Monday, November 8, 2010

Turning over a new leaf

Because I don't like to be intolerant of anything, I'm going to call myself lactose sensitive. This hasn't always been the case -- I was a ice cream-loving fiend until I went to college. I think that surviving on handfuls of lucky charms, beer, and steak fajitas for four years may have tainted my digestive system slightly.

Nowadays my primary dairy intake comes from a weekly non-fat latte (don't be fooled into thinking I'm weaning myself off of caffeine -- this is a treat and departure from the 400 cups of black coffee that I drink daily). Anything more than that and I feel the strange urge to take a 6 hour nap.

This aversion may pose a challenge for the next nine days, as I've just started hot and cold desserts. We make gallons and gallons of ice cream every day and taste every kind. Let me tell you, all of those tiny plastic spoons add up to a big belly ache!!! Today, each group made three different kinds of ice cream -- and this isn't any cheap-o, light stuff either. I'm talking buckets of egg yolks, heavy cream, the whole nine. Making ice cream is actually really easy, and it's fun to see the different flavor combinations everyone comes up with.

Each group was assigned two flavors (we had french vanilla and pistachio) and was allowed to create one (today we did coffee-almond with white chocolate chunks). Of course, I had to taste test a bunch of the other flavor creations. The best was a coconut ice cream with dark chocolate ganache swirls -- tasted like a Mounds bar. My teacher also made a cinnamon infused ice cream that was delicious.

Tomorrow we are making fro yo (which, weirdly enough, does NOT give me a stomachache or the weird "approaching coma" feeling) and gelato. I want to come up with some crazy flavors (maple bacon? strawberry basil?) but I'm sort of limited to what we have in class, and unfortunately we don't have a lot of herbs or salted meats lying around.

I forgot my camera today, but I'll be sure to bring it to take some pictures of the profiteroles that we send up for service tomorrow.

Happy Monday!


Oh, and P.S. -- I passed my food safety exam (hooray!! I solemnly swear not to sneeze in your food) AND I got a good grade in my classical pastry class. Clearly she was grading on effort, not skill... but I'm not complaining!

1 comment:

  1. I am shocked and appalled that you do not have a ton of salted meat lying around.
    -Kelsey

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