Heny Sison - Baking and Pastry Lesson 10

Chef Vickie Villanueva Lesson Plan: Cookies & Petit Fours
Description: Chocolate Cookies, Oatmeal Revel Bars, Pecan Triangles, Brownies (cake or fudge like), Lace Cookies, etc.


Who doesn't love cookies or brownies? Although we weren't able to make petit fours, we did several variants of cookies. We also played around with ingredients like flour, eggs and liquids to see what effect it would have on our pastries. Like I said before, baking is precise and it does require the science of understanding ingredients and its properties. Do you want your pastry more cake like, dense, fudgey, cripsy vs. chewy? Sometimes its all about making small batches to acheive something that appeals to you. All the ingredients will play a role on the outcome. This is the beauty of baking...the outcome can be unpredictable.

Heny Sison - Baking and Pastry Lesson 9

Chef Pixie Sevilla
Lesson Plan: Breakfast and Fried Pastry
Description: Yeast-raised doughnuts, chocolate cake doughnuts, beignets souffle, home-made doughnuts, etc.

As a continuation from our previous class we did several types of doughnuts. Doughnuts are too oily and I just don't like them...except for Krispy Kreme (the maple glazed ones from the U.S....i know its uber sweet, but I love anything maple) and of course Mister Donuts Pan de Almond from Japan. See my previous post of those lovely mochi-like cakey delights. The Mister Donut ones from Japan don't leave that "I think I'm going to throw up feeling" after you eat it. The MD ones are ultimately my favorite.

Of course our doughnuts aren't massed produced so they turned out greasier. Because of the oil, I'm going to see if I can make baked doughnuts.

Heny Sison - Baking and Pastry Lesson 8

Chef Len Santos
Lesson Plan: Quick Breads, Crepe, Pancakes, Waffles

Description: Popovers, Sour Cream Biscuits, Belgian Waffles, Crepe Samurai, Crepe Suzette, Pancakes, etc.

Today was pretty fun and many of us were to make a slew of desserts and pastries. Quick breads aren't overly difficult as we've encountered most of this in our everyday lives, especially for breakfast.

Jojo did banana nut muffin and I don't think he shared his stash. He just tried to keep it all for himself! Jaja did waffles with mango and chocolate sauce. I did popovers and sour cream biscuits because I love biscuits. We all did our desserts well and with fun and love.

Heny Sison - Baking and Pastry Lesson 7

Chef Vickie Villanueva
Lesson Plan: Yeast Breads (Lean & Rich Dough)
Description: Pandesal, Ensaymada, Coffee Bun, Cinnamon Rolls, etc.

So today they did the unthinkable....they broke our group apart and made us form different ones. You should have seen our faces and our silent cussing and puffing. We were like little children, haha! The good thing was I was paired with two other great girls...quiet and even keeled as well. Jojo and Jaja, on the other hand, had slight drama pairings that I knew I would hear about it when we went on our smoke...uh, I meant lunch break! Yeah, that's it.

I'm not so much a fan of Filipino breads including pandesal or ensaymada. However, I truly liked the recipe and outcome of our cinnamon rolls. We under baked it slightly and it was soft...almost like that of Cinnabon. That was the only thing I truly ate and took home with me.


I also enjoyed making the coffee bun. The coffee bun is really popular in the Asian countries. Many will say this bun was created in Malaysia, some say Singapore. This bun, however, is very similar to the Mexican bun, except the topping is made of a coffee mixture to give it a crumbly texture on top. Having tried Roti Mum's coffee bun, I was instantly hooked on this pastry. It has butter/salt filling and the bun is soft. I must admit the sweet and salty combo along with coffee taste is just divine! If I see a Roti Mum wherever I go, I have to make it a point to always get one. The ones we made, however, weren't as soft. I will definitely plan on making these on my own.

Heny Sison - Baking and Pastry Lesson 6

Chef Vickie Villanueva

Lesson Plan: Yeasted Breads
Description: French baguette, Ciabatta, Foccacia, etc.

Finally, we go onto breads. I love breads, especially the rustic types that is crusty on the outside. Living in a humid country doesn't allow us to have that crispness or lovely crumb texture so I find myself missing good breads.

First part of the course was actually a discussion on the ingredients of what makes a bread - yeast, flour, salt, water (liquid) and sugar. Very simple in terms of ingredients. But simple ingredients don't make a good bread as bread baking is a master all on its own. Several factors can cause one to screw up. It relies heavily on techniques including kneading, proofing, resting, punch down and timing. The type of flour used, a good mixer for kneading and right oven temperature all play a role in the outcome.

