Caramels and Toffee

I received several requests for the caramels and toffee that we made in sugar class a few weeks ago. Someone even suggested they wanted to make some and give them out for teacher gifts this holiday season. I am posting 3 recipes below. My apologies that they are measured out by weight and not by volume but that's how we do it in culinary school (and most stores and restaurants). Enjoy!

Creamy Caramels
Source: Advanced Bread and Pastry

7.625 oz Heavy cream
7.625 oz. Half and half
1 lb. 9.625 oz. Sugar
1 oz. Salt
1 lb. 12.875 oz. Glucose (can use corn syrup instead)
2 Vanilla beans

1. Bring all of the ingredients to a boil in a stainless steel or copper pot.
2. Stir constantly and cook to the desired temperature. (Cook to 255˚F for chewy texture.)
3. After the bubbles have subsided, pour the caramel into arranged metal bars on top of a silicone mat to a depth of ½ inch. (You could also pour into an oiled pan.)
4. When it is set, cut to the desired size, and wrap each piece individually.

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Vanilla Caramels
Source: Advanced Bread and Pastry

1 lb. 3.25 oz. Heavy cream
8.75 oz. Honey
2 lb. 8.375 oz. Sugar
4 Vanilla beans
2.25 oz. Butter

1. Bring all the ingredients, except the butter, to a boil in a stainless steel or copper pot.
2. Stir constantly and cook to the desired temperature. (Cook to 255˚F for chewy texture.)
3. After reaching the chosen temperature, stir in the butter.
4. After the bubbles have subsided, pour the caramel into arranged metal bars on top of a silicone mat to a depth of ½ inch.
5. When it is set, cut to the desired size, and wrap each piece individually.

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Toffee
Source: Advanced Bread and Pastry

1 lb. 5.875 oz. Sugar
3 oz. Glucose
6.5 oz. Water
12.5 oz. Butter
0.125 oz. Salt
small dash of Vanilla extract

1. Combine the sugar, glucose, and water, and cook to 275°F.
2. Stir in the butter, and continue to cook to 315°F; stir in the salt.
3. Cook the mixture until it reaches 320°F, and stir in the vanilla.
4. Pour the candy onto silicon mat.
5. If you want the toffee to be broken in pieces of similar size you will need to score then with an oiled knife while it is still warm. Otherwise you can just break it in random pieces once cooled.
6. Break along the score marks and dip in tempered chocolate to coat. (We didn't dip in chocolate during class but that sounds amazing! :)

Boston Cream Pie and three boys...

Some good friends of ours came into town to visit for the weekend. I wanted to make a surprise dessert to go with our dinner so I made my first attempt at Boston Cream Pie. It's Alton Brown's recipe. The directions were very easy to follow and I was already familiar with making all the different components that go into a Boston Cream Pie (yellow cake, pastry cream, and ganache).

Including our company's kids, we had a 6 1/2 year old boy, a 5 year old boy, a 4 1/2 year old boy and a 1 1/2 year old girl in our house that night. They were all super excited to finish all their dinner so they could have my "chocolate surprise" for dinner. With 3 little boys in the house, my hubby thought it was only appropriate to have a Star Wars storm trooper guard the cake until each child had finished their dinner! :)



Here's the inside of the cake. It was loved by all and quickly devoured. Even the storm trooper got a bite!

Homemade Pumpkin Pie Ice Cream

I am always in the pumpkin mood when Fall arrives. Pumpkin this, pumpkin that...I love it all, even in my ice cream! For the pumpkin pie ice cream I used the same ice cream base that I did for the Homemade Strawberry Ice Cream. This time just adding pumpkin puree and pumpkin pie spice instead of strawberries. It makes a wonderful fall-time dessert.

Culinary School - Week 5 (Chocolate and Sugar class only)

I'm super excited to show you what we accomplished in class today. It was Week 5 which normally marks the 1/2 way point of the semester and is when we have midterms. Lucky for me this quarter I didn't have any real midterms. (That was a nice change!)

In chocolate class we had what the Chef called a practice midterm. Just a way for him to evaluate us on our competencies so far. It made the class a lot more fun because there wasn't the normal stress that midterms usually bring with them.

We each had to do 2 types of rolled truffles, 1 molded chocolate with color, and 2 chocolate bowls (made by dipping balloons in chocolate). I had a lot of fun with it and am glad to report I got everything done and still had 45 minutes left to spare. Here are some of the chocolates that I made.

In order from top to bottom: Cayenne Peanut Butter Truffles, White Chocolate Kirch Molded Chocolates, and Black & White Sesame Truffles

Quiche

For "brinner" this week I wanted to make a quiche. I followed the recipe of The Pioneer Woman and it turned out wonderful! Very tasty and the artichokes added to its unique factor. It also calls for bacon and mushrooms - two favorites of mine! This recipe uses a premade pie crust which will save you a ton of time. It was very filling for dinner and my family loved it. Thanks PW - I know I can always count on you! :)

Culinary School - Week 5 (Cake class only)

Are you hungry yet?

On Monday we made a ton of cookies, bars, and petit four secs. We focused on cutting/portioning the bars in uniform size, garnishing, and platter presentation. Here is what our class made as a whole: (the ones in BOLD are what I personally made):

Culinary School - Week 4 (Chocolate and Sugar class only)

Last Saturday in Chocolate and Confectionary we learned how to color chocolate. We had to add oil-soluble colors to the cocoa butter and then stir that into tempered white chocolate. We then swabbed the plastic mold with the colored chocolate using our finger. Then we filled the mold with chocolate and different ganaches. I was assigned a Raspberry ganache with dark chocolate shell. Here's what mine ended up looking like. They were delicious!!!