They Don't Teach This in Culinary School

A guy walked into the bakery today just in time to witness my brother putting a duct tape label on a four quart storage container of icing.

Not using the duct tape to attach a label, but using the duct tape AS a label.

I had no problem with this. In fact, I'm the one who told him to use duct tape. We have lots of duct tape in the shop and you can write on it with just about anything.

The guy commented that his son went to culinary school and never learned this technique.

I assumed he was being a Smart Alec so I waited until he left before I ranted, to no one in particular, about the many things they don't teach in culinary school.

1. Yes, you have to label items you put in the refrigerator, but no, you DON'T have to buy special labels. You can write on just about anything sticky, including masking tape or duct tape. I might add here that Anders Hardware is right across the street. And they carry masking tape and duct tape, but not food service labels.

2. You can use a cooling rack to rice or puree roasted sweet potatoes, squash or pumpkin. Forget the peeler and food processor, just position the rack over a bowl and press the flesh side of the vegetable through the grate. Takes about two seconds.

3. A hair dryer works better than a torch to smooth ganache on a cake. A torch might be more "cool" or "professional," but a hair dryer diffuses the heat better and you can adjust the temperature so you don't scorch the chocolate (don't even start with me that a pastry chef should be able to heat the chocolate without scorching -- not everyone in my bakery is a pastry chef).

4. A bowl scraper, bench scraper or dough cutter will smooth the sides of a cake quicker than a spatula.

5. If you add a little water to fondant, you can put it in a pastry bag and pipe a pearl border. And you'll do it in about a tenth of the time it takes to roll out hundreds of little "pearl" balls.

And if this guy's son doesn't learn any of these things in culinary school, he'll learn them eventually. And maybe he'll teach them to his dad.

Comments

[Sarah Perdue]

Hope this guy's son learns all of these things. Hope he doesn't read "Cake Talk."