We tried kneading manually, through a Kitchen Aid as well as the commercial mixer including the Hobart. If you are doing breads on a commercial scale and have cash stashed, then invest in a Hobart. I did my small batch of foccacia in the KA and it took forever to knead that it had to be transferred in to the Hobart.

Hobart....the pimp daddy of all mixers.

Heny Sison - Baking and Pastry Lesson 5

Chef Jackie Ang Po

Lesson Plan: Pies and Cheesecakes
Description: Doughs (pate sablee, pate brisee, pate sucree), coconut cream pie, walnut tarts, quiche (au roquefort, aux oignons), linzertorte, cheesecakes, etc.

Jaja in all his fabu-less-ness!

Pastry doughs including the above are normally easy to make. What really is important is to make sure the dough rests when made and rests again once rolled out into a pie or tart pan. This way it doesn't shrink. I say this because we made this mistake when we made some of our tarts. Otherwise, its a fairly simple process.

I made the quiche au fromage because I love quiche and love gruyere. Although the cheese isn't the best gruyere cheese, it was good enough. Imported cheeses are expensive here in the Philippines. In any event it turned out well. Jaja made New York cheesecake and Jojo made who knows what. I sometimes wonder what that guy makes or does. He goes off on his own tangent.

All in all we were pretty satified with the outcome of our desserts.

Heny Sison Baking and Pastry Lesson 4

Chef Pixie Sevilla

Lesson: Custards, Puddings and Souffles
Description: Pots de Creme, Mousse, Creme Brulee, Chocolate and Cheese Souffles

This was one of my favorite classes because I'm into these kinds of desserts. I love souffles and have always found that it was one of the harder desserts to master. Sometimes it can be a big hit and sometimes it can be a sad flop....literally!

After we were taught by example, we were off again doing our own desserts. Jaja did Pots de Creme and I of course begged to do the chocolate souffle. Each group was being graded on how it came out of the oven and it was announced out loud. How embarrassing!

As our souffles were in the oven, I looked at my mise en place tray and realized I left one ingredient....cream of tartar. I quickly told Joseph I forgot about it and his face turned a blank stare...one of oh s@*t! He freaked only because I freaked out and told him ours would flop. I was apologizing ahead of time to the guys and you can tell they were silently pissed off at me. I knew that I let the group down. Souffles require the egg whites be beaten properly and the cream of tartar is for added stability. I just hoped my folding and proper beating of the egg whites was enough to get it to rise.

Previous groups who did their souffles flopped or were deformed as it was coming out of the oven...so I didn't mind if we messed up. We are, after all, learning. Well time was up! Ours was up next and everyone was interested in looking at ours because ours was last. As it was coming out of the oven and as they were calling our group...the boys as well as I kept avoiding eye contact with everyone else. We were pretending we were busy with our other desserts and just kept doing something. But you know what, when it came out....SUCCESS! Everyone got excited and we got cheers and applauds! Haha....I loved it. I loved the fact the two boys crapped in their pants awaiting for the outcome, but it turned out great!

Heny Sison - Baking and Pastry Drama

No culinary school comes without its drama. Its can be a pretty toxic environment, especially if you watch those shows like Hell's Kitchen or Culinary School. Its time sensitive and being a team player is key.

We also started noticing in the past few days there was already built-in drama with other groups. Some didn't want to be in their groups, some groups all had commanders in chiefs....so they all wanted to lead. Some just caused plain drama with everyone in class. The most annoying ones are the students who wanted all the care and attention of the assistant chefs. Like we need more narcissistic chefs running around the world. If you have legs and arms...go get it yourself!

During mise en place, some students would hog the digital weighing scale and always wanted to be first in everything. I understood it was because it took a lot of time and it meant staying late....but for crying out loud, enough was enough. It was then I was really thankful I chose the guys as my partners. In fact, with only three boys in the class, I stole two of them from the get go! Why? Because these guys seemed even keeled and drama free. For some reason, in just a short time, we were already protecting each other as if we were a band of brothers...plus one sister! Hey now!

For the most part, we are always laughing, making jokes, goofing around and being friendly with all our classmates. We always smiled and enjoyed what were were doing.

It was then we became close to our other honorary member and contributor....Kim. At one point she got into a little fight with another student. I was there and overheard everything and realized it surely wasn't her fault. You can tell the other students picked on her for whatever reason. She is the only other expat there....a Korean and non-tagalog speaker. So I knew how she felt and because of that we befriended her. We like the underdogs!

Heny Sison - Baking and Pastry Lesson 3

Chef Pixie Sevilla

Lesson Plan: Pate A Choux
Description: Profiteroles, Eclairs, Paris Brest, Croquembouche, Pastry Creams, Creme Pralinee, Fondant Glaze, etc.

