Work Cited Page

The following is people, places, and books that I have given credit towards for helping me create this blog:

• Chef Olga Bravo and some of her revised recipes
• All pictures were taken in room 302 at the CCE building at Johnson and Wales University
• Some of the recipes were taken out of our recipe book which is called: " Baking and Pastry Formulas"; Johnson and Wales University College of Culinary Arts; Volume 2; Pearson Prentice Hall; Copyright 2009

Orange Colored Petit Four Glace (Raspberry Flavored)

Today in labs I made cute little cakes that I colored with orange fondant called Petit Four Glace. This type of cake is made with almond cake and two light layers of raspberry filling. I thought these little pastries were adorable considering they were one inch squares. They were really hard to make considereing they are worked better cold. When cutting them, their best to work with when taking them out of the freezer. The fondant was really hard to work with because when heating it can't exceed over 98F for the reasons of it won't cover the little cake completely and correctly.  I love the design that i made out of blue marzipan. The little blue buttons were definitely adorable and fit onto the cake perfectly without them being to big.  Next time, I might try to make another different kind of marzipan design, something more creative but yet not to complicated.

A Little Bit About Me.....

Hi everyone,
My name is Brittany Latour. Long time baker, but first time blogger.
Ever since I was little, probably around the age of 6, I have always dreamed of becoming a pastry chef. Helping my grandmother in the kitchen making delicious sweets was always a blast, especially since she always let me lick the spoon when we make the batter for chocolate cake.  I would say my grandmother has been my inspiration.
When it was time to enter my freshman year of high school, it was definitely a "no brainer" when I chose "Bay Path Regional Vocational Technical High School". I actually had the opportunity for the majority of my 4 years in high school to take up a trade which I chose Culinary, but for my junior and senior year I was mostly dedicated to the baking and pastry part of the trade. When my high school graduation came around I graduated with a certified certificate in culinary which would make me eligible to obtain a job anywhere in the work field. This would give me a better opportunity to broaden my horizons and venture out into the real world.

College was a tough decision to choose from. It came down to the wire between Johnson and Wales and Culinary Institute of America. After figuring out the pros and cons of each school, my decision came down to the number one school that had been on my mind for the longest time. So now I am an incoming freshman going into my third trimester of school and loving every single minute of being in the kitchen. It has been a dream of mine for the longest time, and now my dream has come true in pursuing a degree in AS Baking and Pastry. Also, hopefully soon I'll be able to get a BA in Food Service Management to one day open and run my own bakery.

Since the beginning of this term and also coming to a close end, I have learned to truly love myself in my work and learn to accomplish life goals that one day I will become a successful pastry chef. I just need to work harder and have more experience to feel more accomplished.

French Macaroons (Bagged/Pressed Cookies)

Hi everyone, today I made the petite lighted yellow colored macaroons that were filled with lemon swiss buttercream and raspberry filling. Making macaroons was both an easy and hard process. The only easy part about this was the fact that I have made French macaroons before in high school so I have some type of idea about the hard and exact process to make them. I even did a great job mixing the macaroon base mix. Chef even gave me the compliment that I didn't even over mix my macaroon batter. I had the difficulty of shaping the macaroons and sizing them the exact same size. I made a lemon swiss buttercream for the middle of the French macaroons since it is a sandwich cookie. I paired this swiss butter cream with a plain raspberry jam filling. After sandwiching the cookies I tasted one of them and they were pretty good. The only modifications I would have made for the next time would be to have more raspberry filling instead of the swiss buttercream filling. I also think that I should have refrigerated the cookie part so it would be a little softer instead of a hard cookie. 

Biscotti Cookies (Bar Cookies)

The other day in labs I made a lemon biscotti dipped in chocolate ganache and drizzled white chocolate on top. These biscotti's were delicious and had great both texture and flavor to them. The lemon was definitely not over powering the cookie itself, but I think my group mate and I added too much lemon juice because the dough was hard to control and was very moist. We ended up adding a lot of flour to control the cookie dough. I should have cut my cookies more diagonal then I had them. They seemed more straight than they should be. Next time I would have made the biscotti's lemon and poppyseed like the muffins instead of lemon by itself

Lemon Bar Cookies (Sheet Cookies)

The lemon bars that I have made in labs the other day were so delicious. I love a zesty lemon bar that has a good amount of tang to the cookie itself. I personally had some difficulty with this type of cookie. My first problem was that  it was hard transferring the lemon bars into the oven because the lemon liquid mix kept on spilling everywhere, but at least I didn't loose a lot of the product. The second problem I ran into was cutting these squares. They were very sticky and hard to cut with the chef's knife. On the other hand, garnishing these lemon bars with 6x sugar and placing them in the decorated paper cups was a very creative idea. Next time if I had the opportunity again I would make either raspberry or key lime bars. I think those two ideas would taste very

Checkerboard Cookies (Icebox/Refrigerator Cookies)

In labs I have made these cute little checkerboard cookies that look exactly like a real life miniature version of a checkerboard. This type of cookie was very tedious to make and a lot of math and measurements to  measure on the cookie dough. The lines have to be exact with each other or they would look off when the cookies would be baked. Another difficult problem I had was that I kept on cutting the individual cookies a little off so the same thickness wouldn't be throughout. The final product came out really pretty, but when eating the cookie itself was very dry. My chef instructor, Chef Bravo had the idea of using orange extract and zest to bring flavor to the cookie, but it was still dry with no flavor. This type of cookie definitely needs a tall glass of milk to wash it down. My lab partner, Cassidy had a great idea of using raspberry jam to layer in between tow cookies to give it more flavor. It tasted so much better and was amazing. Next time instead of using raspberry jam I would use orange marmalade since it has orange zest  and extract within the cookie. In all, this was a very adorable cookie, but it tasted so dry and no flavor