Cakes, cakes, cakes

Pina Colada Cake

Before I went to pastry school I made cakes at home. I made cakes the way I imagine most do, boxed cake mix, can of frosting or two (one for me and one for the cake). I have really fond memories of helping my mother make cakes for her office parties when I was younger. It was always my job to make sure there was no extra batter left in the bowl before washing it.

By the time I got to pastry school I had this silly notion that I was pretty good at building and decorating cakes. I thought to myself ," This part will be easy." How wrong I was. When you're at home you might not think anything of spending a half hour on a cake. When I was in school my chef informed our class that this would not do. In his way he told us that if we spent more than 30 minutes on a basic cake that any employer would more than likely thank us for our time. He did that frequently. If you can't write in chocolate no one will hire you, if you can't clean as you go no one will hire you, if you can't build a cake in less than 30 minutes no one will hire you. I'm not entirely sure that's really true but I know that it pushed me to work faster, cleaner and all around more inefficiently. 

When I was in school I admit it I couldn't build a cake in less than 30 minutes. In case you're unsure about what I mean by build a cake that includes: trimming, cutting, syruping, filling, frosting, and decorating. In fact it wasn't even until I started at my first job that I really started getting better at it. That might have something to do with amount of cakes that I had to decorate; once you have to make more than 20 cakes in a day you start to develop a rhythm. The older ladies at work (who have been doing this for longer than I've been breathing) showed me their tips and tricks, a fact that I'm extremely grateful for.

My average time is down to roughly 7 minutes per cake, perhaps a little longer if the decoration is more

Chocolate Peanut butter cake

complicated. It's really a thing of beauty to step back and realize how far you've come. Even in the two years that I've been working I realize that I have so much more to learn. Sometimes I think about going to visit my chef to tell him "Hey remember how I couldn't build one cake in less than 30 minutes? Well now I can do 10 in one hour!" I think he'd laugh.

The upside of making desserts for a buffet is that they always require a variety so my boss is pretty open to any flavor my coworkers or I want to make. Black forest? Great. Chocolate peanut butter? Delicious. Pina Colada? Watch it because someone might get drunk off dessert.

I also have the added benefit of working with people that inspire me. There will be nights where my coworker Sophie and I start talking about some other dessert completely and by the end of the night we're trying to figure out how to make it into a cake.

Life is sweet. Busy but sweet.

Chocolate Dipped Peanut Butter Cookies

I am thoroughly convinced that there is no better taste combination than chocolate and peanut butter. So when my friend sami's grandmother asked me to make her 5 dozen cookies for her cookie exchange--and mentioned that chocolate chip was not an option but the cookies should be rather simple--I knew chocolate dipped peanut butter cookies were the answer.

Simple, delicious, and who doesn't love melting chocolate? And peanut butter cookies have to be the easiest cookies in the world. Unfortunately they are terribly difficult for Os--thick things like peanut butter...or butter for that matter make him turn into a grump old man.

I use a simple peanut butter cookie recipe:

Ingredients:

• 1 cup peanut butter
  
• 1 cup of sugar
• 1 large egg
• 12 oz for semisweet chocolate morsels
  

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
2. Beat the Egg, peanut butter, and sugar until a dough forms.
3. Form the dough into small balls and place on cookie sheet.
4. Bake for 10 minutes.
5. You can easily create a double boiler by simmering water in a pot and placing a glass bowl on top of it. Place your chocolate chips in the glass bowl and stir them around with a rubber spatula. Once the chocolate is halfway melted you can remove it from the heat and just continue to stir so the chocolate won't burn.
   

Once the cookies have cooled just dip them in the chocolate and let them sit in the fridge until you're ready to eat them.



The best thing about these cookies is how the chocolate melts in your mouth and then the soft center of the peanut butter cookie is just perfection.

That's why I love Sami. She is one of those people that no matter what sweet I make she'll eat it even if it's ridiculously simple like peanut butter cookies; however perhaps when it comes to cookies simple is always best.

I honestly cannot for the life of me remember why I used to think peanut butter cookies were so difficult. It might be because Os doesn't do well with them. Sometimes I'd rather use the Betty Crocker easy cookie mixes for peanut butter cookies, which I'm sure is some sort of baking sin, but it's a lot better than dealing with Os when he's being fussy.