Granny's Garden

This past week has been a little hectic. I had my finals at school - 3 classes and 5 finals which included two lab practicals and three written tests. But once the test taking madness was finished and I had all my finals under my belt I was offered a fantastic opportunity.

After class I was on Saturday I was asked if I would like to spend time volunteering in Granny's Garden.

Granny's Garden is an organic garden located at an elementary school in Loveland. I believe it is the only school in this area to have an agricultural program. I did not get an opportunity to meet the woman who tends the garden but I have heard many nice things about her. I believe her name is Roberta and she is "Granny" of Granny's Garden. The Garden has many types of vegetables, flowers, and raspberry bushes.

Granny's Garden has paired up with my school to turn the fresh produce into good eats. Right now it sounds like some of the chefs at the Art Institute will be catering an event for Granny's Garden using the some of produce that we harvested on Saturday.

I spent most of my time picking ripe raspberries. They smelled fantastic! I was very excited when I found I was able to take the raspberries home with me because they didn't want them to go bad. I also took home a head of lettuce, fresh dill, beets, onions, and a bouquet of fresh flowers. It felt great to help out. At the end of the two hours I spent there, aside from being pretty sure I was sunburned, I felt like I had spent time doing something important. I would really love to work with Granny's again in the future.

The Mystery Box and the Golden Spoon

In my Advanced Cakes and Classical Tortes Class we had a Mystery Box Challenge this week!

Contrary to popular belief I am not a Food Network watcher. I only catch it here and there when it is on. But I am told our Mystery Box Competition is similar to the show "Chopped."

Rules: You are given a container with mystery ingredients in it. Using those ingredients you must put together a plated dessert within the allotted time that can be submitted for judging

My Mystery Ingredients day one:
-Almond paste
-lime
-dried cherries
-raspberries

What I made: Cherry Limeade cupcakes - white cake with lime zest topped with a swirl of lime buttercream and raspberry cherry butter cream.

results: Epic Fail! The cup cakes did not turn out (i think it is because I had to use the almond paste in the batter) I also didn't get to use cupcake liners so not only did they not turn out but they wouldn't come out of the tray. This resulted in a sloppy plating which the judges deemed too sweet.

My Mystery Ingredients day two:
-almond paste
-apples
-dried cherries
-orange
-white chocolate
-coffee flavoring

What I made: I altered a almond cranberry coffee cake recipe to create a cherry apple coffee cake (I don't think coffee cake is a good description. I think it is much more like a pound cake. In my mind coffee cake is light and fluffy and this cake was very dense) I brushed the coffee cake with a orange glaze that i made from sugar orange juice and orange zest. The dessert was plated with a white chocolate sauce, coffee sauce, and Candie Orange peel as a garnish. I wasn't as pleased with my plating but it turned out far better than day 1.

Result: I took home the golden spoon! First Prize!

Can you blow out 102 candles?

June 9th was my Great Grandmother's 102nd birthday.

I was asked to make the cake which was exciting and nerve wracking the the same time. I suppose i should tell you that I am the first in my family to attend a school for baking and pastry but I am not the first baker. My great grandmother was an amazing baker and many of our favorite family recipes were passed down from her to my grandfather (her daughters husband) who then took up the baking cause. Until recently he was the go to baker of the Artisan Assassin clan. When I was asked to bake the cake I knew that, while my great grandmother would be happily content with whatever I put in front of her, My grandfather would be a hard man to please... He was an engineer before retirement, a profectionist by nature and (i think) secretly perturbed that he has been robbed of his baking crown.

Here is what I made: A two layer chocolate devils food cake with a ganache icing from the A.I. On Baking book. (this cake recipe always turns out. Favorite!) I know it sounds very plain and simple - because it is. But is is also delicious!

Here is what happened: Upon my mothers request and against my better judgement I only leveled on of the two cakes. This means that my layers were disproportionate. YIKES! as soon as a cut into that sucker I know my grandfather would say something like "Is this your signature make? that one layer is a half size bigger than the other." which is exactly what he said. He also made a comments about how the cake wasn't very decorative. Come on, really? its ganache... But my Great Grandmother (who hasn't eaten more than two bites of something since her mid nineties) ate her whole slice!

Rating: I think I got a "Meh, I could do it better" from grandpa and at "Yumyum great!" from the original Artisan Assassin.

Pick Your Own

On Memorial Day My Secret Agent Lover Man and I went berry picking at Stokes Berry Farm. Berry Picking is one of my favorite things. Last year we went raspberry picking at Stokes towards the end of the season and it instant became a hit in my book. Now it is the beginning of strawberry season and they expect the raspberries to be pickable at the end of this month. I picked about 6 and 1/4 lbs of strawberries in the hour that we were there. That is a little over 3 quarts and it only cost me ten dollars! That is a pretty damn good price considering when you buy them at the store they are usually four to five dollars a quart (don't quote me on that I'm guesstimating because I haven't been the the store in the last few days.)
so what did I do with my amazingly cheap and terrifically fresh hand picked strawberries you ask? I made jam! My first ever home made strawberry jam and my first attempt at canning all in one evening. I think it was successful too! so I should be able to keep this jam for up to a year if i don't open it!
Jam maikng and canning was really very easy. I was hoping to snap some pictures for you but my camera is out of commission. So I'll just give you a little step by step outline of what I did. When I was looking for information I thought the article on the pick your own website was most helpful - they can also help you find pick your own fruits and veggies near you!

- I picked my strawberries of course
- I washed and sterilized my jam jar - I did this with hot soap water and then I boiled the jars. This worked out well because you have to keep the jars warm so they don't crack when you pour hot jam into them.I let them stand in the hot water while I made the jam.
- Then I measured out my berries, washed and hulled them. I smashed my berries because I didn't want big strawberry chunks. (that was fun!)
- I mixed one box of pectin (pectin is a naturally occurring thickener found in fruit) with 1/4 cup sugar and mixed that with my berry mash and heated it to a boil. I added the remaining sugar and boiled that hard for one minute. I read that if you bring it back to a boil over medium heat it reduces the foaming the the top.
- once the jam was ready I pulled my jars out of the hot water and and dried them off. I filled each jar to 1/4" form the top and screwed on the lids tight.
- I boiled water in the large pot I used to sanitize the jars.once the water came to a rolling boil I submerged the jars and left them for 5-10 minutes (i started pulling them at five minutes)
- Then they cool. After about 30 minutes you will hear the jars "POP" and that means they canning was successful and they sealed properly.

And Presto! Home made strawberry goodness!