11. externship update: school is out!

can you believe my externship & thus school is over?!  i cannot.  classes, well, they did not go by quickly.  they were wonderful & i learned so much.  but they were not quick.  the last 11 weeks, however, went by so fast! 

i'm on my way to being a "real" pastry chef :)

this last week was all about fancy-ing things up, being a little more creative, & just making the customer smile a little bit more. 

since blueberries are now in season {yay berries!!}, we have now begun making blueberry scones from scratch.  these have been a huge hit.  probably my biggest success since starting at urban.  & i've actually gotten much faster at making scones.  it used to take about an hour from start to finish of clean-up to make 3 batches.  i now can make 4 batches in about 30 minutes.  nice.

everyone from oklahoma knows about these cookies:  peanut butter swirls.  oh yes.  well, i've created my version of the best cookie:  peanut butter chocolate drizzle.  yum!

one day i was asking all of fellow urbanites what their favorite cookie from childhood was.  one of the fellas said it was the iced oatmeal cookies that came in a long package with a circle of icing on top.  certainly we can do that!  one of the awesome guys in the kitchen made applesauce from scratch for me when there was a little free time.  the cookies turned out pretty darn good.  no package cookie, luckily.  {wink wink}

sunday morning before brunch started, the chefs made some fabulous french toast with bacon & blueberries.  sounds so good, right?!  it was.  & i now have a huge crush on the bacon blueberry combo.  what should i make??  i am thinking candied bacon & blueberry muffins...

it has been a wonderful wonderful 11 weeks.  & i am happy to announce that i will be staying at urban as the pastry chef!  so excited.  so blessed.

love love,

kjp.

10. externship update: monkeys!

one of our customer favorites at urban is our monkey bread.  biscuit dough, butter, sugar, & cinnamon = delicious!

start with about 15 small biscuits worth of biscuit dough.  i make my own biscuit dough from scratch, but you could use frozen biscuits to make it SUPER easy.

cut the biscuits into quarters & roll each in a cinnamon + sugar mixture.

throw 6-8 biscuit pieces into little foil tins {bigger than a cupcake - a jumbo cupcake, if you will}.

then melt a stick of butter & a cup of brown sugar in pan until no longer grainy {just a few minutes).  ladle about 2 oz of the buttery sugary goodness over the biscuits.

throw those guys in the oven at 350 for 15-20 minutes {until the biscuits are done throughout}. & now you have monkey bread!

we used to take them out of the tins, so you could see the biscuits all squished together.  but we decided that makes you lose a lot of the ooey gooey goodness.

so now we serve them in the tins.  they look hip & urban.  good thing :)

only 1 more week of the externship!  can you believe it?  time flies...when you're not in night school :)

love love,

kjp.

9. externship update: being creative.

one day this week, we were completely out of butter & i had a little extra time on my hands, so i decided to get creative.  

what would happen if you made cookies with creamcheese instead of butter? 

i have no idea.  they are generally the same consistency at room temp & more or less at hot temps, so let's try it.  i creamed the creamcheese & sugar, added eggs, lightly mixed in the dry ingredients, rolled the dough into balls, & into the oven they went.  

my first thought was that they were going to spread a lot, probably because all of my cookies spread more than i want them to.  but they actually did the exact opposite.  those little suckers stayed in the exact shape i had rolled them into.  since i didn't really want to make snowballs, i flattened them a bit half way through cooking.  

{upon further reflection, that actually makes sense.  creamcheese has a little more texture when melted than butter.  it was early.}

after baking a bit longer than the usual sugar cookie, that taste test began!  my creamcheese cookies were actually kind of good!  they were quite dense - almost like a sweet biscuit.  definitely sell-able.  & everything is good with frosting on it, so i piped some strawberry on half & lemon on the other half.  

they are pretty cute:

the creamcheese cookies sold pretty quickly & got quite a few rave reviews!  creamcheese cookies.  who would've ever thought?

our chocolate frosted cupcakes have always been the slowest to sell, which i think is weird.  blakey & i actually really like the chocolate on chocolate.  both the CC & CW {chocolate on chocolate & chocolate on white} have been staples forever, so tom, our owner, wants to keep them.  so i have to figure out a way to make them sell faster.

what makes everything sell better?  making it cute.  so chocolate chip kisses now top our chocolate frosted cupcakes!

we'll see if our customers agree.  one rather manly grown man already commented on how "adorable" they are & bought one.  at least it worked once :)

so everything is fabulous on the urban front.  i hope all is fabulous with you too.

happy friday!

love love,
kjp.

8. externship update: dinner desserts.

three nights a week, we have an upscale dinner service at urban.  the dishes include fun & interesting items such as rabbit three ways, grilled venison, & potato and chive pierogi.  to accompany the delicious menu items, i got to come up with three dinner desserts!

first up, a moist 4-layer chocolate cake with a creamy chocolate pecan frosting.

