baking – PhD & Patisserie

Come and knock on my doooor…

April 22, 2021Leave a comment

That reference may be dated, but I love John Ritter.

I LOVE baking, but some weeks are busy and other times I want to see what other people are doing or making. I am inspired by everything on Instagram, but I cannot eat those things… though full disclosure- when I finish my mileage for the Trail Racing Over Texas Trans-Texas Virtual Run I WILL be ordering these cookies from Levain bakery:

I took this picture from their Instagram. WUT.

Generally speaking, I am the one who knocks (shout out to Heisenberg) when I mail treats. But, I know this shocks NO ONE, I also like eating baked goods from the mail. 🙂

So, this post is dedicated to my homies at Farmhouse Delivery. I have tried a few of their baked goods over the past few months and wanted to share them with you here. There’s no baking required (except for the last one and WORTH IT). Like all other Farmhouse items (including fresh flowers, eggs, etc.), these bad boys just show up on your front porch. And you even get a text so you know to awkwardly hover near the door. Ha!

Blueberry Muffin

Farmhouse deliveries include local farmers AND local businesses. Texas French Bread has several offerings in their bakery section, including this amazing Blueberry Muffin. The thing weighed like 40 pounds.

One of the reasons I was SUPER excited for this muffin was…. Well first we should cover the fact that I put butter on all fruit filled muffins. I used to get this BALLER orange muffin from Marshall Fields restaurant and I put butter on that. And Blueberry muffins. I just do, okay.

Anyways, sometimes the cold butter rips the muffins. That’s where a BUTTER CROCK comes in. You put cold water in it and it keeps butter soft on the counter. It took its maiden voyage for this blueberry muffin moment:

Full disclosure, taking pics of this buttered muffin was similar to a dog balancing a treat on his nose (which are always labradors. Labradors are too polite sometimes, man…).

If you do not have a butter crock, my dad used to put his hot coffee cup on a pat of butter at restaurants (wrapped in foil, obvs). Perfect spreadable butter. Freakin genius.

Cinnamon Sugar Croissant

This croissant is also from Texas French Bread. It was delivered in my CSA box and I was NOT disappointed. Look at the sparkly sugary goodness! It actually looks fake. But I know it was not because I ate it. Promise (like you had doubts).

I know that Paul Hollywood is all about laminated dough when it comes to pastries like this, so I also have a shot of how this looked when cut in half:

Texas Strawberry Pies

These beautiful bebes are from Flourvine and were SO DANG DELICIOUS. They even put a little note inside asking me to slice a few holes on the top before baking. Thanks, friends. I did and it was perfect. I added some egg wash and turbinado sugar before baking because I am that guy who says “this is great! I modified it though…”

I would also like to add that those baller strawberries that were basically the size of these hand pies were also Texas strawberries from Farmhouse. They are the best, y’all. 🙂

My “To Try” List

There are still several items on Farmhouse Delivery’s baked goods/desserts section that I have yet to try. I have several weeks of baking plans on lock, but when those are finished I am going to try some of these bad boys:

Sausage and Jalapeno Croissant from Texas French Bread

Raspberry Croissant

Bake at Home Buttermilk Biscuits

I had the kit Farmhouse sold this fall, where you made the dough using ingredients in separate containers (from Dai Due). It was SO good! I don’t see that one anymore and like the idea of a square biscuit. So this will happen.

And Finally….

This is called “Late Night Fridge Grab Dessert Box” and I have ZERO chill. Pun unintended, but I am amused and it stays. This looks SOOOOO good, but I would need to buy it for a night where I am hanging out with friends so we could all try a bit of it. I cannot imagine this would end well if these were all in my fridge for just me.

I don’t have to imagine, it is written in stone. I would eat all of it at 2 a.m., then Jon would find me in the morning covered in cookie crumbs laying on the kitchen floor sleeping whilst smiling.

Even so, I will wait until I can share it.

Thanks, Farmhouse!

I love how all of these items are local. There are also baked goods from Easy Tiger, Sugar Mama’s, Rockstar Bagels, Slow Dough, and Tiny Pies! We had the Texas Pete pie from Tiny Pies, but I did not include it in this post because that was a savory pie. I didn’t want to have to check the “savory” tag, then disappoint people when there was a post full of sugar. 🙂 Anyways, the pie was vegan and delicious. I look forward to slowly checking everything off this list as groceries are conveniently delivered to my door.

XO,

Paczki!

March 11, 2021March 10, 2021Leave a comment

Hello, y’all! I ended up making the most DELICIOUS baked donuts for Fat Tuesday… as in a Tuesday that occurred nearly a month ago. I planned on posting this journey on Thursday of that week, but then snowpacalypse came and I lost power, got it back, lost water, got it back, and them stared out the window wondering when the bottled up fears and anxiety I had would dissipate. My eyebrow stopped twitching this weekend. No joke.

SO- what are Paczki? They are polish donuts that are often purchased by many-a-Metro Detroiters in a delightfully loud box on Fat Tuesday. These are a Polish tradition, so people often visit Hamtramck to purchase “legit” ones. We lived next to a Polish family growing up, so Paczki would magically appear on my dad’s windsheild each Fat Tuesday. There was a gallon ziplock bag filled with several individually wrapped packzi. I would request the lemon… in case that query was going to keep you up at night. The cut one in the picture below is a lemon paczki. LOOK AT IT. LOOK. So. Good.

I have not been in Michigan for Fat Tuesday since 2013. Sad fact- I had to check my LinkedIn profile to see when it was because it has been so long. I wasn’t logging donuts on my LinkedIn profile, but I was an adjunct professor and remembered the timeframe.

I feel like this post is going to have a lot of asides. Buckle up, y’all!

