French Macarons

For our final, Natalie and I made French Macarons.  We made three different types, chocolate with chocolate filling, vanilla with vanilla filling, and vanilla with chocolate filling.

The recipe we used made 20 whole macarons

For macarons shells:

1 1/8 cup ground almond

3/8 cup egg whites, refrigerated for 24 hours

1 1/2 cup powdered sugar

4 tablespoons granulated sugar

For vanilla filling:

2 large egg whites

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1/2 cup softened butter (cut in pieces)

1 tsp vanilla extract

For chocolate filling:

1 3/8 cup chopped dark chocolate

5/8 cup heavy cream

Directions for macaron shells:

1.       Food process almond and powdered sugar for about 2 minutes.

2.       Whip egg whites until bubbly. Slowly add granulated sugar. Continue to beat until stiff.

3.       Add food coloring and almond mixture into egg whites and fold until smooth.

4.        Fill piping bag and pipe onto baking sheets. Use a knife to smooth the macarons.

5.       Let sit for 1 hour, and then bake at 300 degrees F for 10 minutes.

Directions for vanilla filling:

1.       Mix two egg whites with ½ cup of granulated sugar.

2.       Put egg whites and sugar in heat-proof bowl and set over a boiling put of water.

3.       Once heated, remove egg and sugar from heat.

4.       Whip eggs until foaming, add clumps of butter and beat until extremely thick.

5.       Add vanilla extract to taste

Directions for chocolate filling:

1.       Bring cream to a boil

2.       Chop up chocolate and put in a heat proof bowl

3.       Pour hot cream over chocolate and let sit for a minute

4.       Mix the almost melted chocolate all together

5.       Put in the fridge to cool for at least 10 minutes

xoxo, Natalie and Talia

Yummy Breakfast

This weekend I had an especially good morning. It was daylight savings so I was able to sleep in an extra hour and to top it off I had waffles for breakfast. They were absolutely amazing! They were crunchy on the outside and soft on the inside. I wish I could wake up to them every morning!!

Meat Day!

On Tuesday Chef Laurie brought in Steak, Top Sirloin, and Pork.  The steak was seared on the highest flame on both sides and then put in the oven for a short period of time.   After it was cooked it was cut into square chunks.  The steak went in the blink of an eye.  The top sirloin was used for a beef stroganoff.  The meat was cut into small pieces and cooked on the stove.  It was combined with sour cream, dill, and pasta.  The pork was the third and final meat.  It was pounded thin and coated with a layer of flour then egg.  It was then covered with bread crumbs and oven fried.  It was so good!  This was one of my favorite weeks!

xoxo,
all of us.

Cupcakes

 

This weekend I decided to make vanilla cupcakes. I also made my absolute favorite frosting, cream cheese frosting. To me, buttercream frosting is too sugary and sweet, but cream cheese frosting is the perfect amount of sweetness with the cream cheese takes the edge off. Just having a vanilla cake with vanilla frosting looked too boring so I decided to add a variety of sprinkles to give them a little bit of color. The cake was deliciously moist and was a thousand times better than any box mix. And the cream cheese went absolutely perfectly with the cake. Overall it was a very successful dessert.

~Elizabeth

Meat Day

One of the meat days that we had was all about fish. The wasabi and tuna was delicious, and the wasabi added a nice kick. I also liked the scallops. When they were cooking they smelled delicious. But my favorite side we made that day was the homemade tortilla chips. They were just ordinary flour tortillas, but baking them in the oven and adding olive oil, salt, paprika, and cumin made them delicious! I was surprised because they were so much better than their store counterparts. This is definitely something that I would make at home!!
xo xo,
Talia, Natalie, Elizabeth

Chicken and Farro

On Friday we tasted chicken and farro. The chicken was delicious and very tasty. It was crispy on the outside from being baked with olive oil but still moist and tender on the inside. The rub of herbs on the outside was very flavorful. The farro had bacon bits and was tossed with olive oil.
~ Talia, Natalie, Elizabeth

Ombre Mini Cakes

I made mini ombre cakes last night. I mostly just wanted to make them look nice but they tasted pretty good as well! I just made a simple white cake batter then separated it into three bowls. I added 10 drops of a blue food coloring in the darkest bowl, 5 drops in the medium bowl, and 1 in the lightest. I wasn't completely satisfied with how the colors looked; I would have liked the lightest color to be even lighter, but it turned out fine. Also, I would have measured the three layers better because one of the layers was much thinner than the others but it wasn't too noticeable. Once the layers were done baking I made a vanilla buttercream frosting for them. Then I leveled out the tops, cut out the cakes with a glass, and stacked them with frosting in between the layers and on top. I would use a bigger frosting nozzle if I did it again. Overall they turned out nice, but it was just a regular cake and I would have liked a little different flavor if I did it again.
I also mashed the extra bits together in layers and made another cake.