind as well! My friend Gema came over today to help me get a bit caught up. Here's what we had to do:

1. Ice the butterfly cookies; I already baked them off last night, but it was time to try royal icing!
2. Bake the checkerboard cake
3. Ice the checkerboard cake
4. Make fondant
5. Make butterflies out of fondant
6. Hang paper butterflies

Doesn't sound like a lot, but it really was.

I am really grateful to have had Gema over.  I wouldn't have been able to make all that stuff on my own.

It was my first time doing a checkerboard cake, and it was extremely stressful. The recipe I used for the cake was extremely soft and fluffy, and so after letting the 3 layers cool, they almost fell apart when we put them together. Emma decided she liked the lavender color, so the checkerboard colors were lavender and white. I really can't wait until tomorrow until we cut that cake! I can't wait to see if it really came out like it was supposed to. Gema and I also made lavender buttercream to ice the cake with. It was truly delicious; just really rich and buttery. 

The original plan was an ombre rose pattern on the cake, but I liked the lavender so much, we just stuck to one color, and our rose tip went out of order mid-icing, so we had to switch it out to a swirl tip and start all over. The end result was really nice as well, all that was left was to make the fondant, and then the butterflies out of fondant, and I will glue them on the cake tomorrow after they've dried a bit.

The fondant was a whole other challenge in itself. Our microwave is currently out of order, so we needed an alternative way to melt the marshmallows without burning them. We originally attempted with the oven, but then switched to stove top, which did work. 

I love the fact that everything was homemade. It really made myself and Gema feel accomplished.

Here's some pictures:

Un-iced butterfly cookies

Gema and her swirl skills.

Swirly swirly.

This is one messy island!

Finished icing the cake!

Close up swirl.

Another task at hand; wrapping unusually shaped gifts.

Fluttering butterflies above the dining room table.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

I saw a quote on Pinterest the other day that I thought would be lovely to say at the dinner table tonight, but the family didn't do the whole 'what are we thankful for this year round-the-table' thing. It was pretty much once the last dish was put out, a race to get to them. Jeez.

Anyway, the quote was, and I'd like to share it with you all, while pretending that you're all sitting here with me, so keep that in mind.

"I'm thankful for the food before us, the friends and family beside us, and the love between us." 

Awe.


I'm not really allowed to 'touch' Thanksgiving yet...no one seems ready to hand the reigns over for the biggest food holiday of the year, but I was allowed to contribute. I admit, I procrastinated a lot on coming up with what I wanted to make this year. It couldn't be a pie, we have 8 already. An appetizer would get lost among one of the 16 side dishes were going to have, so that was a no also. A drink? Well yeah, but what does that show? And everyone is going to be drinking anyway...lame. and then it hit me: chocolate. We don't have any type of chocolate anything on Thanksgiving. That was it. I came up with my dish, a Chocolate Peacan tart, sometime after 10 last night, and went to Stater Bros to get the ingredients. I didn't want to wait until this morning for a few reasons:

Late night baking session

1. Who wants to go shopping on Thanksgiving morning? The parade is on!
2. Even if I did make it to the store this morning, 99% of their stuff would be gone because of all those other last-minute shoppers.
3. Tarts require baking, cooling, and baking again. I want this to be ready to go when everyone is finished eating, not later.
4. We have TWO 15 lb turkeys and a 14 lb ham. All of our ovens would be in use all day, so if I wanted to do it, I'd have to bake the tart in the wee hours of the night. (see my other late-night baking creation, and it's outcome in my post, "Sco-nonos")

After being so frustrated with my scones, it was a breath of fresh air that this tart turned out nicely.

It was good. plain and simple.

The finished tart. PS, did I mention it's all Ghirardelli?

I cut them into bite size pieces for on-the-go hands.

Here's some Thanksgiving pictures, from my family to yours.

"Come on down, mommy! The parade is on!" - Emma

"Cheese!"

My Mom, Dad and Uncle at the carving station.

My plate. Turkey, Ham, Rolls, Gulliver's Corn, Harvest Potatoes, Deviled Eggs and a Dr. Pepper

My Dad's plate. That's some steamy goodness.

Sco-nonos

Ladies and Gentlemen, as most of you know, cooking is about being able to learn your way around umpteen amounts of foods and infinite flavors, but please, please, please take my word for one thing:

WHEN A RECIPE CALLS FOR UNSALTED BUTTER, USE U N S A L T E D   B U T T E R!

