"Mommy makes frosting, Chefs make icing" Chef Warren Mah

 

So it's the end of Baking and Pastries and it's gone by so fast I can't believe we had our finals completed yesterday. 

I absolutely loved the baking and pastries segment of school and Chef Mah was Most Excellent and I found him to be quite hilarious.  Easy paced and relaxing.  I learned how to make soooo many things that I had always wanted to be able to make for myself like Creme Brulee, French Bread, Puff Pastry,  The Custard for Creme Puffs and OMG the Mousse, Lemon curd for lemon tarts and gosh, so much more.

As we ran around getting our icing made for our final cake decorating someone said they were making thier Frosting and to that Chef Mah slowly looked up from his table and replied "Mommy makes frosting, Chefs make icing."  So, here is the recipe for Simple Buttercream for when you decide you want to make "Icing" for your cake you're making from Scratch...

8oz  Butter
4oz  Shortening
20oz Confectioners Sugar
1.25 oz  Egg Whites
1/2 t  Lemon Juice
3/4 t  Vanilla

Cut the butter up into cubes and let it soften, Not Melted... then mix it together with the shortening.  Add the sugar and cream it.  If you're using a mixer you don't want it on high... you want to mix it on low or low medium because you don't want to beat in too much air into the icing, it makes for a rough look when you spread it on the cake.  Once creamed add the egg whites, lemon juice and vanilla.  Add the vanilla slowly and you might not even use all of it.  You don't want your icing to look beige.  Now, you want the right consistency for spreading so what you will do is use water to thin the icing out slowly so you get a nice spreadability but not too thin that it starts running off of the cake.   It'll be a trial and error thing.  I added more lemon juice to thin the icing when I decided that my cake was to be a lemon chiffon cake.   Play with your food.   Experiment and have fun.  In a couple of days I'll put in a really good recipe for Cheesecake.

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I loved the Italian Buttercream that we made the first time we made our cakes.  The Simple Buttercream that he had us make for our final was nice too but I prefer the Italian version even though it's a little more complicated to make.

And Yes, that is a picture of my decorated cake for the Finals.  The Chef said it was the best decorated cake he had seen all day.  And so I held my head high and said "Thank you Chef". 

Today was clean the Kitchen day but Chef called Caitlin and I up to the front and he had us make cakes for the Graduate BBQ they were having at the end of the day today.  Yay to not having to clean lol!!!  And so, today at the end of class, our final day with Chef Mah, I walked up to him, reached out to shake his hand and said "Thank you Chef".  He shook my hand and said "You're Good!"  And what could I say to that except, "Thank you Chef"...

That's my blip for my BFFs today.