Bakery Sunday: Round Four

My recovery time/preparation time for Bakery Sunday has gotten progressively better.  I didn't even try to sleep before - instead I did the opposite - I went out about town.

I'm just going to give you the run-down via pictures.  You know the drill.

Began the evening with dinner at Pura Vida - William was in town for the weekend and our lovely cousins Liz and Becky joined us for dinner and drinks.

pictured: Becky and I

Serious business at the Righteous Room

The group

After dropping William off for the night, I ran straight over to the Irwin St. Market to bake.

Plum Frangipanes

Empanadas

Rolled out a lot of dough.

I've learned that dough is a challenge.  This last Bakery Sunday I've learned that vegan dough is impossibly hard.

It gets a little weird when we're all up this late working.

Sugared Brioche ready for the oven.

Our Sunday morning help - Bryan.  

William asking questions about the chocolate making process.  He was tired.  

A fantastically long line.

A New Space!

Sugar-Coated Radical is moving up in the world!  We'll be moving from the Virginia Highlands to the Old 4th Ward - and we'll have an actual kitchen!

The new shop will open up on September 1st ( I'm coming back for the grand-opening).  This week has been devoted to cleaning and figuring out the new layout of the shop.

While I've helped out a little with the cleaning process of the new shop, I've also been working a little with chocolate this week.  I made the 72% Ghana Blueberry and Pink Peppercorn bars yesterday.

I'll grab pictures of the new space next time I'm over there!  Get excited!

To Live and Dine in Atlanta

The Atlantan, one of a few magazines here in Atlanta featured Sugar-Coated Radical as one of their top restaurants - though I wouldn't call SCR a restaurant - and had us contribute to an event they hosted called To Live and Dine in Atlanta.

A lot of the top restaurants were there - and it was a great opportunity to see what is considered to be "the best."  I still think we brought the best stuff though.

What did we bring?  Each guest who stopped by our table got a plate with: a.) a dill lemon caramel b.) a grapefruit-szechuan-peppercorn sugar shard c.) a blood-orange patê de fruit d.) a piece of Venezuelan milk chocolate with toasted almonds and alderwood smoked sea-salt.

Bakery Sunday: Round Three

 Peach, Strawberry, Poblano Pies

 Peach, Strawberry, Poblano Pie (up-close)

 Sugared Brioche

Empanadas!!

It was a great Sunday (I do realize that today is Friday - it took me a few days to recover).  I wasn't able to get any sleep Saturday night, so I was more grumpy than usual.  I ended up going home around 6am to take a nap and missed all of the customers and rattletrap.  I did make it to the High Museum of Art later that afternoon though!  

The peach, strawberry, poblano pies were a big hit.  The Constant Gobbler, a food blogger here in ATL, said the following on SCR's facebook wall:  

"Taria, today is an enlightening day. I tried the peach-strawberry-poblano pepper pie. This is the type of food that makes my mouth happy, but then makes my brain hurt. The pepper was just as you said, the strawberry bridged the flavor perfectly to the sweet peach and buttery crust. It is a thinking man's dish. I have been trying to figure out how to explain the flavor composition, but I can not put it into words. This brings me both joy and fear. There are not many of thinking people in this world and I fear that most will not accept this type of food and your talents will disappear. I am so torn between what is happening now and what could be the future."

Another SCR fan said:  


"The peach | strawberry | poblano pepper pie is a revelation. It makes me want to cuss, it's so good."


Be sad that you missed it.

Sorry Sorry Sorry

Ted keeps telling me that I need to post more.  His internet up in Appalachia is unreliable, but according to him every time he can get online he checks here first!  I've sorely disappointed him for the past few weeks. I'm going to attempt to make up for the lack of posts over the next few weeks - hopefully.

This past weeks was a slow one.  I had two days of tempering failure - perhaps due to the excessive heat and humidity, or maybe just me.  Then had two days of tempering success - sigh of relief - I was afraid that I had lost my tempering Mojo.

Making patê de fruit is a test of endurance.  It requires constant vigorous stirring as the boiling juices become thicker and thicker - along with the pot spitting vicious hot blood orange.
It turned out beautifully - definitely worth it.

Bakery Sunday starts at 1am.  I'll grab some pictures.  I'm in charge of the peach-rhubarb pie!

Freak Out

I'm beginning to realize how quickly this summer is moving.  I am only going to be in Atlanta for another three and a half weeks.  THREEANDAHALFWEEKS!  While I'm really looking forward to being back in Raleigh - meeting up with friends, moving into my swank new apartment, starting classes, and all that jazz - I'm really going to miss it here.

You've probably noticed that I haven't been posting as regularly.  Part of this is because I'm running around Atlanta being cool (not really) and because I'm not so much learning how to make new things all of the time, but instead practicing and working on making them better.  I suppose I could change my job title from bumbling intern to just intern.

This past week I made a few ganaches, worked on making bars, helped set-up the facebook store (you can buy chocolate from us from anywhere in the world!), and did a lot of enrobing.  I missed this Bakery Sunday's bake-a-thon due to a very angry stomach and instead took a nap on my bathroom floor.

Feeling a little better today - can't wait to get back to the shop!

Oh, and those little ganache hearts - those are really hearts from hell.  notsomuchfun.

July 4th Weekend

Spent a long weekend in North Carolina.  Brought up the chocolates for Lilly and Alex's wedding.  Helped bottle some of Ted's first run of beer in Old Fort, and made it to two cookouts!  Also got to watch the Asheville fireworks with some cool cats.

Made two ganaches today - chipotle and cane syrup.

 Also got a new sponge.  While that sounds insignificant - I'll let you know that it was a gift and that I was really in need of a new one at work.  Cupcakes were involved.