Krista’s adventure through culinary school

So…Lisa and I ventured to a few bakeries in the city…Boulangerie on filmore street and Tartine Bakery in the mission district.  The Boulangerie was amazing.  The store was so cute and their pastries were outstanding.  They had samples of their cream cheese danish out…seriously..the best danish I have ever had!  It was so buttery in flavor and crispy but still light.  Yum!  I tried their macaroons also..which I wasnt so impressed with..and brought home a palmier…which didnt have enough sugar on it..but…I guess you cant be the best in everthing:)

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Next we went to Tartine Bakery and we met up with Jen and Gaby there.  They got a lemon tart and something else that escapes my mind(must not have been that good!).  We got it to go and went to the park just up the block to enjoy.  There were SO many people there…and they were all so different.  It was great people watching…which I love!  We hung out til it started to get dark..and then went to delfina for pizza.  Their pizza was amazing!  It was crispy neopolitan style pie…with a great flavor and charcoal crust.  We were sitting outside along the sidewalk..and seriously…everyone that walked by said “this place has the best pizza in the city” as they walked by.  I ordered my own margharita pizza and took leftovers home! I definitely recommend visiting brite market just up the block from the park and next to delfina.  They are a local, family owned market specializing in local products.  They also opened an ice cream shop across the street that had the best salted caramel ice cream I have ever had!

So…the last class was all about gelatin…well mousse cakes.  They are actually pretty tasty and refreshing cakes, but not my favorite thing.  We also worked with ice cream cakes…which everyone loves!

This was our first cake.  It is made of coffee flavored cake, hazelnut mousse, coffee bavarian…and a few other textures and flavors.  I decorated it with a bit of chocolate decor….going for the circle theme:)

Next we made a pina colada cake…with pineapple cake, pina colada creme brulee, and coconut mousse.  The mousse recipe we were given was not so good…so we ended up with a not so beautiful cake.  Our last cake was an ice cream bomb with three layers…starting with a Calvados parfait with pieces of ginger cake, a spiced apple sorbet, and finally caramel ice cream.  It was pretty delicious!

And finally….we ended the class with a contemporary cake with 5 different textures and 3 different flavors.  I went with a snowflake and hot cocoa theme.  My inspiration started with creating a depression of a snowflake on top that would be filled with ganache.  This idea was a bit difficult and venturing into foreign territory….as I had to figure out how to create the depression and get the bavarian to release from the board it was on.  All in all…I was pretty happy with my cake.  I had a layer of spiced cognac bavarian with chocolate cake and a crispy florentine cookie then a layer of vanilla marshmallows suspended in  chocolate mousse.  The sides were finished with chocolate decor.

In our last class, we had a day dedicated to cheese.  We each chose a cheese and gave a presentation to the class about it, then we tasted them.  We tasted 22 cheeses in all….wow!  It was quite a day.  I have tried many of them, as I worked at the cheese counter at Dean and Deluca when I first got here, but it was a nice revisit.  I chose the Nordhollander, a Dutch aged gouda.  I discovered it while working at Dean and Duluca.  It has a rich butterscotch flavor and a somewhat crunchy texture due to the crystallized proteins.  I highly recommend it.