Banana Cream (Creme?) Pie; My Oh Friggin My

We all remember how my Frangipane Tart came out, right? Brown with a frown. Apparently my parents thought it was so great they are requesting for it again. Hmmph. I decided to conquer a different recipe.

I read a random blog somewhere that positively raved about Tartine in San Francisco (of course) and stated the best dessert item she bought was the Banana Cream Pie. To be precise, she said it was "stellar". All the different layers and textures all result in one big orgasm in your mouth. And you know what? She was absolutely right.

The Layers:

Flaky tart dough
melted dark chocolate
melted caramel
pastry cream
sliced bananas
whipped cream
dark chocolate shavings
powdered sugar

I had to make basically everything from scratch except for the bananas lol. My boyfriend had a great time test tasting all the ingredients individually...OH the caramel. It was like the best caramel I have ever had...like all the Werthers caramels melted into a pot. MMM! And the pastry cream was so creamy - - a vanilla bean dream, for sure. I gave a few slices to my best friend Debbie and her boyfriend Vinnie and they literally did not even sit down to consume all of the pie. That exact moment is what every baker tries to accomplish with each recipe = success.

At this very moment, the 76 Vega is going through some intense surgery. All the wires are being cut, everything is getting removed for a completely new everything. I really should be out there assisting but it's just so hot here in Arizona.

Have a beautiful Saturday everyone! If you have any questions about the recipe or want a copy, please let me know!

Frangipane Tart; Not My Expertise

A most traditional French tart that calls for a filling composed of ground almonds, pastry cream and a little bit of eggs to hold it all together. There were two versions for the filling: Frangipane Cream and Frangipane Cream Variation. I opted for the latter due to my lack of ingredients at the time. The variation did not call for pastry cream and stated that it had a more cakey result rather than gooey. I really wished this recipe had a picture, I was not too sure what it was supposed to look like! The instructions stated that I needed to bake it on 375 for 1 hr 20 mins but within the hour, the top was browning quite a bit. So I covered the tart for the remainder of the time and this is what it came out to look like:

Tartine said the fruits that work best with frangipane filling are the juicier ones that have a bit of acidity in order to balance the nuts and richness in the cream. I chose delicious raspberries to complement the burning hot and miserable summers here in Arizona.

As you can see, I have tried a slice. The taste was nice because it was not too sweet, had a soft almond flavor and the raspberries did a great job at hiding the grainy texture (I think I grounded up the almonds too much and it became too pasty...which Tartine instructed me NOT to do)

Oh man oh man oh man. I start my full time job as an academic advisor so soon...which means I will work 40 hours, attend baking class 2 days a week and bake at least 2 Tartine treats a week in order for me to loosely achieve my goal. On top of that, my boyfriend and I start renovating our 1976 chevy vega TODAY (!!!) and that's going to take some elbow grease as well.

Isn't it so pretty?

Wish me luck...whoever is reading this...

The Cookie with Way Too Much Chocolate!

Aka Deluxe Double Chocolate Cookies. This was one of the recipes I just wanted to get it over with due to my recent newfound laziness. The recipe called for 8 oz of melted bittersweet chocolate and lots of cocoa powder! I went to my neighborhood Fresh n' Easy store and could only find organic dark chocolate so I settled with that. To be honest with you I am so not a dark chocolate fan so I just used these decadent cookies to sandwich Breyer's mint chocolate ice cream in between them (MMM!).

Here they are:



Tomorrow is baking class from 5:00pm - 9:20pm. We are scheduled to make Rose Levy Beranbaum's All-American Chocolate Cake. I've been wanting to snap some pictures during class but I'm not sure how they will feel about it...

A Tart-eeny Shortbread

This is one of those recipes that most people can do right then and there. It was awesome. This particular shortbread called for unsalted butter, cornstarch, a-p flour, salt and sugar! Since this was my first time to have ever consumed Shortbread, I really don't have much to compare it to...especially if it came out appropriately. All I can say is that it was delicate, melted in my mouth and was like a really really soft sugar cookie.

On a more savory note, a really nice customer from the coffee shop brought in fresh basil from his garden. I adopted it and gave it a good home. My belly. Here is what happened to the basil:


Got some very good use out of it and made a tomato-basil pizza with mozzarella and parmesan cheese. Mmm-hmm. I burnt my thumb while getting the pan out...Aloe vera did not help much. In fact, I think it made it sting more!

Tip: Wear oven mitts...when handling hot objects that come straight from the oven...seriously :(

Bread Pudding Flop :(

Bread pudding. If done correctly, it will taste moist, soft and absolutely succulent. Oy Vey. You know, I thought I followed the directions very clearly on this one. How hard could it be with so little ingredients? Milk, eggs, sugar, vanilla, salt and brioche. The consistency was nice but it had a bit of a sour taste to it. It was probably from my not so A+ Brioche that I had made previously.

I don't know if I have mentioned this yet but I started school at the local community college. It is called FON118: Commercial Baking Techniques. I'm happy that I'm taking it now so by the time winter comes around, I hope that my expertise level has risen at least a little bit. And maybe in the future, my bread pudding will be edible.

Brioche; A Success? For the Most Part.

So these are the Brioche loaves. What do you think? I think it looks pretty nice after all the trouble I went through. I did run into a little trouble during the final phase of rising.

When I finally shaped the loaves into the pans and placed them in an oven with a bowl of steaming water for about 2 hours...I made the egg wash. Right when I touched my pastry brush onto the surface of the dough, it immediately DEFLATED!!! It looked so weird...as if it lost all of its life and died in front of my eyes :( I asked my teacher last night what it could have been and she said I probably proofed it too long...

I will have to look up the definition of proofing.

Proofing (also called proving) is a step in creating yeast breads and baked goods where the yeast is allowed to leaven the dough. This step is not often explicitly named, and normally shows up in recipes as "Allow dough to rise".

Hmmph. I plan to make some bread pudding out of this lovely Brioche bread this evening. Can you say...soggy bread cake? Mmmmm!

Please Defrost Brioche

Hello.

This past week has been extremely hectic. What with the many reflections on my life, my boyfriend and I enrolling back to school and birthday family get togethers. I actually put together the Brioche dough with much ease this past Friday. I poured the dough into a shallow air tight container and planned to resume my work today.

Unfortunately, I was supposed to transfer the frozen dough to the fridge to defrost overnight but due to a hectic Saturday, I did not even remember falling asleep at my boyfriends' house. The dough has been defrosting since this morning and it is still rock hard in the middle.

Just spent about 15-20 minutes scraping off weird sticky dough on my kitchen counter and have decided to watch He's Just Not That Into You to take my mind off of it.

I hope tonight will be a more interesting post. See ya later!