Friday was a rehearsal dinner for about 100, with bread pudding and caramel ice cream to plate with help from Chef and Dopey, my assistant for the week (thought I think Chef's nickname for him is more appropriate... Lumpy).
Saturday was another rehearsal dinner for another 100 people, featuring a buffet of cookies and brownies. Not complicated, but it was all leading in to Sunday, with a dessert buffet for 120 people with five different items. (All these days, I'm also prepping the desserts and mignardises for the dining room, plus doing the coffee shop items, etc.)
Here's a shot of the latest mignardises, including a petit four made of cake scraps, berry jam and marzipan, and a mini-lemon tart about the size of a quarter that I made from left-over puff pastry and extra lemon curd - I love it when I find a use for scraps!
To complicate things, on Saturday, two of the bridesmaids for Sunday's wedding asked to speak with me. Turns out the wedding cake they brought in from God knows where (we don't do wedding cakes on site because we don't have the space, a fact that secretly delights me as they're probably my least favorite thing to do) was a mess.
The chick they got it from gave it to them on a cheap black plastic tray with no means of transferring it without wrecking the border, a moot point since the border itself had melted and crumbled. They asked if I could do anything with it. Chef and I looked at the cake and I have to say, by the power of St. Honore, I was pissed. I was really angry that someone would sell such a crappy cake. Nevermind the frosting was that heinous powdered sugar and shortening crap. The sides were crooked, the border crumbled off and uneven where it was intact, and the whole thing was lopsided.
Here is a shot that doesn't do justice to the cake's craptastic heinousness:
I suggested replacing the crumbling borders with ganache since I couldn't replicate the gross frosting's color or texture. They also gave me some of the flowers used in the table centerpieces. And, I might add, a nice tip.
Fifteen minutes later, voila:
I'm not saying it's great. In truth, my borders aren't even, either, but they covered most of the border areas' sins and, I think, improved the overall look of the cake. The flowers helped a lot, too.
I left before the cake-cutting ceremony on Sunday, but I'm hoping my repair work was enough that no one noticed anything about the cake other then it going into the bride and groom's mouths.
Meanwhile, about a month ago I did a conference call with the events coordinator and the bride about the dessert buffet. She asked what I could do and I said the usual, cream puffs, fruit tarts, yadda yadda yah. Then she asked if I could do rugelach.
"Arugula?" asked the events coordinator, confused.
"No, rugelach," I said, then added I would be happy to, and what flavor did she want.
A couple weeks went by as I waited to hear her final selection of buffet items. Then, one day, Chef came over and asked if I'd ever heard of something called "rugala."
"Rugelach? Yeah, of course. I think I'm making it for one of the weddings at the end of the month, but I'm waiting to hear back from the bride."
Chef nodded thoughtfully, waiting for me to say more. Then, a little impatiently, he said "So what is it?"
Really?
I told him it was a pretty traditional Jewish baked good, a semi-laminated, enriched dough filled usually with fruit such as apricot or prune, or nuts, and folded similar to a croissant.
"Well, I never heard of it," he said.
A couple days later, I heard him asking someone else if they'd ever heard of "rugala."
"Arugula?"
Right up until the wedding, I was amazed at the degree of rugelach ignorance in the kitchen. I guess growing up in the greater New York area, where rugelach are as common as doughnuts, I just took for granted that everyone knew the flaky, addictive treat.
Time after time, as I baked off test batches with different fillings (I had to make the filling from scratch, with no recipe), the conversation went:
"What are you making?"
"Rugelach."
"Arugula?"
"No, rugelach."
"I've never heard of that. What is it?"
Only the woman who runs the coffee house, who lived for years in the Milwaukee area, didn't miss a beat when I offered her some of my test batch.
"Oh, yummy! I love rugelach! I like making it, too."
I don't mean to sound like a snob. I just think little cultural disconnects are funny.
Saturday, the bride came into the kitchen asking if she could look at the room where the ceremony would take place. I offered her some of the rugelach, and she said it was perfect. But the best compliment I got about my "arugula" has come over the past few days, from Chef himself.
"So. That's what it is. It's good."
"I really like that rugelach."
"The rugelach is good."
"I like the rugelach."
Then, the ultimate huzzah... he took some home to his wife.
Meanwhile, as I banged out ten dozen of them Sunday afternoon in about an hour, I found myself thinking, with some irony, how much I enjoy laminating, and how relaxing I find it. I say "ironic" because lamination was always stressful and I never had a feel for it.
Then came that hellish breads class right before graduation, when I was The Laminator. I never want to work the 0200-1200 shift again, but I think doing all that danish lamination alone in the middle of the night, not quite awake, in silence, in the semi-darkened bakeshop somehow caused the act of lamination to sink into the fibers of my being in such a way that it's now like a meditative exercise.
I don't have to think about it - I can't think about it. When I've tried to show the interns and explain what I'm doing, I screw it up. But left on my own with dough and a French pin, I might as well be sitting in lotus position and chanting "om."
And yes, I semi-laminate my rugelach dough. Not everyone does, I know, but I think it really improves the flakiness. After making the dough using a basic 1:1:1 ratio of butter, cream cheese and flour, I chill it well, then roll it out keeping it cold and give it a couple folds.
And apparently, it works.
One of several trays of my magically delicious rugelach:
The bride ended up choosing apricot rugelach, chocolate cupcakes, chocolate flourless cakes with raspberries, cream puffs and fruit tarts for the buffet. Here's a shot of one of several platters I sent out Sunday with the help of the intern Delilah, on her last day before returning to school:
3 comments:
Where is Chef from?
You know, Bullock makes some kick-ass rugelach at home (as kick ass as it can be in a home kitchen). But he grew up in the Jewish suburbs of Chicago.
he's from the south, but has worked in ny and europe, so you'd think some rugelach would've crossed his path. but not even the line cooks from indiana and chicago itself knew from rugelach. oy vey!
and i'm sure Mr. B's rugelach is phenomenal... by the way, i thought of him last week when chef asked me to make blue cheese and ham puffs and told me to render my own ham...
Costco sells rugelach! Not great, but in huge quantities!
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