I embarrassingly made this mistake, and trust me..that's what it was; a mistake.

I decided I was going to prepare some cranberry walnut scones so that we could have a Thanksgiving-esq breakfast. You've never heard of that before..you normally hear Thanksgiving dinner, or for us, a Thanksgiving 'linner' but no one ever has a Thanksgiving breakfast; so I figured they would be a nice light breakfast and set the mood for the day.


WRONG!

It was about 3:30 AM when I made the scones, and being extremely exhausted, I didn't really notice what kind of butter I used. The recipe obviously calls for unsalted, but if all you have is salted, then cut out the extra salt added into the dough. Yeah, well, I thought I grabbed unsalted butter, and I didn't, so not only was there a lot of salted butter in the dough, but I added the salt the recipe called for. I didn't even realize it until I tried them at the end, and to be honest, I gagged. There was so many things that went wrong with these scones, let me tell you.

The baked, nasty, clumped together scones

1. The salt. WAY too much salt.
2. I didn't check the oven I had preheating. I don't know why my family decides to leave foil with drippings from other meals in the oven, but they do.This drippings burn. When I opened the 400 degree oven, a HUGE cloud of burnt-smelling blackness escaped. Keep in mind it was about 4 AM at this point. I rushed to turn on all the fans and open the doors...imagine how mad my family, and our guest would be if awoken by the fire alarm.
3. I had already poured the batter into my scone pan and was getting ready to place in the oven when the whole smoke incident happened. Afraid of the smoke making them taste burnt, I began preheating the other oven, leaving the scones in the pan while it got up to temperature.
4. While the scones were waiting for the oven to be ready, the baking soda decided it wanted to start working, so they doubled in height before even getting in the oven.
5. Because they doubled in height, the top looked like one flat surface. I knew baking them like that would just make the tops bake together, but I was so tired, I didn't really care. (That's really bad, folks. Care about what you do, no matter what time it is.)
6. Well, that's exactly what happened...the tops baked together.
7. I took them out and attempted to put them on the cooling rack, 8 of the 16 crumbled before I could even get them out.
8. I finally got the rest out and instead of throwing away the crumbled ones, I tried it, and almost threw up.
9. I left the other ones to cool and went to bed, I figured they may taste different after being completely cooled.
10. When I woke up, my mom asked me if those were to eat for breakfast because she gave one to our guest...she gave one of those nasty things to our GUEST! I'm supposed to be a pastry chef, and she gave her one of THOSE SCONES. I was so embarrassed.

I ended up apologizing to her for having to eat those, and tossing the rest in the garbage where those suckers belonged. :}

Lesson learned, guys. Lesson learned.

"Sconay's"

For my birthday earlier this month, I received a bunch of gift cards to a local kitchen supply store, Kitchen Fantasy. I spent them all within a week, and I'm pretty sure I have enough equipment to open my own bakery...(I could always have more though.). I bought various things like different size cake pans, to a bunch of decorating tools I need. One item in particular has come into play in the house almost everyday, in some sort of way: a mini scone pan...or "sconay" as Emma and I say while playing around.

I first saw the mini scone pan in a King Arthur Flour magazine  that my teacher gave me, and I thought it would be cute to have, but do I really eat or make scones all that often? Like I do with all magazines, I circled the item and continued skimming. After looking through the magazine, I headed to Pinterest to get my hourly fix of the "Food and Drink" category. It seemed to me that there were a lot more scone recipes then normal, so I took it as a sign and decided to buy the dang mini scone pan, even if I only used it once or twice.

I felt a little guilty buying it, as the traditional way of making scones, and they way I was taught, is in a free-formed circle and cutting it into 8 so that they are all off by just a little. Using a specific pan to produce 16 perfectly shaped scones seemed to be cheating to me, and I know my teachers would kill me.

I took my 3 large bags from Kitchen Fantasy and put all my new equipment away, but that stupid pan kept calling me: "Make some scones, Claire...some scooooooones." So that's what I did. My family likes to buy super mini scones sometimes for breakfast, but it's a treat since it's so far in between, so I figured making them fresh would be even better. That was convincing enough for me.

My newly-acquired taste for pumpkin led me to do a pumpkin scone, and what's anything pumpkin without spice? I ended up making a pumpkin pie scone with a spiced glaze, and dang, they were good. I immediately lost all regret I had for buying the pan.

