Bakin Up A Storm

As if we didn't already have enough of baking during our catering units, we baked even more this week! Our Culinary class made everything from pie to savory strudels!

We started our week off with a simple pie crust. However, we changed it up a bit. To test the effects of different ingredients on the taste, texture, and appearance of the crust. In the standard recipe, we used shortening. In the variations, we used lard, margarine, butter, and a few others in place of the shortening. Then, we had a taste test to compare the different crusts. Ingredients really do have a large effect on baked products!

Next, we moved on to a whole pie. Our class made homemade apple pies from scratch! A lot of work went into these lovely pies, but they turned out great!

Finally, we ended the week by making two different pastries. One pastry we made was called a mushroom strudel made from phyllo dough. Phyllo dough is a paper thin dough that produces a very flaky pastry. To make this pastry, we folded a cooked mushroom and onion mixture into the dough using a flag fold.

We also made cheese straws which are made by sandwiching pepper jack cheese in a puff pastry, cutting it into 1/2 inch sections, and then twisting those sections into straws.

Everything we made this week were delicious. They all had different tastes and we used many techniques in making them.

Here is a link to a recipe using the same method we used with the phyllo pastry! It's called Buffalo Chicken Phyllo Wraps! They are buffalo chicken rolled up the same way as the mushrooms in our own strudel! I chose this recipe because it uses the same techniques and dough that we used.

Buffalo Chicken Phyllo Wraps
http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Buffalo-Chicken-Phyllo-Wraps/Detail.aspx