{note: i am not actually working during dinner service, so i don't have any pictures of these desserts plated up.  this is from us tasting the cake :)}

next is a key lime pie semifreddo.  {semifreddo = semi-frozen. so it's like ice cream but frozen by putting it in a freezer.}  this is actually an old picture.  we now have a chocolate ganache crust with a graham cracker crumble topping.  it is by far the best seller.  i got to take a few home for our easter dinner last month.  our friends enjoyed them!

lastly is the apple bread pudding served with a vanilla sauce.  all of you who know me are thinking "kendall - bread pudding?  no way."  i know, i know.  i hate bread pudding.  & all mushy, creamy, custardy things.  but sometimes you have to do what the people want.  & southerners want their bread pudding.

it actually isn't bad.  that might have something to do with the disproportionate amount of custard to apples & bread.  maybe :)

oh, & i decided the lemon cupcakes are an official urban standard {haha...an Urban Standard standard} now.  so i made them a hand-drawn sign to match the others.

happy friday, friends!  it is a birthday-filled weekend for us!  & you know i love that.  happy birthday to asher, amy, & julie byrd!! 

love love,
kjp.

7. externship update: the cookie battle.

i've been at battle with cookies for the last 6 weeks.  & the cookies are winning.  by a lot.

i can give you all of my excuses, if you'd like: the convection oven's wind is too much... our new silpats are succeeding at their job more than necessary... different shelves of the oven get significantly different amounts of heat...

but finally, i've won!  i've defeated the cookies.  & they are delicious!  & soft inside with a slightly crisp outside. & pretty too.  

{a new customer favorite.
thank you, miss helen, for the suggestion!}

by the way, the solution: bake at 25 degrees lower, rotate the pans half way through baking, & use dough only at room temp.  

who knew cookies could be so complicated?

oh, i also made some great coffee cake cupcakes with a streusel topping & milky drizzle.  yummm.

happy friday!  bake some cookies this weekend & let me know your favorite flavors.

love love,

kjp.

6. externship update: adapt.

the word of the week @ urban was ADAPT. 

the compressor of our bake case broke, melting all of my cupcakes in it one morning.  trashing cupcakes is always a sad day. & then discovering how to deal with the situation is, well, frustrating.

we tried putting the frosted cupcakes in one of our back fridges.  after a complaint about the cupcakes tasting funny, i tried one.  oh yes, they were freezer burned.  the fridge we had recently inherited was at 35 degrees, & much closer to a freezer than a cooler.

plan # 2: leave the cupcakes out at room temp.  buttercream has so much sugar in it that it is safe to leave it out at room temperature.  safe, yes.  stable at 90-something degrees, not so much.  more melted cupcakes!

plan # 3: new buttercream recipes.  how do you make buttercream more stable?  lots & lots of powdered sugar.  although that resulted in cupcakes a little sweeter than i would like, it worked.  so we put a display cake plate out with our options to entice the sweet tooths of our customers.  you know i love cake plates, so that part made me happy.

we also decided to try a new frosting method.  tom, urban's owner, wants the frosting to cover the entire surface of the cupcake top.  a reasonable request.  i am already using the most gigantic piping tip i can find & it wasn't doing the trick the kiss piping way.  so something new: a happy little swirl atop our cupcakes.

i actually think it's pretty cute.

adapting.

not so bad after all.

oh, the bake case got fixed last night.  & i now get to display my sweets proudly.  yessss.

{cherry limeade cupcakes!}

happy friday, friends!

love love,

kjp.

5. externship update: scones, just triangle biscuits.

this week was scone week at urban!

we have been selling the same blueberry & apple cinnamon scones since i started at urban.  {secret is out...} they are frozen & from sysco.  our customers love them.  {another secret: i, embarrassingly, do too.}  but they are so not really scones.  they are more like triangle muffins.

so what makes a scone a scone?  well, they are really just biscuits cut into triangles.  you make them just like biscuits:  cut butter into the dry ingredients.  add liquid & fold very gently & very quickly.  work the dough as little as possible.  bake.  & voila!  scones!

everyone from school knows that chef o would be livid to know i made scones with anything other than raisins.  but sometimes you have to please your chef & your customers.  so for our new sweet scones: cherry & almond.  & for our savory: bacon & cheddar.

yummm...

happy friday!  have a lovely weekend, friends.

love love,

kjp.

