The Return of the Baking-Jedy

Months ago I said that I will post on my "Le Cordon Bleu" course and I didn´t. Well, they say better late than ever …. So here I am!!!

At the beginning of the summer I joined LCB to attend the basic level of the Pastry Chef Diploma. I had a lot of expectations. I wanted to learn, from professional chefs, how to bake things, as simple and complicated at the same time, as croissants, brioche or charlotte cake… the bases of French baking. I also wanted to know much of a baker I had in me. Is this something that I want to make a career of?

Overall, I can say that mi time at LCB was fantastic. The facilities are amazing. The kitchens have every sort of tool that you can think of. Everything is spotless, and this is one of the big lessons. About the chefs, is such a pleasure to see the difficult techniques done in such a talented and gracious way.

I have also meet very nice people. Those people have a real passion for baking. This takes me to “the baker in me”.

Reality is that I do not see myself in bakery baking for living. I love baking, but baking at home, for family and friends. For the fun of it! And I love baking simple, innocent, comforting goods despite the fact that now I have the skills for a more challenging recipes.

So if you are thinking of joining the school I highly recommend it! The only negative is that from the first tasting with the chefs, you will think that any dessert in any restaurant is just not good enough!!!:-)

On another note, I am coming back to blog-land. I think I have figured out what do I want to tell and how to express it in images. This is going to be a big exercise of organization. I hope you have a little patient ….

By the way …. So happy to be back!!!

Le Cordon Bleu

A year ago I decided that I needed a changed in my life. And I did changed!!!

In my new life my job is not the most important thing in my life. I don´t travel like crazy. I get off at 6.30. I ride my horse everyday. I sleep in my bed. I go to my Asturias home whenever and I bake non stop!!!!

So since as now I do all the things that makes me happy ... I thought that it was the time to take my "I am happy while I am baking" to the next level.

Here I am, tomorrow is my first day at Le Cordon Bleu!!!!!! Do you imagine if this is really my thing and I become a pastry chef?? Now that´s a change!

I will keep you posted on my Cordon experience. What we learn, what we bake, my progress, exams ....

Wish me luck!!!

Mariola

Hot Milk Sponge Cake and See You Soon!

I feel that reached this point it would be more honest and straight forward to take a break from my blogging life. Although I enjoy cooking and sharing what I do with my dear ones, I do not feel the need of blogging about it. I am just not inspired!!

Do not get wrong! My free time at home has reduced by a factor of a 1000! My loving horse Oberon gets the largets part of my free time and my desire of having my appartment almost perfectly tidy the rest of the time ...

Do not think I will be gone forever .... my closest friends know that I "disapear" from time to time but I always come back.

It feels that I need the time for me. And my new ME loves myself and has promise to take care of me. So there you go!

Thanks so much for being there, for sharing with me your comments and experiences, for being so nice and supportive. I will see you very soon!!

The recipe is from "The Amish Cook´s: Baking Book" which has got all my attention in the past weeks . I highly recomend it!! The cake was yummy and fluffy!

I hope you like it!

Strawberry and Lemon Whoopie Pies

Life has been busy these past weeks. Between my job, my horse and my baking I have not had that much time left for anything else.

To recuperate energy I went to spend some days off to my Asturias house. I have been gardening, specially concentrated in my peonies and rhubarb, reorganizing the furniture I brought from Switzerland and exercising

So now back in Madrid, and getting ready for a new week and before it gets crazy I wanted to post my whoopie pies.

Whoopie pies are my new favorite thing. Original from the Amish, nobody is really sure where the name comes from. The only thing for sure is that in any variation they are terrific.

This recipe is from Martha and needless to say is just great.

I hope you like it!!

Ingredients

1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, room temperature

1 cup plus 3 tablespoons light-brown sugar

1 tablespoon grated lemon zest

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

1 large egg

2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour

3/4 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon coarse salt

1 cup whole milk

3/4 cup heavy cream

1 cup fresh strawberries

Directions

Preheat oven to 350. In a large bowl, using an electric mixer, beat butter, 1 cup brown sugar, and lemon zest until light and creamy. Add vanilla and egg and beat to combine, scraping down bowl as needed. In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. With mixer on low, beat in flour mixture in 3 additions, alternating with milk and ending with flour mixture (scrape bowl as needed). Beat well to combine.

Drop batter in 2-tablespoon mounds, about 2 inches apart, onto two parchment-lined baking sheets. Bake until puffed and pale golden around edges, 17 to 19 minutes, rotating sheets halfway through. Let cakes cool completely on sheets on wire racks.

