Day 15 - October 13, 2009

Day 15:

Today I got to school and it was pretty empty ... again. More than half my class has not been there for the last week or two, which is really odd. The few people that did show up where all heading out to SLC with John to the food show. Adrienn and I were the only ones who stayed behind.

Today I slowly reheated my broccoli cheese soup base so I didn't separate the milk and when it was warm I added the cheese until it was melted and then added the broccoli. I tasted it and it was good, but it was missing something. Turns out that something was ... dry mustard! It helped a lot. I also learned that soup has to be at least 165 degrees to serve and preferably between 180-190 degrees to serve it so I just waited for it to finish getting hot and took it out to the line for lunch.

After my soup was finished, I decided to make my vanilla pudding cinnamon rolls for Rex because he's been harassing me over the pudding part of them so I decided to make them for him. After baking my own recipe today, I swear I will never again bake my own recipes at school again!! Everything kept going wrong and it drove me crazy.

My dough started out a little strange, and maybe it was because they had regular cook vanilla pudding instead of instant... but maybe that wasn't the reason at all. I finished the dough (after getting harassed for using the paddle instead of the dough hook...I know, pretty bad), let it rise, rolled it out and put in the filling. I did learn a trick for the filling. Instead of just spreading room temp. butter all over the dough and sprinkling the topping, you mix them all together into a paste and smear the paste on the dough instead. It will keep the layers together better. Also, tuck the tail of the rolls under the bottom to keep them from sticking out funny.

After those starting rising, Rex showed me how to make a homemade caramel sauce for the topping instead of a store bought one. It was really really good and super easy.

Quick homemade caramel sauce:
1 pound butter
1 cup white sugar
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup corn syrup
1 can sweetened condensed milk

Combine everything in a nonstick pan and stir constantly in small figure 8's on medium heat until it combines and reaches the color, taste and thickness you are going for. The longer you cook the caramel for and the darker the color gets, the harder your caramel is going to be. Because I wanted a sauce to drizzle over, I probably cooked mine for about 10 minutes or so.

I also prepped my cream cheese frosting and it didn't turn out right either. There wasn't enough cream cheese, so I just added extra and it tasted better. I finally baked off my cinnamon rolls, and overcooked them a tiny bit. I put my frosting on and waited for it to melt over the rolls and it was taking forever so I just popped them back into the oven for a second. After they came back out we drizzled the caramel over the top. The caramel made a huge difference! It was really really good. The rolls turned out alright, not as good as when I make them at home. I joked with Rex that I can't bake under pressure.

He kept commenting that they were pretty good, but that he didn't like the pudding flavor in the rolls. He also said that I did it all without using a single baking technique. =) He likes to harass me I think.

While I was working on my cream cheese frosting, I opened a sealed back Rex thought might have been cream cheese, after smelling it I knew it wasn't cream cheese. It turned out to be goat cheese. I had never tasted it before, so I had a small taste. Man, it is really strong but it tastes really good in small portions. Rex told me that if you mix a little bit of goat cheese into cream cheese frosting it adds a bit of earthiness to the background. I wanted to try it, so I mixed a tiny bit in a small bowl on the side and added the goat cheese. It really was good, not at all what I expected. It's good to know and keep in mind for the future. He said a good way to use that kind of frosting would be to make dough and roll lemon into the middle instead of cinnamon and possibly add some poppy seeds and then top with a cream cheese and goat cheese frosting. I may just have to try that one of these days.

That was about it for my day. It was really empty, which I like in the kitchen so I was fine with it. Monday I told Rex something I've been wanting to try so tomorrow we are going to make fresh mozzarella! I'm very excited and I hope it turns out really good.