I have had a donut on most Fat Tuesdays to eat a delish piece of fried dough in solidarity with my Michigander friends and family. It was usually not lemon because options are limited. And this year wasn’t lemon because I did not want to make lemon curd. Therefore, this year was raspberry jalapeno.

I baked these, though there are plenty of recipes where you can fry them. It was my first time making a yeast dough for donuts. I always make cake donuts in the oven. The yeast dough required more advanced planning since the dough had to rise a few times.

When I filled the donuts I finally used this cool jelly filling tip I purchased a while back. At first I cut slits in the paczki and then filled them. I found it was easier (and more fun) to stab a hole in the donut with the jelly filling tip and fill them that way.

Finally, I decided to go all out and make a box for the paczki. It was as close as I could get to the the legit ones in Michigan.

I hope you enjoyed this post! I would have liked to share it sooner, but having donuts to emotionally eat when we got hit with water and power issues seemed fortuitous. I knew y’all would read it when I was ready to rock and roll again.

XO,

Why the heck not?

November 24, 2020November 24, 20202 Comments

We all know I am clearly doing this for the five people who read the blog (note sarcasm here). Ha! Truth is, I really enjoy having a place to try new things, maybe fail at them, and not worry about the outcome. I am a VERY hard worker and spend a lot of time focused on my career as a professor. Makes sense- this is what I spent a lot of time and energy building toward.

However, baking is different. It is not how I earn a living. I am not assessed on how it goes (though if my partner says “repeat!” after trying something new I do feel pretty chuffed*).

When I began PhD and Patisserie it was because I wanted to put myself out there and share my own experiences as a new baker. Though, truth be told, I also wanted a record of this for myself. If 2020 has taught us anything, it is that joy and following our journeys should be prioritized. We do not know how long we will be around to share them. So I want to sprinkle flour over everything like Rip Taylor (or a Harlem Globetrotter) holding a bucket of confetti!

Clearly, what I have to share is a middle aged woman who is learning how to bake later in life. For now, this is done at home. Eventually, it will be in pastry classes at ACC. I decided to add videos to Instagram. Specifically, I wanted to make longer ones for funzies where I attempt new recipes or skills. After making one, I realized some of my friends and family aren’t on “the gram.” Therefore, I also added them to my YouTube channel. Cause I have one now (cue the random “click and subscribe” stuff).

The videos posted today were about rolling out pie dough for my first completely from scratch pumpkin pie. Here’s a look of the crust before chilling in the fridge and waiting to be filled tomorrow:

*I stole chuffed from Great British Bake Off and I REFUSE to apologize for it. Next time I might say “proper chuffed.”

Coffee Cake

November 17, 2020November 17, 2020Leave a comment

I have some big news: coffee cake does NOT have coffee in it. But damn if it doesn’t taste delish with a cup of joe! Weird thing: The cinnamon swirl in coffee cake IS NOT LIQUID! I assumed it was a butter/sugar/cinnamon syrup blend. Nope. Check the pic below: sugar and cinnamon. No liquid. Whoa.

I have been doing mise en place for a while. This simply means having your ingredients out and measured (if possible) before you begin. It helps me make sure I do not miss an ingredient along the way. Mise en place really helps with baking recipes because it is super sciency! The measurement matters, y’all.

I also like to break eggs in a separate little bowl before adding them to the mixer. I’ve never had a “bad egg,” which is why most chefs do this. I do because I don’t want little eggshell bits sneaking in there. Not the texture I am looking for. You can see most of this below. I also have containers for all of my flours and sugars. Each has a measuring cup inside, so it is really easy to use.

Check out the streusel crumble below:

Below is the brunch where we were SUPPOSED to eat the coffee cake. My partner and I were SO full from the hash and eggs that we both ate the coffee cake later in the afternoon. Good thing I put it in these adorbs ramekins.

Thanks for reading!

XO,

Bread Pudding French Toast

October 4, 2020October 21, 2020Leave a comment

I have always been interested in baking. I assumed this was because I love sugar and baking something is a fun multi-step way to create something AND consume sugar. However, in 2013-2014 I was able to work at a cafe in Indianapolis. When I did, I quickly learned I enjoyed the science of baking. I loved noting how the pastry chef would change small things to make new flavors. It was at this cafe where I learned how to make brownies from scratch, ganache (I would only attempt it with the owner nearby), and cookie doughs.

One recipe that was GENIUS was the bread pudding french toast. We always had pastries readily available each morning, and when they were gone we generally did not make more (we had lunch crowds to prepare for). On the off-change that a pastry was left behind, it was frozen. Then, once there were enough frozen pastry friends, we made a bread pudding from them. This was then frozen in slices to be used as a french toast. It. Was. Epic.

So, starting this journey, I knew I would have extra pastries from my experiments and trial runs. I ended up with a gallon ziplock bag full of frozen banana bread, pumpkin bread, milk bread, and more randos.

I toasted the diced frozen bits for 10 mins at 250 degrees. Then I put the cooled cubes in a square pan and covered it with a traditional bread pudding custard:

Little pastry and milk bread nuggets taking a lil dip in some custard overnight.

After soaking overnight, I baked the deliciousness, cooled it, and cut it into four pieces. Two would be consumed the following day (see that delightful image at the top of this entry, sprinkled with lil blueberries). The other two pieces were seran wrapped, then wrapped in foil. We will enjoy those in November because October is out bday month and imma bake like it’s my birthday!

Lil bread pudding baby getting ready to freeze like Demolition Man

It was an absolutely delicious experiment, since I ate the bread pudding french toast at the cafe, but never made it. Working at the cafe planted the “going to pastry school would be wicked cool” seed that has been slowly growing. I am excited to start classes in 2021!