Pumpkin Pie scones after being glazed

Those dissappeared pretty fast, and my dad even took a few to some of his friends, they seemed to like it, so I'm glad.

Cream of Heath scones cooling

I usually try to bake something every day, or else I go through some type of withdrawal process, so within the next couple days, I decided to make a new type of scone. I found the recipe for a classic sour cream scone through pinterest, but changed the recipe a bit to my liking. I personally like cream scones, but I wasn't sure if everyone else would due to their lack of sweetness. I debated with myself on whether or not to add a sweetening agent, and right as I was going to place the batter in the pan, I chose to throw in some sweetness. I looked through our pantry and tried to think what everyone would enjoy. Cinnamon chips? No...not the right profile I was going for. Butterscotch? Na. Chocolate? Yeah, it would work, but it just seemed too plain...and then, I saw Heath bar chips. PERFECT! Everyone loves Heath bars, and its not as traditional as a chocolate chip scone. I threw a handful of the chips in and mixed them in, spread the batter in the pan, and popped it in the oven. About 10 minutes later I took them out and put them on a cooling rack. I decided not to glaze them, since they weren't meant to be overly sweet. I called my creation "Cream of Heath Scones" naturally.

I took a bite out of them and actually, didn't care for it. When I got the idea of "Heath" I was expecting the Heath flavor to be a bit more overpowering than it was. Oh well.

Emma was the first one to try them. She's my main tester since she's so unbelievably picky. I would consider it a "win" if I even got her to try it. She did, and she actually liked them...a lot. She had another before I took the tray around for everyone else to try. I watched nervously as everyone took a bite; I was sure that this one wasn't going to be a keeper. Everyone thoroughly enjoyed them, they insisted that the sweetness was at a perfect level for them. Which is good for me, I wanted them gone. That's what every chef wants. 

I guess my dad was now a believer of scones, and decided to try one at his job site today with some of the guys he works with. He must have felt pretty strongly about this particular scone, because he called me to tell me how disgusting it was, "It was hard and it was burnt around the edges! I mean the chocolate chips were okay because its chocolate, but the scone was disgusting." He continued to tell me that this sparked up a conversation with the guys about the scones I've been making at home, and how I have now been summoned to make a batch for him to take to work on Saturday for him and the guys. He said there's one guy who seems more interested then the rest of them, and constantly asks my dad when he's going to bring something else of mine. I guess he told him about my Pumpkin ones, and the guy expressed how much he LOVES pumpkin pie, and yet, my dad insists that I make the Cream of Heath scones for the batch he takes to work. I'll be excited to hear what they have to say. Hey, its 'networking' isn't it?

T-minus 6 Days

I never thought I'd ever be saying "I'm a mother of a 3 year old." let alone saying it so quickly. Yeah, Ms. Emma Delaney turns 3 this upcoming Monday. How time flies...

She completely comprehends what a birthday is, trust that, but she's trying to get her head around what a 'theme' is. I've always been one to do themes, or try to at least. With her being only two, I kind of figured that I had to guide her in the direction of what I believe she would enjoy. Honestly, she probably wont care what it is, as long as there is cake and presents.

I first envisioned her party (which isn't much of a party, no ones coming over, so it's just the same 7 people she sees every day.) with the theme of Dr. Seuss' The Lorax because for the longest time, that has been her favorite movie. She liked the Lorax idea, and then wanted a Disney Princess/Lorax party, before switching to a Jack Skellington theme. Almost giving up, I tried to explain to her what "general/generic" means, a more broad theme perhaps. It was then that we chose our final theme:

Butterflies.

Butterflies. Perfect. Me, being a closet-pinner and using Pinterest as a go-to for almost anything, already had it planned out within 10 minutes of her final answer. Since baking and pastry is my field, it's only natural that I prepare all the food, snacks, drinks and most definitely her cake. I've decided to do a beautiful lavender ombre rose cake with fondant butterflies scattered on the roses, and a royal icing "E" to top the cake off, also with a butterfly perched atop it. I'll also be baking a lot of butterfly sugar cookies and testing my new obsession with royal icing by decorating them with it.

As far as decoration, I've been spending my off hours cutting hundreds of paper butterflies with a hand punch I bought at Michael's. I'm going to string the butterflies into fishing line (6/strand) and hang them all through the house, so Emma is literally underneath a sky of butterflies. It should be really cute. If anyone else has any suggestions, please let me know. If not, I'll be sure to post pictures of all the prep work and the actual party, so keep tuned in!