4. externship update: urban's customers are the best.

yesterday morning, we decided to take donations for the victims of the tornadoes in alabama.  before i even knew we were accepting them, our customers were bringing in donations by the bag full.  {& i started working at 6 am!}  there were bags & bags & bags of clothes, blankets, & other non-perishables by lunch.  we seriously have the greatest customers.  thank you all so very much.

in other {& now so much less important news}, we got a new mixer!!!  it is huge.  & i am so excited about it.  i actually shrieked with joy when i first saw it.  we also are going to have a new work table & rack for baking.  it is going to be fabulous.  think of how much buttercream i will be able to make at a time.  an entire week's worth :)

did i mention the purchasing of these great items means we are going to start making our own bread?  yes, i, kendall porter, might have to dabble in bread making.  i, who am terrified of bread & said i would not make bread for a living, might make bread.  oh, the irony.  i need a culinard extern!  or maybe just a little patience.  probably the extern.

next week, i am going to start making some changes in our plated dinner desserts menu.  warm chocolate sheet cake with pecan fudge icing :  i think so.

have a wonderful weekend, friends!  blakey & i will be celebrating our ONE YEAR ANNIVERSARY!  can you believe it?  we certainly cannot.  one year.  one absolutely fabulous, beyond anything i could've ever hoped & dreamed year.

love love,
kjp.

3. externship update: i love piping.

another great week at urban!

this past weekend, there was a fun event on second avenue north {our front door} called paint the town red.  it was a digital art show & fundraiser for the red cross.  lots of people outside means lots of people inside buying cupcakes!  i got to bake & ice so so many cupcakes.

{now that is what i call a full case.

more cupcakes below & in back.}

i introduced a new cupcake to urban: the lemon cupcake with lemon frosting!  it is light & fruity & very spring.  my wonderful friends at work say it is fabulous.  {they are so sweet.} & a customer even tweeted about them on twitter!  success.

after getting the urban way of icing cupcakes down, i decided it was time to make a change.  i love piping frosting onto cupcakes.  it is fast, efficient, easier to be consistent, & super adorable.  so we made the change!  little kisses of frosting now sit atop our cupcakes.

{red velvet}

{strawberry}

{lemon}

as with everything else, practice will make them much better.  but i think it is a great start.

happy friday, friends!

love love,

kjp.

2. externship update: macarons with 1 o.

french macarons: the cute little cookie sandwiches with chewy yet crisp "cookies" made from meringue.  supposedly the next big thing after cupcakes.

macaroons: the, usually coconut, cookies that you normally think of when you hear the term "macaroons."

note: these two things have very little in common.

i made both this week :)  pictures of the french version:

 {vanilla with strawberry}

{coconut with white}

& i learned that, although my book devoted specifically to french macarons with every single little detail spelled out on how to make these delightful treats mentions nothing of it, you should bake these on silpats.  not baking them on silpats results in a very long time spent trying to peel them off of parchment paper.  do yourself a favor & just use a silpat.

other than that, they were great!  & adorable.  & will hopefully be even better next time.

by the way, biggest challenge of real world vs school thus far: trying to wrap up full sheet pans in plastic wrap without the help of my favorite class partner in crime, jess.  we always joked that it would be hard to do without each other.  but, seriously, it is.  i dropped a sheet pan full of cupcakes on the ground.  {only 30ish, not iced.  but STILL.  not my proudest moment.}

more new stuff next week!  still trying out all of our recipes & creating some new ones myself.  if you're in birmy, stop by urban & get yourself a treat!

love love,

kjp.

1. externship update: the urban way.

this week started my 11-week externship at urban standard! 

& week # 1 was all about learning the urban way.  finding where everything is in the kitchen & pantry, determining what & how much needs to be baked each day, going through the original recipes & deciphering what has changed over the years, figuring out what new items need to be ordered, & more.

the biggest challenge has been the way we ice cupcakes.  i am a piping girl.  i would be happy piping frosting all day long.  but we, at urban, do not pipe onto our cupcakes.  we do this super hip swirly poof top of icing on our cupcakes.  & it takes practice.

the first day, it took me over 2 hours to get all of the cupcakes we needed iced done.  & it wasn't that many cupcakes.  by thursday, i sped up slightly to 1.5 hours for quite a bit more.  practice, practice, practice.  luckily, i have a lot of opportunity to practice - 132 thursday morning.

 {red velvet}

 {white on white}

 {chocolate on chocolate}

next week's goal: french macarons @ urban!  our supplier is currently attempting to find the ingredients i need.  hopefully, i will get to tell you about the huge success of my macarons next week.  but, as i mentioned {here}, it took us 6 attempts to get 3 batches for our buffet.  i will be praying for a little better turn out!  

by the way, a guy at work was making mayonnaise the other day.  i kept laughing about it.  although he was using a mixer & not making it by hand, i was so incredibly happy i wasn't making mayo.  fellow pastry students, you know exactly how i feel.

happy friday!

love love,
kjp.