Krista’s adventure through culinary school

I found this picture from last week and thought I should post it.  On this day we were assigned different countries and had to create a dessert based on common ingredients from that country.  Our country was Thailand so we used ginger, sesame seeds, tofu, coconut and soy sauce.  Yes, I know, sounds like a crazy combination…it was, but they were all subtle enough that they worked.  We made a ginger infused pannacotta on a ginger cookie crust and mini coconut milk infused tofu pieces coated in coconut and sesame seeds then pan seared.  In the center is a soy sauce gelee to round out the dish.

Lemon grass, Pineapple, and Buttermilk…oh my.

These were our three ingredients to base our dessert on.  We had fun with it and made an upside down pineapple buttermilk cake paired with a lemon grass granita with lemongrass infused pineapple.  We plated with the inspiration of a beach scene in mind.  The cake was pretty delicious…it had a good flavor and was incredibly moist.  The sugar that we used with the pineapples gave the cake an extra delicious flavor.  I have been experimenting with white cake recipes and think I finally found one that I like.

It was one of the girls birthdays today, so after class we went to the dorm and surprised her with a princess pinata and cake…yes I said pinata!  It was quite hilarious as we watcher her beat it open all by herself.

Tomorrow we are having a class dedicated to all things cheese.  We each choose a kind of cheese and have to give a brief presentation about it.  We are also each making various accompaniments for our cheese such as cherry and walnut bread or semolina breadsticks…then we will sit down and taste about 20 kinds of cheese.  It should be interesting.  Til then…

These past few weeks have been packed…I recently finished up an intense plated desserts class, returned from a trip home, and now am in the second week of an easy contemporary cakes and desserts class.  We went through the frozen desserts such as ice cream, sorbet, semifreddo, and sherbet, which Seth and I played around with when I was home making pumpkin an vanilla ice cream.  For the first plated desserts class we made two plated desserts everyday and served them to those enjoying dinner.  This seems like an easy task, but each dessert generally consisted of two or three components that we were trying for the first time.  We finished the class out with a restaurant that we created a 5 course dessert menu based on an assigned theme.  Chef invited four guests and we(I was on a team of 2) were able to invite 1 guest each.  My partners parents were in town from NY, so she filled both spots.  Our theme was California Luxury Inn, so we could basically do anything we wanted.  It was a lot of fun to develop our menu, though time constraints didn’t allow us to test everything out before the opening night, so we had a few stumbles along the way.  Below is our menu:

It was so much fun and we learned a lot.  Unfortunately, the day of service, I didn’t really have time to think about taking pictures of our dishes, so I only got a few.  These pictures are of the Bourbon Cream and Caramelized Banana dish.

Just after class, I sped to the airport with Julie and Chris to get on a plane to MN(they were going to PA and we carpooled to the airport).  It was so great to be home again, especially since I hadn’t seen Seth since our anniversary in mid August.  We had a great time…did a few business things, baked a bit and cooked dinner together on Friday.  Saturday we ran the TC Marathon 5K then went to Golden Fig in St. Paul.  I absolutely love that store.  It is owned by a woman that sells her own items such as spice blends and oils and also sells other local, small merchants items.  Everything is local and delicious there.  Then for dinner we went to Craftsman Restaurant with friends.  The food was okay…I think the highlight of my meal was the pork rillettes appetizer and bourbon old fashion drink.

t

Sunday we met up with the Steinbach family to celebrate October birthdays.  It was good to see everyone..especially the little one who is growing so fast:)

Now, I am back in Napa and just finished the first week of Contemporary cakes and plated desserts.  This is a big change of pace from our last class.  We serve only one dessert at dinner and have been given a lot of freedom and free time to experiment.

This weekend, I went on a trip to a few bakeries in the area for cupcake sampling.  It was fun and we found some amazing cupcakes and one not so amazing cupcake.  Sift, a Cupcakery in Cotati, CA had the amazing cupcakes.  The cake was moist and delicious with a large variety of flavors.  They opened earlier this year..a husband and wife team…sounds familiar:)  We were there later in the afternoon on Sunday and there was a steady stream of customers the entire time we were there. Lisa and I also attempted to visit Muir woods, but the windy roads and fading sunlight, only allowed us to get half way to the bottom.  We stopped along the road for a quick look.  The air smelled like pine and the view was pretty amazing.

So…off to class.  It is market basket today…we are given a basket of three ingredients and need to create a plated dessert based on those items.