Certificate Arrived

Well, it is official, I have completed the  Entrepreneurship and Small Business Management certificate program at Santa Fe college. I have also completed the first Wilton Cake decorating class - and I have the certificate to prove both. 

Shortbread - May 18, 2011

I was out of town at a work conference Wednesday morning, but when I got back that afternoon, I was pleased to discover that Lila and Allyson had made plans to meet to bake shortbread.  I let them know I was back in town and packed up to go to Allyson's place to bake. Routine was just what I needed after a semi-stressful few days.

When Lila, Alison and I started out baking a few years ago, we rotated who was hosting each week, and brought ingredients over as needed. Over time it morphed into baking at my house, partially because I have aspirations to open a bakery in the future, and partially because I have more counter-space, and my pantry is filling up with common (and some unique) ingredients as I get more into things. Lila and Allyson usually bring over fun tools, and contribute to ingredients (both the uncommon and replenishing the oft-used standards), but for the past stretch, it has always been my kitchen where the baking took place. It was fun to mix it up this week, though the set of "at hand" tools and ingredients was different.

I found several shortbread recipes in my cookbooks, and picked the easiest/ most adaptable one from Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar. Allyson mentioned she had most of the common baking ingredients, but not vegan butter. I grabbed a box of Earth Balance, and headed over.

The recipe was pretty simple. We opted for the plain shortbread, though we did consider adding some of the flavored teas Allyson had (the recipe options provide for Rose Water Shortbread, Lavender Shortbread and Earl Gray Shorbread alternate flavors). We may re-visit the recipe in the future and try one of the floral or tea flavored varieties.

Lila read out instructions, Allyson manned the mixer, and I measured out ingredients. We did not have the "tart pan" that the recipe called for, but Allyson did have this cute heart-shaped cake pan which we used instead. We knew the difference in material and thickness of the dough would cause differences from the recipe, and set the timer short so we could keep an eye on how it was baking.

 

Dough, mixed.

Once the dough was done, we pressed it into the pan, and Lila scored the top with a fork, putting in holes that reached about half-way down. When the edges were starting to darken, we called it "done" and removed it from the oven.

Poking holes in the dough

Nice and golden.

Cutting pieces from a heart-shaped pan was an interesting challenge, one that Allyson faced with a practical solution. Cut in a grid, like you would anything else. The shortbread had a nice flavor, and luckily for me, Lila had brought over some decaf Earl Gray tea, which was a very yummy compliment.

A bit damp in the center, but delicious.

We did find that the outer pieces were more "done" and the pieces from the middle were almost doughy, though not quite. The cookies did feel denser in the middle, though, due to to almost dampness. Overall, though, it was a delicious treat, and would definitely go well with tea or coffee.

New tools/ ingredients:  heart-shaped pan
Recipes used: Old-Fashioned Pie-Plate Shortbread, Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar, page 215-217
Co-bakers:  Allyson, Lila
Date: May 18, 2011

Lemon Snaps - May 11, 2011

This week I had both Lila and Allyson join me for baking. Lately Lila has been enjoying store-bought lemon cookies, and wanted to find a recipe to make her own. Allyson and I were game, and I even had most of 2 lemons (one had been zested to make lemon cupcakes for my student worker) that we could work with.

I printed out a copy of the recipe, and Lila set to zesting the other lemon, while I juiced the naked (already zested) lemon. A quick measure proved that the zest from one lemon was not enough, and Allyson ran to the supermarket to get another. While she was gone we measured and mixed the dry ingredients.

Lemony.

When she returned we zested the other lemon (Lila was our champion zester for the evening), and then I juiced the lemon. We were a bit shy of the measure for vegetable oil, and the last tablespoon or so was made up with canola oil. We were also a bit shy on the measure of fresh lemon juice, though luckily we had a bottle of lemon juice. Equally as lucky, we had just enough vanilla extract for the recipe (I didn't have a reasonable substitute if we fell short on that one). Needless to say, a trip the the store to restock is in order.

We mixed in the wet ingredients into the dry, and set out with the rounded teaspoon measure to put cookies on the sheet. The amount of dough called for seemed rather small, but the cookies spread well, and the final product was quite thin (we realized later that the term "snap" should have clued us in to this).

Dough when first mixed.

One thing with the dough is that there was a lot of it - and the amount used for each cookie was small. We ended up with two cookie sheets going into the oven about 3 or 4 times each to bake all the cookies. Additionally, as the dough sat between batches, the oil kept separating from the dough, and we would have to mix it back in before scooping out the next batch.

The recipe gives two cook times, one for soft cookies, which we tried first, and one for more- crisp cookies, which we tried with the second batch. Unanimous opinion of each of us, and my sister, who was hanging out while we baked, was that the more-crisp cookies were better. I had left-over lemon icing from the cupcakes for my student, and though it spread like butter on the cookies, it was a taste delight.

Finished Lemon Snaps.

We came up with other serving options that we would like to try with these cookies, including sprinkling them with powdered sugar, dipping them (or one half) in chocolate, serving as a garnish in other desserts (like ice cream), and serving them with lemon, or other flavored icing, sandwiched between two of the cookies.

Dough - after a while the oil started to separate.

Right after baking, the cookies tasted slightly oily, but when we tried them the next day, that wasn't as much of an issue. These are definitely second-day cookies. Overall, I would love to try this recipe again, though we would consider the problem of the oil - either lessening the amount of oil in general, or replacing some of the liquid oil with a solid fat instead, to help prevent the unappetizing separation we saw.

