Kitchen Day 28

Biscuits, Dough, Pastry and...?

My phone decided this was super important... At least it's clean!

I am slowly catching up..

Biscuits:

Easily one of my top favorite breakfast munchies! I LOVE biscuits and gravy. It is hard pressed for me to order anything else when I do get to go out for it. There's just something fantastic about a nice buttery, flaky biscuit smothered in gravy. Don't you dare say that isn't good!

 This is my first attempt at making them. We will see how it goes...

Keenan (pictured) Bubba and Megan (both hidden behind Keenan) prepare their biscuit dough

Danish (the pastry duh :P)

This pasty has always been a misnomer to me. If you don't remember, my grandmother actually IS Danish. A long time ago we were able to visit our motherland, go to Copenhagen, and taste REAL Danish pastry. So here we are, making it in class, eh. It still isn't the same. They should call it Danishish instead of Danishes. Unless I ever go back "home" and learn how to make it really, you can count me out of making this in my career. It was fun though, :)

Danish pastry is a laminated dough. That means that we have to give it layers of fat (really butter should be the only thin used, the Danes really do love it, I can personally attest!), in between the dough. Chef Suzanne demos the proper way to do this.

 Even though it takes me out, I really like taking these photos. It's cool to see the whole class interested in the same thing. Reminds me of why we are here, Us.

 Look at all that BUTTER!!! True to the namesake.

Once you get the butter in there, you have to begin the folding of the dough the "lamination". We only folded it once today, you want to make sure the dough is firm and cold to do it; warm butter melts and then gets absorbed into the flour, reducing it's flaky power.

The real purpose here is to get layers, for the pastries as they are enjoyed. It's the same with the French croissant, you get that flaky goodness from laying the dough with the butter. We just made the first layer today so it can cool and make more layers the next two days.

Cindy made these beautiful strawberry roses. Way cool!!!

Krista makes some vegan blueberry muffins. They were good!

Some granola. I didn't make any, I made a ton as a kid...

Megan makes her Danish dough...

Make an Ikea Bookshelf with it!

 Lots of biscuits and muffins!!!!

 Keenan and Jakob prepare for the feast!

 Chef Mark has taught us to use a garnish that is also in the dish. This way we can show what it contains if someone has an allergy. It also looks super pretty!