Strudel, phyllo and a huge chunk of beef!

We started baking class by taking our second quiz. It certainly as easy as the first one, but I think I managed to pull at least a B. Our lecture today was on strudel and phyllo. Chef told us that we would make the strudel, but, for the first and only time, we would use phyllo out of the box, we would never actually make phyllo. Fine with me!

We all received our recipes. Half of us had to make strudel for the recipes and the other half got to use the phyllo out of the box. My recipe was called Floyers. It's farina (kind of like cream of wheat) pastry cream filled in phyllo dough then dunked into a tasty syrup after they are baked. We all had to participate in stretching the strudel though. You need at least 3 people to help stretch. You first roll it out into a 12-inch round, then you lift it up and stretch, with your fists, from the middle out. We needed to get it stretched over a square table. You can see the tablecloth through it. It needs to sit there and dry. As it's drying, some parts will dry quicker than others. When a section is dried, you need to brush it with clarified butter so it doesn't crack. Once it's all coated, you add your filling and bake it off.

For my recipe, we had to thaw the phyllo in the fridge. However, it was not going as quick as we needed it to, so we had to take it out to thaw on the counter. You have to be careful with thawing this way because if it goes to far, you just end up with all of the pieces stuck together in one mess. I tried unrolling the phyllo and realized that the very center was still frozen, so the last part ripped away from what I had already unrolled. Getting each individual piece off was a pain in the ass too. It kept ripping. I would have to get one sheet onto my board, spread butter over it and put another piece on top. Then, I would fill it with the pastry cream and roll it into cigars. Once done, I baked them for about 25 minutes until they were golden. They got dunked into the syrup which consisted of sugar, water, lemon juice, clove, cinnamon, and vanilla. It was a very tasty syrup. I was one of the first done, so everyone was snacking on my leftovers. My dish was called the 'crack' of the class since everyone couldn't stay away from them...I will take this as a compliment!

We had our quarterly baking reviews as well. In baking I am at an 89-plus (whatever the 'plus' means!). She said I did great in my bread classes, but need to practice on the fine pastries. I couldn't have agreed with her more. That's what I hated the most! She also told me that I have an excellent palate and that I can freely change up recipes as I'd like. This was a really nice compliment to hear and to let me know that they trust me.

Tonight was the final night of butchering. We focused on lamb, veal, beef and pig. The best part of the night was the primal cut of beef we got to take apart! We first started by Frenching a rack of lamb. It's pretty easy once you get the hang of it, but nothing I would ever do at my house. Derek would be pretty upset if I took off something he could eat! We then had to debone a fresh ham, breast of veal and the side of beef. Once this was done, we had steak with a nice pan sauce and rack of lamb. We didn't get out until almost 10pm, but why would you leave when steak is being served? I also got to take home a rack of lamb, so the next night, Derek and I had lamb with a leek and rosemary risotto....very good! Next week in seminar, we start Food Management. I am anxious to start this because it will help me decide if this is the direction that I might want to go in.

Today's Recipes:Pear Streusel Strudel, Cherry Cheese Strudel, Poppy Seed Strudel, Lihamurekepitras (Finish Meat Loaf in Strudel Dough), Chocolate Mousse Napoleon, Moroccan Bisteeya Triangles, Beggars Purses with Shrimp and Pesto, Mushroom-Broccoli Tartlets, Baklava