Gourmandise School Pastry Class

  

This month I started the first level of the Pro Pastry Program at The Gourmandise School in Santa Monica and I LOVE it! I have already learned so much not only about baking and chemistry, but also about the history of the food industry.  My teacher is amazing and so far everything we've made has really turned out great.  This photo was from the first class where we talked about chocolate. We tasted several different percentages of chocolate, pure cocoa nibs and even cocoa butter (the white block in the middle) which was revolting.  I think my teacher might love chocolate as much as I do...

 Cheddar & Chive Biscuits, Lemon Poppy Seed Cake, Carrot Cake with Pistachios, Blueberry Muffins

 Triple Chocolate Brownie Cookies

Homemade Toffee

Toffee Chocolate Chip Cookies

Dark Chocolate Brownies (severely undercooked and OUT OF CONTROL amazing)

"Lemon Bars" shaped as a cake, with Vanilla Meringue

I never like lemon desserts, ever, but something about this really stood out to me!  Maybe because we used very sweet Meyer lemons, but this was seriously an amazing dessert.  

The crust was salty and fluffy and filling was dense and sweet.  I was super excited to use a torch on the meringue!  

Simple Things Mini Pies

These mini pies from Simple Things are so cute and tasty! I picked up one of each flavor, which included: Blueberry, Cherry, Lemon, Keylime, Peanut Butter Chocolate, Banana Toffee and Chocolate Mud Pie. I love this idea of mini pies, because I always feel overwhelmed by a pie's filling, especially when it comes to fruit pies. This was the perfect portion! Even though they are small, they are packed with flavor. The blueberry was like a fresh muffin, the peanut butter like a Reeses, and the mud pie like a molten chocolate cake. My favorite, however, was the "Banoffee". The toffee creme filling was dense and gooey which was a nice contrast to the crumbly graham cracker crust. Right in the middle of it all, under some whipped cream, were some banana slices. It was SO amazing, that one I would eat in a full size..