Professional Baking

It's been a while since I've posted and I apologize for the neglect. As any collegiate student knows, life can get overwhelmingly busy, especially when you're in your last semester of university. But now I'm done with classes (until grad school, at least) and I can shift my focus to a different type of learning: the culinary arts.

When my parents bought me the bible of all baking instruction books for Christmas, I knew I had hit gold. The book, Professional Baking (5th Edition, by Wayne Gisslen) is a masterful textbook of everything you need to know about becoming a professional. So this semester, I'm not going to be in school, per se; but I'm taking it upon myself to treat this book as a university course unto itself. I may be done with undergrad, but I'm not done learning - not in the slightest!

Prepare yourselves, readers. This blog is back and with a new face, ready for new food adventures in Montreal. And more importantly, with this book, I'm going to explore the depths of my culinary capabilities. The new student within me starts learning... NOW!

As always, happy eating! :)
-Talia

PS - I should probably add that Nikhil is no longer part of this blog! Sorry Nix, I love you but you failed to pull your weight so I'm kicking you out!! Maybe he'll make a surprise guest appearance every now and again...

Bad Case of the Mondays

Hello and welcome to my first blog post! As I am now the newest member of the blogging community, more specifically the cyber-foodie community, to break the ice I thought I'd share something personal about my day and its relationship to food.


For anyone, heading back to work or school on a Monday is rarely an anticipated occasion. Especially on a Monday such as today, when the weather's overcast and rainy, all I want to do is stay at home nestled up with a nice cup of tea and a good book. Today, I found myself daydreaming about so many things other than my immediate reality. I thought about restaurants I want to try, recipes I want to make, and the people I want to share these experiences with. I fantasized about being in Paris on a sunny summer day eating and drinking my way around the city. But alas, I was not in Paris. I was here, in the sticky and humid Washington D.C. area, confined within the white walls of my office at work.


To break loose of this temporary Monday-induced solace, I decided to forgo any after-work plans I had and instead I went home to bake! Every savory dish needs its sweet counterpart, and to complement a lovely dinner of saffron shrimp and a mixed green and chickpea salad, I decided to bake two of my favourite cookies: snickerdoodle and oatmeal raisin cookies.

First, I made the oatmeal raisin cookies. I used the "Cowgirl Oatmeal Cookies" recipe found here, but altered it significantly. Ironically enough, I ran out of raisins two days prior so instead I used dried cranberries, which are a perfect substitute. Also, I found that this recipe called for a remarkably small proportion of oats given the amount of butter required. As such, I increased the amount of oats used from 1 1/3 cups to 1 2/3 cups oats. Wanting to keep things simple and (relatively) low-fat, I also omitted the coconut and chocolate chips.


I undercooked them just a tad, for extra chewiness and they came out perfectly chewy with a slight crunch around the edges. Totally delicious!


Of course, I had to pause for a cup of tea before moving on to the snickerdoodles!

Next up, snickerdoodles. I found that these cookies, because of their incredibly soft and tender texture, go perfectly with a cup of tea. The recipe I used, found here, is actually adapted from Martha Stewart's classic snickerdoodle recipe. But once again, I made an effort to reduce the amount of butter used without compromising on the moistness of the cookie. As such, I only used 1/2 cup butter and substituted Greek non-fat yogurt for the remainder. I was nervous that this would compromise the flavour of the cookie somewhat, but truthfully it came out just as tasty and chewy as any other snickerdoodle recipe I've tried. The cookies were slightly dense, in my opinion, but short of aerating the wet mixture before adding in the dry, I don't know how much this could be avoided using this recipe.

In all, these cookies were the perfect antidote to my Monday blues. Two very simple cookies to help ease the stress of the worst day of the week. On the bright side, now I have dozens of cookies to keep me going the rest of the week through Friday!

Overall, the results for both cookies were simply delicious -- just what the doctor ordered to heal a bad case of the Mondays!


Until the next adventure, on behalf of Nikhil and myself,


Happy eating!
-Talia