Hey, I became a pastry cook! A confectioner!

Hello Guys! :)

Finally my confectioner school ended, I passed the final baking exam, and now I have my pastry cook degree in my hands! :D

In this post I am writing about the exam, which was nearly 10 hours long. 

We knew that it would be a tough day, and it really was...

Nero

Hi Dears,

Today, I brought You little, sweet sandvich-looking darlings, that you can find in all of the traditional confectioneries in Hungary. 

When I was a trainee in one of them, for almost half a year, I filled thousands of these with jam. The fun part (which I think is the fun part) is to create the shells with the decorating bag, was always the professional's job, as that was the part where the neros could go wrong. Each and every neros should be the same size to look beautiful in a plate.

The other big challenge while baking it, is actually the baking time. One second you see them unbaked, in the next second they are burned. 

If you ask any confectioners which product burns the most, they would answer the neros.  

However, the customers love them, and so do we.

Why? After you fill them with jam, give them 2-3 hours (in the confectioneries they even give them 2-3 days to let them soften) and you will have the softest, and the tastiest  little sweet sandwiches of the World. 

I don't really know why we have the 'Macaron craziness' everywhere, when we have a much more delicious sweet, yes if you like the colors, you can color this sponge, too. And yes you can use any kind of filling for this sweet, too, like ganache, cream, etc..

So, Neros I am cheering for You, to win over Macarons!!!

Cottage cheese Cake with nectarine

Hi Dears,

I have 2 months till my final exam at my pastry school, and I still have some pastries, cakes, and creams to practice.

Last week I baked two of them, neros (which are little soft biscuits filled with jam - you can have the recipe in my following post) and this Cottage cheese cake. 

We celebrated my fiancé's grandma's Name Day as well, so the cake was my gift to her. :)

I am short in time as now I have a full time job, and at home we are under a home renovation. 

If I had more time I would cover the cake side with cream and maybe cover it with almonds, it would make the cake even more beautiful and would give a finished look. Anyway, I didn't bake it, just to look at it, we cut it right away, I took it from the fridge, and believe me it was tasty! In this hot summer it was great refreshment as we cooled it for 3 hours in the fridge.

Baking projects, life updates...

Hello Dears,

Long time, no see, right?

But now, I have lot's of projects to show You!!!

Well, some of them you may had seen on our FB  page, but let's see them all..

Lot's of baking projects, cakes, competition, celebrations, a vacation and a new job!

My pastry exam

Hi Dears,

It's only a small post about my baking exam I had this week.

Practising for the Baking exam & Mother's Day

Hello Dears,

I hope You all right, and didn't get any flu like me during these extremely hot days. I can only wonder how I managed to get this, when every other normal people enjoyed the sun, and they got tanned and I got a cold instead... :( 

Anyway I am recovering, I have some days off from my trainee program, so I am at home, reading books, and when I feel a little bit better I am baking of course. I have my first baking exam next week, with 5 types of pastries. 

Confectionery studies - 13-14th week

Hello! 

Long time, no see, right?

But I try to navigate you in my past few weeks of pastry chef studies. We learnt so many goodies... As I didn't write about the last 4 or 5 ? courses, now I combine two lessons, which were quite similar to each other. 

Confectionery studies - 12th week

Hello! 

Do You know the little ball or cube shaped, creamy layered little cakes, that are covered with colorful fondant? These are the mignons...

I have two different stories of their history. One of them is due to a famous Hungarian Confectioner of all time, Mr. Kugler invented it, and called them Mignons, as it means My Little Darling in French. Firstly, it was called Kuglers as the inventor, but now they are Mignons.

The other story is coming from France, from Mr. Mignot who placed poems in the middle of the sweet creation, which made it even more expensive.

Nowadays, you can find these in all of the confectioneries in Hungary (without poems) and they cost a little bit less than a cake slice, because of course the size is much smaller.

The funny thing, that you can't really find the recipe of these on the Net, because if you type it in, only the Gru's Minions are coming up. :D 

So let's see what beauties we had created that week...

