You know, dear reader, if you ever, per chance, bring home a bunch of yummy little fallen soufflés you made in class and you mention to delighted eaters that you wish they could have seen them fresh out of the oven, chances are they will ask you to make it fresh.

Thus becoming my first pastry school project reproduced at home, successfully too! After husband (the main instigator) got the ramekins and I bought a huge chunk of Bittersweet chocolate (way more than I needed), I was good to go.

I had a lot of fun making these, after two consecutive days of souffle making, there wasn’t that much that could go wrong, and in fact even my oven followed through!

While I don’t think I should post the recipe from my text book, I will tell you that the recipe I used was just a little different from this one. Oh and instead of 1/2 cup of coffee I used an ounce of Bourbon (I’ve been adding Bourbon to desserts a lately).

Pastry School is going by too fast! Can’t wait for tonight we will taste our Panna Cottas and Gelées!

ps: I know the writing in this post is a little janky, I am having my first (and last) sugar hangover today… I’m a little out of sorts…

What you see above is the Frosted Pound Cake Souffle, with frozen strawberry lemonade and yogurt sorbet, it was my favorite dessert of the evening (we tried a lot of them!), the Souffle was absolutely delicious total comfort food, the frozen strawberry lemonade with the Sorbet was bright and worked perfectly with the Souffle and the frosting. I had been thinking about this dessert for weeks, and it was ever bit as good as I imagined. (That doesn’t happen that often.)

This Poached Rhubarb Tart above came with almond sable, earl grey tea ice cream (my favorite Ice Cream Flavor!).

Below is the Strawberry Tarragon Fizz, with crème fraiche sorbet and meringue, it was very tasty, the fizz specially. Tarragon paired Strawberries is something I was just introduced to in school and I have to say it’s very good, peeps.

Below is the scrumptious and beautifully plated Chocolate Custard Brownie with roasted cinnamon cream and espresso granite!

Now here comes the really cool part (seriously there’s more), the GM spoke to us during our meal, and turns out he’s a CIA alum, I was there with my friend  Dessertolicious (and our husbands as well), we told him that we go to ICE and also that we chose Oceana because Chef Jansen Chan’s Grapefruit Gala demo we both attended last year was full of awesome.

Come Dessert time Chef sent us the remaining desserts we did not order! How cool is that?!?

“Carrot Cake” Cheesecake with candied walnuts, coconut lime sorbet. Rich and very tasty! Let’s take a minute and enjoy that plating shall we?

Milk Chocolate – Cashew Sundae with angel food cake croutons and bourbon sabayon. The Bourbon sabayon was my my favorite part of this dessert only because I’d just made my first sabayon the day before! Don’t take this as a diss to a very yummy dessert.

As we all sat there enjoying the post amazing meal glow, talking about all the incredible desserts we tried, who stops by to greet us if not Chef Jansen Chan himself!

He was very cool and gracious chatting with us for a while, our topics ranging from bread starters, bread kitchens and summer fruits going all the way to externships (being on lesson 8 and all still that’s bit far off).

The perfect ending to a perfect evening and I’m very happy.

ps: The savory part of the meal was very good as well, best fish I’ve ever had.

Shortbread cookies sandwiched with Dulce De Leche, that my friend is an Alfajor, need I say more? Nice people, husband LOVES Alfajor, I do too, but I hadn’t been pining for it like he has been the last months. Baking Bite’s recipe was posted right around husband’s birthday (perfect timing!), and while I truly meant to make it, did not. I also spent few weeks in Brazil, and brought only ONE back for him. (I know that was pretty bad…)

My first baking project post vacation had to be a batch of Alfajor with homemade Dulce de Leche!

Made my own Dulce De Leche (or Doce de Leite where I’m from!) in a slow cooker. Super easy and delicious! The cookies came out a little thicker than I’d like, but still they we’re crazy yummy. Specially one day later when the Dulce de Leche and the Cookies have been together long enough to form a beautiful tasty union. (This was husband’s tip, he loved them so much he thinks I should sell them! I have to say though he didn’t quite describe it as a beautiful tasty union.)

It started, Party People!

School has started and am crazy happy, no matter how many Pâte de Fruits burned (it was only one batch!) and how many cornets one still has to make until they are perfect! Our chef-instructor was kind to offer my team some of her Pate de Fruit (from the demo) to take home and I have to say tasting them fresh is a delightful departure from the boxed ones.

Other than Pâte de Fruit, we’ve baked yummy Ginger Snaps, weighed a lot of different ingredients (yay Metric!) and (total middle school throw back) did a LOT of cross multiplying! Thank you Baker’s Percentage! Oh we’ve also covered sanitation and I walked into a walk ins for the first time.

I realize now how little Ms. Cherryspoon knew about Pastry as a whole, cake decorating is the very last module and that would be the topic one guesses I’d know a little more about, but this is in no way a bad thing, quite the opposite, I very much enjoyed reading about the history of Baking, starting with flatbreads going through the Middle Ages all the way to Carême.

We’ve just completed lesson five and I already feel that it’ll go by too fast.

I also feel that I should work on my French!

About 4 weeks ago I ran off to Brazil for the quickest visit of all time. My family while not crazy (but understanding) about the duration of the visit made sure to give me the most beautiful send off lunch, with the obligatory amazing piece of Pork complete with crispy skin and an Apple dessert. The Apple dessert was that pretty baklava style delight above prepared by my very talented aunt. She swears there’s no recipe… Still I will relay what she told me.

She said and I paraphrase here, OK?

Layer Filo dough with Butter on the bottom of the pan, put in sliced apples and anything yummy you can find in the house (that would go with apples, of course), then add the top layers of Filo (counted 6 top layers), carefully cut out the diamond pattern and bake till golden ( I guess  at 350?!?)

That’s it for today my lovelies, I have a lot share with you guys still, but I also have to get to work!

ps: I am IN LOVE with my grandmother’s plastic Table Cloth!!!

EDIT:

My aunt spills the beans!

OK! I have to tell you something! There are a couple of secret ingredients in the filling… Beside apple slices, there is sugar & cinnamon, nuts, raisins, dried apricots and some bread crumbs (to keep things dry!). Simple, easy and tasteful!