Monkeys at the Zoo

Wednesday was lamination day. Which would be fine, I'm sure, if I knew what that meant. We were supposed to learn this in our Baking Basics class but my chef instructor chose to skip that lesson. Everyone else in our class was talking excitedly about using "the sheeter". I was told we were never to touch that thing. After explaining my shortcomings and those of my partner (she was also in my basics class) to our instructor we proceeded to lab. So, although super intimitading sounding, laminating in just making a dough, pounding a big block of butter, laying it on half the top, and start rolling. Then, fold it and roll it again. After about 5 folds it's off to the sheeter. This is like a giant pasta machine and makes your dough into wonderful thin sheets. When this proceedure is finished you have a dough that has thin little layers of dough and butter. This is how you get puffed pastry and if you add yeast, danish dough. Even though we had never done this before, somehow we got done first. Shocking, i know. We made bear claws, a giant warrior princess necklace (not its technical name), big pinwheels, and big braids. We were really having fun making all these crazy shapes. We borrowed pastry cream from the across the table neighbors. He is the anesthesiologist and his partner is the singer (she hums constantly through class). I joined in today in a chorus of some song. I think it shocked her because I was quite loud. I completely cracked myself up. We cooked down some cherries and sugar to add to these creations. I mean cooked down--I forgot about it on the stove but it ended up delicious. We popped these babies in the oven with a sense of pride. First in the oven! What was taking these morons so long? Being newbies no one told us that the dough had to be nearly frozen before it went into the oven. No one mentioned that the butter melts to the bottom leaving a mutant layered crazy looking warrior princess necklace. The pinwheels were not spinning a happy dance. They looked like melted starfish.

We were careful with the puffed pastry. We had learned our lesson. We shaped it into little swirly cookies filled with cinnamon sugar. They were lovely. And really hot. That did not occur to Captian Obvious when they came out of the oven and I jammed one in my mouth. Well, I promptly spit it out into my hand after making a huge fool of myself. To make matters worse a tour had come by and watched the whole thing through the big plate glass windows. We are like monkeys in the zoo when those tours come by. I was laughing so hard at my complete imcompetence that I then made a bigger fool of myself. Just then my partner put her tray on a cooling rack but unknowingly pushed out a tray of baclava face down on the floor. Can anyone say "morons"? We are quickly becoming the go-to pair for what not to do in class. Somehow though our teacher still really likes us. Everyone needs a little comedy relief now and then, I guess.

It was dessert sauce day in Soup/Sauce class day. We rocked out chocolate syrup, ganache, caramel, butterscotch. We knocked out a bunch of stuff plus a batch of awesome sugar cookies by noon. We were all very punch drunk from all the sugar. Everyone was like a menopausal women--hot flashes, flushed cheeks, and bordering on very edgy by the day's end. But the day's end was at 3. Worth the sugar crash for sure!