All posts tagged: Baking

Black Sesame Orange Tart

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What better to do with a Saturday afternoon than to hole up in your kitchen for several hours experimenting? It all started with my relatively simple idea to actually practice some of what I learn in school on my own time and in my own kitchen, but then as all ideas I have tend to do, it quickly snowballed as it encountered the semi-jilted feeling I had of not having my recommendation to use black sesame in an entremets be well received. One thought led to another, and before I knew it I was dragging three bags of groceries home filled with more butter and eggs than any normal person would consume in an entire week, and I was ready to go. Even when I started baking though, I can’t say that I really knew what it was that I would be making. I knew the elements and I thought of ways I might combine and shape them into creating one dessert…but it wasn’t until about an hour into the process that I had an ‘ah …

Coconut Mango Entremets

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Baking for my younger brother allows me the chance to reach into the crazy section of my creative side and try things and combinations that I usually wouldn’t try out on other people. I’m just going to come out and say it; he’s a complete weirdo. Since he is returning home from college this week, I decided to be a nice sister and bake something for him. This time my train of thought started out with a layer cake. Maybe I’ll make an exotic layer cake covered in coconut, I thought. Then I flipped to Miette’s Coconut Mousse Cake and thought maybe I would add in some coconut mousse layers… and then that led me to thinking about adding in some mango…and before I knew it, the idea had changed into an entremet with a never-before-seen liquid mango juice center. So I started in with my experimental creation–making a mango puree and simmering it with some simple syrup before straining it and putting the juice into some silicon molds. At the same time, I made …

Honey Matcha Castella Cake

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I told myself I wasn’t going to do any baking this week. I was going to avoid the kitchen in lieu of being productive and getting important things done in all the other areas of my life. And then the spark of an idea led to me tumbling down the rabbit hole–flipping through a handful of cookbooks and spending a solid hour furiously Googling subsequent ideas… Until not only was I in the kitchen, but I had about four projects in various stages spread across every available counter space as I vaguely listened to 30 Rock playing from my computer while sitting cross-legged in front of my oven, carefully regarding the cakes inside. Despite not understanding how the oven in my parents new house can simultaneously over and under cook the things I try to bake, my evening baking adventure turned out to be quite a success. Half following some recipes and half throwing in ingredients haphazardly like the rebel I am, I ended up with a Honey Castella Cake, Almond Matcha Mousse, Matcha Spread, …

Writing in Chocolate, Midnight Adventures and French Skills: Week 11 in the Kitchen

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“So…You do the opaline and the mignardise and everything else…And I’ll just be over here. Okay?” Sunday, I once again needlessly showed up 45 minutes in advance of my shift starting, and Stan and I had so little to do that he literally made the largest tiramisu I have ever seen while I slowly and calmly finished everything for the evening and then started on tasks for the next day. It was a win-win-win situation, as it allowed us to pass a calm day, me to learn more and become more independent in the kitchen, and everyone who works at Belles Rives to have an incredibly enjoyable staff meal that evening. So. The apprentice is scared of bananas. Like, not only does she not like eating them, but she doesn’t like touching them or looking at them. So naturally when Stan found out, he promptly left pastry and went and grabbed a banana from the cold storage room to put on the counter beside her. As the night went on, the banana remained in the kitchen—and …

Trials, Jokes and Translations: Week 10 in the Kitchen

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I think my team has finally figured out how weird I am. I’m finally comfortable enough to be myself. It has not been easy to find my personality while speaking French and while simultaneously beginning a new job and career in the kitchen. It has been hard to balance being myself with being a student and a worker and a foreigner and a new language. But I think the two/two-and-a-half month point has marked the change in me going from that-timid-American-girl-who-for-some-reason-smiles-a-lot to being simply Maddie. Just Maddie. And I like it. Sure, I’m a weird person—I make random noises and sometimes talk to myself in languages that the people around me don’t understand. I’m sarcastic and I roll my eyes and sometimes I swear a lot. I sing Korean ballads and English show tunes to myself while I work. But in the end, that is me and I am happy that even if my coworkers find me strange and unique, it is my actual self that they are getting to know and not the facade …

In the Kitchen at Château de Bégude

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Sometimes life throws you opportunities in ways you are not expecting. Last week I was invited by a friend to come watch the preparation of a wedding cake in her kitchen. Her chef was willing to have me, I had the day off—it seemed like all the stars were in alignment. A few days later, after a long week of working and returning home around midnight the night before, I woke up at 7:00am (after a maximum of 5 hours of sleep) in order to get myself together and be ready to spend another day in the kitchen. I woke up early enough to shower, and more importantly go find coffee, before Babette kindly picked me up—and soon we were pulling up at her hotel–Château de la Bégude. 9:30am and we are in the kitchen. I’m ready to get going, thinking that there will be a lot of mise en place and calculated running around as soon as we walk in the door. Wrong. To my surprise, after getting a tour of the kitchen and …