Confectionery studies - 10th week

Hi Dears!

I haven't posted of the last 5 weeks of my studies, as this period was so busy with all the Holidays, exams and working in the Café.

But now I will show you the details, because these courses were really exciting, and I learnt many many tasty desserts.

This is the second post about cakes. We learnt 7 different cakes that day. (I haven't got the chance to make a photo of the 7th, as it was quickly cut and we ate it... :) ) 

Starting my confectioner (trainee) life

I mentioned it before, but I thought I should write more about this milestone in my life... 

I started my internship in one of the best confectionery / café in Budapest as a confectioner trainee.  

It's not really what I thought it would be...

Well, what everybody thinks of working in a pastry shop?

• plump ladies and podgy men with mustache are preparing beautiful cakes and muffins while they are singing yodels
• or at least there is a granny from Little Red Riding Hood who knows all of the recipes of the famous café by heart who is the head confectioner
• creating cakes is fun and needs lots of creativity
• confectioners have enough time to decorate the cakes, that's why they are so beautiful
• they eat, or at least they taste all the time, so that's a heavenly job

And what's the truth?

Confectionery studies - 9th week

Dear Readers,

Sorry for not posting lately, but as I am working now in a real confectionery I am more and more busier as time is getting closer to Christmas. We have sooo many orders, like last week we baked for a 6000 members event, which means thousands kilograms of cakes and savory scones to prepare.

But at school we continued our studies as well, on the 8th week (unfortunately I left my cell at home, so no pictures) but we learnt the basic sponge cake recipes.

That means, that the next week we started the real cake factory duties. :)  

So I brought many-many tasty and beautiful cakes this time! 

Confectionery studies - 7th week

Hello! :)

Last week we studied a bunch of Puff pastries. It means, that the pastries has many layers when they baked. We can reach that, if we use folding Technics, and two different dough.

The main ingredients for the dough (in portions): 1 flour, 1 butter, 0.5 water, 1 tsp salt, 1 tsp vinegar.

Confectionery studies - 6th week

Hello! :)

Last week we had a little "break" at school, as we didn't baked anything.

We had our first drawing lesson. We used melted dark chocolate for that. :)

Confectionery studies - 5th week

Hi Dears, 

Last week, it was a really busy course in school.

At the same time we learnt 6 different pastries to bake.

It can be tough to look each groups, while we are baking our own pastry in our group. Usually that's why I bake at home something else to learn at least 2 of them properly. :) 

This time we have baked mostly mid-morning, or afternoon pastries.

Come and check them out!

Confectionery studies - 4th week

Hi! 

This week we made Sweet bread, pound cake and many more. :)

Walnut crescent ~ Pozsonyi kifli

Hi Dears, 

As I promised I brought this tasty walnut crescent recipe, that we learnt in school. 

The shining is not as beautiful as it was supposed to be. (It should be fragmented as the beiglis, you can reach it, if you lubricate the top of them with egg yolk a few times, and you should wait until it dries, then lubricate again. I didn't wait enough,because I baked them late in the evening, and I just couldn't wait. :D ) 

So, let's move on, I think they are still beauties. :)

Confectioner studies - 3rd week

Hello! :)

This week we really baked many many goodies.

This week was all about shortbread! 

I brought You great photos as well, so come and check. 

It was fun!

Confectioner studies 2nd week

Hi Dears!

Last week was really fun in school, as we actually started to work in the kitchen. :)

Confectionery studies - 1. week

Hi Dears! :)

I am SO super excited, to announce that my Confectionery studies began this week! :D

I decided, that I would keep You updated in the blog as well, in a regular, weekly post, and if I manage, with photos as well. :)

For those, who don't know about me much, I already have a Bsc./BA degree certificate as an Economist specialized in Catering and Hotel management. 

But now I'm started a 1 year long course, which will give me a prof. confectioner degree as well, at the end. This certificate will allow me to start my own confectionery sometime if I will be able to do it ... :D

 And the most important part, with this school, I will develop my baking skills on a higher level! :)

So, let's start with the first week...