No, you can't borrow my knife

Valencia’s “career program” curriculum came shining through this week as we were kind of left to our own accord again. Instead of a demo, we watched a video last week on how to crumb coat a cake. Key phrase is “last week.” Hardly anyone in the class remembered we had baked cakes in the first place, let alone watched a video on how to crumb coat and frost.

At the beginning of class, Chef asked us to save the cake scraps for decoration by crumbing them up and adding them to the frosted cake to hide any mistakes. This wasn’t explained very well and most everyone in the class was confused about scrap crumbs vs. a crumb coat. Yeah. KEEP READING >

Baking Before Class

I felt like baking this morning, which is strange for me because I have culinary school today. Usually the last thing I want to do when I have 6 hours of instructional baking in my future, is do more baking.

But today I was kind of excited. I realized that baking, which started as my Achilles heel, has turned into something I really enjoy. And pies, in particular, are my favorite - we have a neat history together, me and pie.

Over two years ago, I discovered I had food allergies - the major one being legumes, which includes soy, peanuts, guar gum, green beans, peas, and dried beans. This pretty much wiped out a major source of protein for me, as well as any packaged products we would normally purchase (crackers, bread, breadcrumbs, chicken stock, non-stick spray, vegetable oil, shortening, margarine, to name a few). The diagnosis came just before the holidays, which meant no Thanksgiving pie for me that year. Sure, we sometimes made our own pie dough, but why bother when you can grab a hunk of Pillsbury ready-made, right?

When Christmas came around, sans dessert, I started working on a all-butter pie dough recipe. It took me two years to perfect and won me the apple category, professional division, in the 2009 Crisco National Pie Championships.

I'm pretty darn proud of that dough recipe - not only for winning, but because it represents the time when I completely changed the way I think about food and how I cook for my family. It was part of the push that lead me to food writing and later enrolling in culinary school.

So now, tucked sweetly in a 400 degree oven, sit two mini apple pie experiments for next year's pie competition. It's a recipe that has never been done before - or at least I couldn't find any record of it anywhere in books or online. I hope the judges like these, too.

Italian Pressed Sandwiches

Pressed Italian sandwiches make the perfect picnic finger food - they're easy to assemble, easy to pack, and easy to eat in three big, messy delicious bites. Adding a weight to the sandwiches, in the form of a covered brick or cast iron pan, gently presses the fresh ingredients together, leaving the Italian bread no choice but to soak up the garlic-infused olive oil and sweet balsamic vinegar from the tomato marinade. The buffalo mozzarella and Italian meats meld into a mild, tangy, salty fusion of favorite antipasti flavors. READ MORE >>

Culinary School Weeks 7 and 8, I think

I've lost track of what week of culinary school we're on, but there are only 4 or so more weeks - yea! I never want to eat cake, pastry cream, or tarts again. OK, maybe not "again," but not for a while:

27 Cream Puffs

Have your cake, and eat it, too. But not until next week.

The OMG burger

We had lunch at the Ritz in Orlando today, and OMG, I had THE best burger I've ever had in my life. Seriously. And for me, it was extra special because they make their own breads on property, without soy, and I was able to eat a burger with a bun. I haven't had a burger with a real bun in over two years.

The bun was an oversized soft eggy bread, slightly sweet, with a just-right amount of toasted sesame seeds and lightly grilled. Angus beef was the perfect texture, perfectly seasoned, and perfectly char broiled to medium. PERFECT. I could hardly believe it.

I've officially crossed over to food snob. After the debacles at Seasons 52 and Bravo!, I had sworn off chain restaurants, no matter how upscale they claim to be. And today sealed the deal. I will only eat at restaurants that make EVERYTHING from scratch from this day forward. I think I need a second job to support my habit.

Chef2Chef.net Sunday Chats

Join me next Sunday, July 5th, 7 p.m. East for the Chef2Chef.net Twitter chat - we'll be talking everything PIE!

Work in progress

I updated my web site this week. It's still a work in progress, and I noticed one of the links isn't formatted correctly. If you have any constructive feedback, would love to read it :-)

www.dawnviola.com