The third week of culinary school, we got to cook. Yay! It was really fun and really intense.
We kicked things off with blueberry muffins and biscuits. ICI provides us with the recipes and we are not allowed to make any adjustments. Even if we know, how to make the recipes tastier. The focus for the first semester isn’t so much about flavor as it is about technique. It's learning the basics and then building flavor on top of the basics. It's hard not to spice up the recipes a bit, but that's not the point.
I have made both blueberry muffins and biscuits before, but I still stressed about getting them just right. We learned all about gluten development, fat, and liquid ratios, and leavening agents. I am learning the basics of what makes a muffin taste good, not how to find a good muffin recipe. THAT feels good. The muffins that I made in class turned out great.
As far as the biscuits, they turned out great, as well. I had a ton of flaky layers, and they were still nice and moist in the middle. For the biscuits, you cut the solid fat (butter or shortening) into the flour in the first step. Since the fat stays solid, it creates steam when baked, which creates the desired layers. You also kneed the dough, slightly. You want to develop a little bit of gluten to build some structure.
Now, a couple of things I'm still working out. In class, we use a convection oven (which heats by a fan). At home, I use a conventional oven. I'm still working out the differences between the two. Everything I have made at home has been pretty underbaked. I think the temperature I'm using is just too low. Convection ovens cook a lot faster since the air is continually moving. I'll need to continue to figure that out. Practicing my recipes at home is helpful. I feel that much more confident in the kitchen.
Also, I cut my finger in my fist lab. So that was embarrassing. We weren't even using knives. I did it washing the pastry cutter. I stuck my finger between the tines to clean and sliced it. It wasn't too bad of a cut; it just bled a lot since it was on the joint. My Instructor was very funny about it, which made me feel a lot better and less embarrassed.
Next week on to Cream Puffs!