Today was all about Pate a Choux, basically a non yeasted dough that is prepared hot or on the stove, then baked. It was here that we finally got to choose our groups. And since I got along already with the two guys, I decided to pair up with them only because I don't want drama. You know how girls can get and so with the guys, I thought it would be even keeled and drama-less. Besides we owe it to another vice that united us together....cigarettes. During lunch breaks we found that the three of us where the only ones who smoked. Our friendship was meant to be! Oh joy!!

In our group we had to make some variants and different types of cream to pipe. It was also here we started to learn each others quirks fairly quickly. We divided each of what we had to make and then in the end helped each other out if we had time. The dynamics of our group actually worked well and as I suspected, we were three of a kind with three of a mind.

Heny Sison - Baking and Pastry Lesson 2

Chef Heny Sison

Lesson Plan: Basic Cake Decorating
Description: Boiled Icing, color mixing, Chiffon, Chocolate Cake, Butter Cake, etc.

Big bird partly finished!

Jaja's Smurf Turf

Strawberry Shortcake (Cheater....yeah, you know what i'm talking about Jojo!)

According to our syllabus class is going to be about basic cake decorating. Chef Heny is known for her expertise in this matter. She's a CCA graduate in Napa and also trained using the Wilton method for decorating. She has several years of experience in the baking and pastry field and is a chef celebrity. She's kinda like the Martha Stewart of the Philippines, if you will.

In the past, I have already taken several of her cake decorating classes so I thought this was going to be a bit of a breeze.

It was also this day that I would finally meet the students I will be with throughout the next few months. There were 14 students in total. Of that 3 students were males and the rest female.

This time, I sat in the back and of course close to Joseph since we already knew each other. As I was trying to mingle with others, I met another guy named Jan. He was a late comer so he sat next to me. First impressions were a bit off with this guy. He was a younger guy and seemed to be a bit of a rich young prick. (First impressions are deceiving, later I was to see he would be another of the contributors and close friend.)

We were to mise en place our own ingredients for our chosen cake and bake them ourselves. I can already tell alot of us were making mistakes with the way our chosen cakes came out of the oven. Because it was mostly chiffon type cakes, most of the ones didn't rise to its full potential or some didn't prep their pans properly therefore some got stuck in the pan. It was also apparent that some were already feeling the pressure already. It was chaotic in terms of mise en place because each one was looking out for themselves.

As class progressed, Chef Heny taught the basics of piping, how to make boiled icing and coloring. We were to bake and design our own character cakes. Unfortunately, we didn't have time to learn to actually carve our own cakes, but instead used pans and molds. I chose big bird. Joseph took Strawberry Shortcake and Jan - Smurfs.

It was also in this lesson that we had the most fun. As class was almost over, I ended up extremely having fun with Jan....only because he and I were the last ones to finish and we finished fairly late. It was also here that I knew going forward our friendship would last. We found out we lived so close to each other and would end up carpooling to school. I digress, he wasn't the young prick I thought in the beginning....just a spoiled brat!

Which cake do you guys like the best?

Heny Sison - Essential Baking and Pastry Lesson 1

Chef Vivian Syyap
Lesson Plan: General Standards and Food Sanitation

My very first class began today. Of course I'm excited to meet my fellow food enthusiasts and to delve into learning the techniques of baking and pastry. Baking I thought was a bit more interesting than culinary due to the science behind the ingredients. Being a Pastry Chef is almost like being a conductor, knowing the ingredients and its functions must be mastered and understood as if to come together like an orchestra to produce well made desserts, cakes and pastries.

Class began at 10am and to my surprise there were over 25 students. I was a bit intimidated with how young some of the students looked like. I took my seat closer to the front and sat next to a guy. We all introduced ourselves fairly quickly and delved into our first lesson on food sanitation and general standards. The chef who taught us our lesson Vivian, graduated from CCA in New York. Unfortunately, for us baking students she won't be one of our teachers, since her specialty is in culinary.

On our break, the person I sat to Joseph (later to become of the contributors) was the first person I ended up conversing and having lunch with. Fortunately for me, he will be part of the baking class and so my classmate from now on. From the get go and from our lunch, I knew somehow we would connect and end up being good friends. He has a passion for the arts and has experience and background in interior design, events planning and catering.

After returning from our break, we had our remaining lessons on food borne illnesses and other sanitation education. Twas quite boring and Joseph and I kept making remarks on how much we needed coffee. Again, another sign I knew I was going to get along with him.

Thankfully, we ended class at around 4pm. Tomorrow finally the real fun begins....