Salt & Straw

This Summer I have been craving ice cream more than ever and have discovered so many new companies!  The most exciting one so far has been Salt & Straw, a Portland based artisan ice cream shop. I love the homemade look of the packaging and the changing seasonal flavor options, they are so unique.  Most importantly, the quality of this ice cream is SO amazing.  The flavor shown above is the Sea Salt w/ Caramel Ribbons. So good.

 Clockwise: Ricotta Honey Lemon w/ Walnut Lace Cookies,  Pear w/ Blue Cheese, Freckled Woodblock Chocolate,  Olive Oil.

This flavor was my favorite! Almond Brittle w/ Salted Ganache. It's the perfect combo of creamy and crunchy.

Pastry Class: Cakes

On my last day of Pastry Class we made two different cakes and learned some very basic decorating techniques.  I am so sad this series is over, and even more sad that I have to wait for Pro Pastry 2 to be on a Sunday again.  In the meantime, I'm really excited about trying new recipes from the CIA book we were given in class. 

This is a Hot Milk Cake adapted from the Miette book.  It's a pretty standard white cake, but using a cup of milk allows the very wet batter to create a spongy cake.

We baked two cakes, trimmed town the tops and layered them with Italian (egg white meringue) Buttercream.  I made two flavors: Strawberry for the center and Almond for the Icing. While I did love how this turned out, I think I prefer regular buttercream to Italian, this was a little over the top, even for me.

I used these heart shaped sprinkles to cover up and imperfections in my side frosting job.  That was not easy!  One trick I learned was to coat the cake in a very thin layer of frosting first and stick it in the fridge to harden.  This will allow the rest of the frosting you put on to spread around more evenly. 

We also made a Chocolate Decedent cake that was pretty amazing.  We practiced slicing the cake in half here, look how well  I did! 

I used a basic dark chocolate ganache as a frosting, which I layered on thick.

It turned out really well.  I could put this ganache on everything. 

For More Recipes and Information Check Out The Gourmandise School 

Pastry Class: Cheesecakes

Week Seven of Pro Pastry I was all about Cheesecakes.  This was a little intimidating at first, but it was super fun and not too hard at all.  First we made our own graham crackers to use for the crusts of the cake.  Who knew this flavor comes from using molases?

Passion Fruit Cheesecake

You could use almost any flavor inside the cheesecake, you just have to be careful about how you incorporate it.  Using the passion fruit puree was very easy, just mixed in about 3 teaspoons and it really brightened up the cake. 

Chocolate Peanut Butter Cheesecake

This flavor was a little trickier since it's so dense.  I had to fold it in to a portion of the batter first, and then swirl that into the remainder of the batter. It was good but made the texture of the cake a little tougher, more like a fudge. 

For the Ricotta Cheesecakes we made our own Ricotta cheese which was also really easy.  It's just milk, cream and lemon juice! 

I really liked how these turned out, they are much lighter than the cream cheese version.  These mini cups also are the perfect portion.

I added some left over chocolate ganache, I couldn't resist...

For Recipes Check Out: The Gourmandise School

Pastry Class: Pâte à Choux

Week Five of Pastry Class was focused on Pâte à Choux pastries.  These were a little tricky, I definitely think this is one of those desserts you have to master over time to get just right.  Above are my Cream Puffs, some stuffed with vanilla pastry cream and some with caramel pastry cream.  The cream itself is so delicious you could just stop there and forget the pastry.  Stuffing them was not fun, I could have use two more arms, but again, practice makes perfect.  We dipped the top in a delicious chocolate ganache made with the 65% dark chocolate and whipping cream, so easy!

We used caramelized sugar to seal up the hole on the bottoms where we filled the puffs, but we were also shown how to stack the puffs to make a Croquembouche, a traditional French wedding cake. 

The inside of a Caramel Cream Puff. 

Some students also made savory puffs with cheddar and dill.

 We also made Eclairs, which is exactly the same as a Cream Puff, just a different shape.  These were tricky to pipe because you need to leave enough room for the filling.

They were pretty cute and just the right size for a little treat. 

For Recipes Check Out: The Gourmandise School

Grasshopper Bar

I always love anything mint chocolate so when I saw this Grasshopper bar at Tender Greens I had to try it.  

I was seriously amazing! The top layer was like a dark chocolate ganache shell, the middle mint cream was sweet and silky and the bottom layer was straight up brownie.  Delicious.