Spring Onion & Parmesan Cornbread

In a couple of weeks I will be going to Asturias. Yeah!!!!!! I have not been in my house for a while now …. I know I know …. I should have go. But the weather, Switzerland, the new job …..

So, very soon I will be at home2!! I am so excited to think about my garden produce. At the end of the summer I planted rhubarb and I hope a decent amount of plants have survived the winter. I am thinking rhubarb pie …. Yum!

Asturias has many faces, smell and flavors for me. But there is one among all of them that takes me to my grandmother’s kitchen: Corn.

This time I am bringing you a super easy and yummy cornbread. Let me tell you something: You have one piece of this bread and you can not stop!!

The recipe is from “The Photo Cookbook” application for IPad.

I hope you like it!

Serves 16

Ingredients

140 gr fine cornmeal

140 gr plain flour

4 tsp baking powder

2 tsp celery salt

55 gr Parmesan cheese, grated

2 eggs, beaten

400 ml milk

55gr butter, melted

1 bunch Spring onions, chopped

Ground black pepper

Directions

Preheat the oven to 190º/375F. Grease a 23cm/9 inch Squire baking tin.

Sift the cornmeal, flour, baking powder, celery salt and pepper into a bowl and stir in 40 gr of the Parmesan cheese.

Beat together the eggs, milk and melted butter. Add the egg mixture to the dry ingredients and stir well to mix evenly. Stir in he chopped spring onions and spread the mixture evenly into the tin.

Sprinkle the remaining Parmesan over the mixture. Bake in the preheated oven for 30-35 minutes, or until firm and golden.

Cut the cornbread into squares and serve warm.

Maple Syrup and Cinnamon Cupcakes

Last weekend my sister celebrated her birthday. She organized a dinner at home for her closest friend in which I was the cook.

The menu was fun and easy! When my sis and I spoke about the birthday cake, we came to the conclusion that cupcakes were better alternative. Personally I though that if they were cupcakes left I could give them away to the guest.

Don´t get me wrong! Not that I don´t like my cupcakes. The issue is that I love what I bake and if I have it home I eat it! All!! Baking every week … imagine if I don´t control myself.

The B-cupcakes were cinnamon (from Martha S.) and the frosting (my own recipe) is a maple syrup buttercream. The cake is moist and soft and the buttercream delicious! They worked perfectly!!

I hope you like it!!

Makes 2 dozen cupcakes

Ingredients

2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour, sifted

1 tablespoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1 cup unsalted butter, room temperature

1 1/2 cups sugar

3 large eggs

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

1 cup milk

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line two standard 12-cup muffin pans with paper liners. Into a large bowl, sift together flour, baking powder, salt, and cinnamon; set aside.

In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat butter and sugar on medium speed until creamy, about 3 minutes. Add the eggs and vanilla, and beat until combined. With the mixer still on medium speed, add the flour mixture in two parts, alternating with the milk and beginning and ending with the flour. Stir in walnuts with a wooden spoon.

Divide the batter evenly among the muffin cups, filling each three-quarters full. Bake, rotating pans halfway through, until cupcakes are golden and a cake tester inserted in the center of a cupcake comes out clean, 18 to 20 minutes. Transfer the cupcakes to a wire rack to cool.

Maple Buttercream

Serves 2 dozen cupcakes

Ingredients

2cup butter, room temperature.

1 cup confectioners sugar

2/3 cup

Directions

Beat the butter until fluffy. Ad sugar and Maple Syrup and continue beating.

Frost cupcake tops.

Feta Cheese and Sun-dried Tomatos Scones and Frustations

I have been seriously thinking about weather I should upload this post or not. We always speak about the pleasure of cooking this, baking that and eating all! The creative process of creating a picture is, at least for me, fun and challenging.

This time I want it to share with you my frustrations. That I am going through a creative –photographic crisis is obvious. You just need to take a look at the pics. And to prove that this is not some kind of self-suggestion-drama I wanted you to “enjoy” this post.

Since in my apartment the light is not great, I decided to get all my food and gadgets and go out to find a place to take the pictures. I though that the club where I ride was a perfect place.

So there I was ready with my camera. I take one picture …. And the camera dies. I have to admit that for a second I freaked out. Me in the middle of a paddock taking pictures to my scones and he camera dies!!! What did I do? I took my phone. Which, by the way is not last generation, and took the pictures you see here.

The only thing I can say, apart from sorry for the pics, is that the scones are delicious. The recipe is from the “The Baking Photo Cookbook” application for IPad.

I will post the recipe very soon!!!