New tools/ ingredients:  none
Recipes used: Luscious Lemon Snaps recipe from allrecipes.com
Co-bakers:  Allyson, Lila
Date: May 11, 2011

Graduation and Beyond

With aspirations of opening a vegan bakery, and a background in theater performance and library science, I decided to go back to school to study business. Rather than getting wrapped up in another graduate degree, I enrolled in a six-course program at a local college, taking 2 classes a semester for the past year. On April 29th I graduated with a business certificate in Entrepreneurship and Small Business Management.

The online program consisted of classes in Accounting, Intro to Business, Entrepreneurship and Small Business Management, Marketing, Finance and Human Resources. I now have some basic understanding of the business side of things, though I know that I have much work ahead of me. For instance, I learned about writing a business plan, but have not yet sat down to draft my own. I understand the basic accounting techniques I'll probably use to keep my books, but I still have to research specifics in getting finance and capital to actually open a store.

In my grand two-year-til-decision scheme, these courses fell such that at the end I have nine months left in which to learn more, and get ideas. While I focused on learning some of the business aspects of running a bakery, my actual time in the kitchen decreased. I realized this, and in December, I signed up for the Daring Baker challenge over at the Daring Kitchen website. Each month they provide a different baking challenge, and then everyone posts about their experience on the same day. I signed up as an "alternative baker" - a group of bakers who play by different rules, ranging from those with food allergies to those who make conscious decisions about their baking. The forums for alternative daring bakers is a great resource, especially when the original recipe that is posted for the challenge has to be adapted to become vegan. It's nice to have a place to get ideas from others who are working on the same baking challenge. So far, we have completed 4 challenges: January - Biscuit Joconde Imprime ; February- Panna Cotta and Florentine Cookies ; March- Yeasted Coffee Cake ; April - Maple Mousse in an Edible Container (Pretzel Bowls!).

Also in December, I bought the student kit for the first of three Wilton Cake Decorating classes offered at our local Michael's "Decorating Basics". Even though I had not signed up for the class yet, I knew I wanted to, and I thought that by buying the student kit, it would ensure that I did eventually sign up for the class. My self-logic worked, and I am currently enrolled in the class. The day class started (May 1st, since I'm in a Sunday course), I went ahead and bought the student kit for class two - "Flowers and Cake Design" for June.

I'm enjoying the class so far, and anticipate signing up for the third course, "Gum Paste and Fondant", for July.

In the first class we watched the instructor ice a cake, and discussed different consistencies of icing (I never realized there was such a thing - though in retrospect it makes sense). We got our hands dirty learning to fill our decorating bags, and using a particular tip to make stars. Everyone brought in cookies, and we spent the last part of class decorating them with what we'd learned.

Practicing stars.

The second class was a little more exciting. Building on what we saw in the first class, everyone brought in their own cake, and learned how to ice it. With the decorating bags we learned dots, elongated dots, zig-zags and wavy lines. Once the icing on the cake was set, we were given time to decorate it using what we'd learned.

Dots and Zig-Zags

My first decorated cake.

I'm looking forward to the remaining two classes in this course, and in the two following classes, even though at the end of each class there is a reminder of which new Wilton product you'll need to purchase before the next course - I did some shopping around after the first week, and it ended up that the long off-set spatula that I needed (okay - wanted, it made things easier, but to be honest I could have gotten by with the smaller one) - anyway, the Wilton brand one they sold at Michael's was actually the cheapest one I found in town - and then I got my Wilton-student discount on top of it.

All in all, I feel like I am still moving in the right direction, and look forward to where this year takes me.

Magical Coconut Cookie Bars - May 4, 2011

Allyson's birthday was this week, so I offered to let her pick what was on the menu for baking. Her request was for cookies, or other single serving treats that we could share at gaming. Since she didn't have a particular recipe in mind, we flipped through the Vegan Cookies Invade your Cookie Jar until we found Magical Coconut Cookie Bars. This recipe required a quick trip to the supermarket to get coconut milk, sweetened coconut  and graham crackers, but the treat was too tempting to pass up.

Once we returned, Allyson set to crumbling graham crackers, and mixing them with margarine  while I heated the coconut milk and sugar on the stove. The recipe instructs you to heat the milk and sugar first, then let it cool while you make the crust, and this is one time where I think that having more hands may have had a negative, rather than positive, effect on the end product.

Coconut Milk and Brown Sugar

Graham Cracker base for crust

We lined a 13 x 9 x 2 inch pan with parchment paper, and spread the crumb crust in the bottom. At first it looked like we wouldn't have enough, but with some finessing with the back of a spoon and fingertips got a fairly good coverage. Next came the milk and sugar mix which, even though we put it in the refrigerator for about five minutes, was still warm. This was topped with a bag of chocolate chips, which sank into the liquid, shredded coconut, and finally chopped pecans.

Adding the liquid - probably too warm, but it still worked out okay.

We checked the cookie bars at 20 minutes and again at 25. At 28 minutes we could tell the liquid was pretty solidified, and though the coconut wasn't golden, it was certainly toasting in the heat. The bubbles in the mix that had been around the edges at 20 minutes covered the treat, so we pulled them out to cool.

I let the pan cool on my stove over night, then placed them in the fridge until we met again on Friday evening. The cookie bars were a bit less solid - more gooey - than I expected, but were delicious none-the-less. I would be interested to determine if there were a way to have the bottom retain any crispness, rather than absorbing the milk to create a soft base. I don't know if this was a factor of the milk/sugar combo being too warm, or if this is just the nature of the recipe.

The finished product (pre-slicing)

All in all, the Magical Coconut Cookie bars were what they promised to be - full of tasty coconut goodness. 



New tools/ ingredients:  graham crackers
Recipes used: Magical Coconut Cookie bars, Vegan Cookies Invade your Cookie Jar pg 121
Co-bakers:  Allyson
Date: May 4, 2011