Day Eighty-Nine

(Chef using a bicycle to cut the Danish)

Bread week has been the most delicious week so far in school.  I’ve never eaten so much bread in my life.  Seriously.  It’s probably not healthy to be eating a loaf of bread every night.  

We’re continuing with breads this week as well.  Please send help. 



We made Danish on Friday.  Danish dough is similar to croissant dough except it has eggs.  We made Danish filled with vanilla pastry cream and pear.



We also made “cinnamon rolls” with the dough too.  We filled the dough with almond cream, walnuts, and raisins.  I soaked my raisins in kirsch.  Shhh.  Don’t tell.  It makes raisins more fun, don’t you know?


Baked until French brown.  I think these look burnt, but I guess that’s how it’s supposed to be.  I like my cinnamon rolls doughy and soft. 



We made monkey bread with the leftover scraps.


We also made this French country bread… it had walnuts and I’m not sure what else.  I’m getting confused with all of the breads.  I didn’t even taste this one.  I gave away all of the bread I baked on Friday to our apartment’s security guard. 



Oh yeah – we made baguettes too.  We baked so much bread on Friday that we got out of class over thirty minutes late.  We’re trying to make up the two days we’ll be missing this week!


On Saturday morning I volunteered to work at the first Chicago Chocolate Show at Navy Pier.  There were booths set up with chocolate samples, chocolate products for purchasing, and chocolate making equipment.  The French Pastry School had a couple of booths set up; one had instructors making chocolate sculptures, and another one had baking demonstrations going on all day. 


One side of the chocolate show was for the public, and the other side was for professionals that owned chocolate businesses.  The public side kept trying to get into the professional side, so my job was to stand by a curtain and not let anyone through.  It was a glamorous position, I tell you.  This was my view all day.


And here’s my other angle.  I sat there for hours, and it was very, very boring.  I didn’t talk to anyone all day except some of my chefs.  I was planning on spending time at the show afterwards, checking out each booth, but I was so tired and hungry that I just left. 


Not a very fun way to spend a Saturday.  Luckily, I had a good evening with Mr. Eric.  We had barbecue and went downtown to watch fireworks over the river. 





We also got the fixins for Thanksgiving dinner.  On the menu: turkey tenderloin (it’s marinated and all I have to do is bake it!  Ha), gravy, stuffing (Eric is making Stovetop), corn casserole, green bean casserole, sweet potatoes with mini marshmallows (mmm), BREAD, blueberry crumb tarts, pumpkin-gingerbread pie. 

What are you having??