freshly grated nutmeg | smilingfrog.ca

Okay so lots to catch up on!  Last week at baking class, we made these globs of oatmeal chewy goodness…

We split the class up into 3 groups…my group baked oatmeal raisin cookies, group 2 baked chocolate chip, group 3 did peanut butter. I lucked out….oatmeal raisin is my fave! However, I did have to practice a great deal of restraint to avoid eating the dough. Mmmmm oatmeal cookie dough….nomnomnomnom…I’m glad I have this recipe cuz its definitely one of the best oatmeal raisin cookies I’ve had! I’ll try it again at home but scale it down a bit because this made a BOAT LOAD of cookies!!

We also made these shortbread icebox cookies. We actually mixed them the week prior and then sliced and baked them this week.

How pretty!!

 So this week we made these…..

 Brownies, which I never actually tried, but apparently tasted good. I just wasn’t a huge fan of the recipe….I don’t like using shortening in my baking and would prefer to use vegetable oil or butter. These had a ton of shortening and liquid glucose which was a huge pain to work with. ICK!  Josh said that they tasted “generic” compared to my usual baking…which is good because I try to put a personal touch on my own work.

I did learn however, that the trick to baking the brownies for the exact amount of  time is to roll a sheet of parchment on top of the tray of batter prior to baking. It is easy to tell when they are done when the parchment peels easily off the top! 

We also made these sugar cookies which made me think of Christmas….Sorry about the bad lighting….I always forget to take pictures up until the point when everything is packaged up in boxes, then I whip out my camera and end up with box lighting.

 Last night we made these almond macaroons as well as some coconut macaroons. The Chef was impressed with my piping skillz and presentation! (Yay me!) The goal is”uniformity and consistency”.

I liked how cute and little these ones were. Perfect bite size!

I’m going to New York for the long weekend! Just a quick trip, leaving Friday after work, coming home Monday night. So excited! I’ve never been before!

This class moves FAST! I like fast…but wow, not only am I learning A LOT but the expectation is to do everything with absolute precision and SPEED! I love it, I just need a lot of practice.

So, week one of pastry class was piping skills practice. We whipped up some royal icing and just played with it, creating shells, shell borders, rosettes, lady fingers, S’s and mounds. Then in week 2, we used the skills that we learned to make cookies piped in all of the different shapes. Like this…

They turned out….not bad….they taste good but spread a bit too much. I know what I’d do differently next time and it was good practice. We also prepped some ice box cookies so that they will be ready for us to slice and bake next week.