Sorry for the Long Wait

Hey everyone,

Sorry for not posting lately this quarter of labs have been super crazy, but I am loving it. As all of you know I am ENGAGED!!! ( more about that later) Life in Charlotte is much different than being back in South Ga. Nothing to me beats looking at the stars every night when I go out side, but here you do not get much of that. I hear a lot of sirens all day and all night here. I am excited to be graduating in 18 days, this is my little girl dreams finally coming true. So lets play a little CATCH UP on my Culinary Adventure while I have been at school.

So my first class I had this term was speciality cakes with one of my favorite chef, Chef Duke. She makes the most amazing cakes and makes it look effortless.

This is a picture of one of the mini cakes we got to make during her class. This was a fun way to express our creativity which I think by sophomore labs are great. During all these days in this lab we learned how to create gum paste roses and other flowers. I love how gum paste looks. If it is airbrushed and have amazing details they could look just like real flower. Here is my rose spree that I created during this class. 

Also on Day 9 we get to decorate a speciality cake any way we would like. So on day 9 I produced the cake to follow. I got this idea off of where else pinterest. Pinterest is the "WORST" place for a chef to be I am so unproductive when i am on there I get lost for hours. 

I loved this cake. I wish I would have been able to have more time to detail the butterflies more so they looked cleaner. I was excited to learn that after I made my cake one of the chefs thought so much of it that he took it to a friend's baby's First birthday. And Everyone loved it. 

Sugar Artistry 

This class was very fun, well minus working with molten lava sugar and burning your hands. 

This is straw sugar circle  with sugar flowers. This was fun because I learned how to make flowers out of sugar and they looked really cool. 

This swan is made out of pastiage which is a type of sugar dough that is dried for several days after it has been cut. I then added sugar ribbon and a sugar flower.

Here is a super cool under the sea Sugar sculpture that we had tot create for our practical exam. YES all of that is SUGAR!! All used in different ways. 

Well I am sorry for such a long post I will have more to come soon. Thank you for all the support. 

Until the next Culinary Adventure, 

Marti 

Chick-Fila Copy Cat

Ok, everyone knows that I LOVE Chick-fila cookies. I have never had a cookie that was so good and YES! it is a fast food cookie but it is amazing!! I have been looking up recipes that were close to what I thought would be and I found one that contain oats and everything else. Well the girl was trying to do the same thing I was, trying to recreate the Chick-fila cookie. Well here comes the science of baking. She said that her cookie was flat and little more chew than she wanted. So I took her recipe:

Chocolate Chip Cookies
recipe adapted from Baking Illustrated
makes 20 cookies

1 cup plus 1 tbsp all-purpose flour
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
6 tbsp unsalted butter, melted
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1/4 cup granulated white sugar
1 egg + 1 egg yolk
1 tsp vanilla extract
3/4 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 1/4 cup milk chocolate chunks
1 1/2 cups oats

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Whisk together flour, oats, soda, and salt together in a bowl. Mix melted butter and sugars together and then add egg and vanilla. Mix in dry ingredients until thoroughly combined, then stir in chocolate chips. Bake 11-13 minutes and allow to cool on sheet for 5 minutes.

 and changed it some. and one the first try it was OK just a little cakey because I added an extra egg and then just adding baking powder. So I am one my next venture for the perfect cookie.


I just made another batch and I think it is very close to Chick-fila cookie.

Chocolate Chip Cookies

1 cup all-purpose flour
1/8 tsp baking soda

1/8 tsp Baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
6 tbsp unsalted butter
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated white sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 cup milk chocolate chunks
1 1/2 cups oats

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Whisk together flour, oats, soda, and salt together in a bowl. cream butter and sugars together and then add egg and vanilla. Mix in dry ingredients until thoroughly combined, then stir in chocolate chips. Bake 11-13 minutes or until brown  and allow to cool on sheet for 5 minutes.

Please try it and give me your response I would love to know what you think so I can change it and make it PERFECT!!!!