Whip, Whip, Whip

Dear Readers,

I apologize for not posting yesterday.  I had a mini emotional break down yesterday after school and decided to work and bake.  I am back on track and will cover Tuesday and Wednesday today.

Thank you for understanding,
QoT

So, another 2 days of baking awsomeness.  I love being in the kitchen.  Tuesday was pretty low key in the drama department, we had a number of items to produce.  As always, my young friend was an excellent partner and we were able to get everything done well.  It was the first day to use the stoves, so we were all a little nervous - it was funny.  I was the first one to the stove and was glad when my happy Houston friend came over just behind me so I didn't have to go it alone.  Those are some hot stoves, I want one at home.  We made pastry cream for the first of many, many times.  Mine came out better than it ever has before but I'm not sure what I did differently, but it was perfect.  I think the real trick is to whip the heck out of it.  While I was doing that my young partner was pressing in the tart dough that we made the day before and making scones with orange zest and dried cherries.  Then I scaled the ingredients for pie dough and started pulling the dough together.  At home, I make all butter pie dough, but at school and probably in the industry, we use half butter and half shortening.  Let me tell you, a giant box of shortening with a little scoop in it is just kind of nasty to me.  Really.  I just hate shortening, but understand the benefit of using it.  It is less expensive than butter and doesn't melt as fast, so you have more time to work the dough without it melting all over the place.

Tarts and Scones

Fresh Fruit Tart with Pastry Cream
and Scones with orange and cherry

After freezing the tart dough in the shell, we had to blind bake them.  That means you are basically blind to the bottom.  We have this cool food grade cling wrap that can actually be baked.  I was a little freaked out by that, but it is heavy duty, unlike the stuff we use at home.  We have a giant container of rice to use as weight for the dough which is nice because the rice gets in all the nooks and crannies.  After blind baking until the edges were brown, we took out the rice and finished baking the tart shell.  One the pie dough was in 2 discs, wrapped and safe, we re-whipped the pastry cream and filled the tart shell.  Then we got to slice strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, blackberries and cut orange supremes to decorate the tart.  My partner and I are perfectionists (imagine that) and it took us forever to decorate the tart.  At least we weren't the last ones finished.  It turns out that by having the strawberries point in rather than out, we made out tart look small - rookie mistake I guess.  Now we both know you want the fruit to look like it is exploding from the tart.

Chef was pleased with both items and other than the strawberries pointing the wrong direction, it was a good day.  I got home (pretty tired) and was barraged by all the disasters of manfriend's day without any "how was your day" or "how was school".  Now, I know who I am dealing with and he isn't a big question asker, but for some reason it really got to me and I started crying and crying and crying.  I couldn't even talk about it and feel like a bit of a wuss.  So, if you ever talk to me after school, please ask how my day was or what I made!  Thanks.

Wednesday was another full production day.  There was also a little drama with she who must not be named, but not too much.  I really don't know how Chef does it, but I think she feels about ready to lose her petunias.  I'll talk about that a bit later in the post.

My partner rolled out yesterday's pie dough for Key Lime Chiffon pie and Blueberry Pie with a Lattice top while I made the blueberry filling and scaled the key lime ingredients.  Once the key lime dough was in the oven and the blueberry pie was filled, topped and in the oven, we made buttermilk biscuits on our own - they will be on the test.

When making a lattice for a pie, it is best to create the lattice on a cardboard circle, chill it, then fill the pie and flip the lattice onto the pie.  Easier said than done as we were a bit nervous about it.  My partner did a great job flipping!  We trimmed the edges and popped it in the oven to bake forever.  Blueberry pie takes awhile to bake, especially since we have really been making items that bake pretty quickly - everyone was obsessively checking the pies.  Once the key lime shells were baked, we just let them cool.

We used shortening again for the biscuits - half butter and half shortening and I was grossed out again.  Biscuits are so easy, I love it.  The more difficult part was making them all the same size and perfectly round and smooth.  I like rustic biscuits, so that is what I make at home.  For school, they have to be perfect and over baked (according to me), just like the cookies.  Luckily, my organized little friend is on the same page, so we commiserate about the over baking on everything.  Not the best biscuit recipe, (even Chef agrees) but they came out nicely and up to standard.  The important part was learning the method.

Biscuits, Key Lime Chiffon, Blueberry Pie
of course my pretty biscuits are at the back,
so look at those.  ;-)

We made the Key Lime Chiffon pie filling with out partners and got a shoulder work out while doing so.  I used gelatin sheets for the first time today - they are pretty nifty if you need to use gelatin.  We made a mixture of lime zest, condensed milk and boiled lime juice with gelatin mixed in.  Then we had to make merengue - by hand with a balloon whisk.  Soft peaks, add sugar, medium peaks.  My partner and I switched off and got it done pretty fast.  My arms are tired.  After gently folding the merengue into the lime mixture, we filled and smoothed the pie shell.  Pretty easy really.  I learned more about folding today, especially that it is important to start in the middle of the mixture and fold out, then turn your bowl and go back to the middle.  Our filling came out nice and fluffy and Chef was pleased with all of out production items for the day.

Tasting.  The Key Lime pie was not very limey, the biscuits were ok, the Blueberry filling was DELICIOUS and I will be making that pie at home soon.  Tomorrow is our first test and we are all a little concerned about she who must not be named.  She didn't really carry her weight today and my happy Houston friend had to do most of the work.  Chef lit into her pretty well about that, especially after she told her partner that she was being lazy about something - at least we think that is what she said, but are hoping that her comment was just lost in translation.  She who must not be named has not made one thing on her own with out asking a billion questions and we aren't allowed to talk during the test (Chef reminded her many, many times today).  I guess we'll see what happens.  I'm not too nervous about the test, just a little because it is the first one and I don't really know what to expect, and I want everything to be perfect.  So, I'm off to work on FancyPants and then to practice making biscuits and to study my notes.  It feels really weird to be studying notes again.

Hopefully I will survive my test and live to bake another day.  Until then, ciao!
-The Queen of Tarts