What they Say About Practice

In one week I will have officially completed 3 months working at Odradeks! I finally have my routine down and that allows me to experiment with baking and of course, improving my latte art. I had a particularly good run today of pouring (helped by a sunny day, a good night's sleep, and the friendliest smiling baby). I snapped this photo before I handed a very happy customer his drink. "I come for the art, not the cappuccino." Aw. Well, it feels good to be appreciated.

Ice Cream Sandwich

Break time at work and I needed a snack. I used the last of the spare dough (from the previous post) and made two thin under baked cookies as the parenthesis for my sandwich. The rest is vanilla ice cream, chocolate chips and sliced strawberries. A simple experiment at first, with a lot of potential for growth.

Odradeks Chocolate Chip Cookies

The recipe I use is here. My boss is a huge fan of chocolate chip cookies without chocolate chips. So I use this recipe but make the dough chipless and add them on top at the end (in my signature pattern) to satisfy both cravings. The ground walnuts are a perfect substitute for the chips, adding flavor and texture to an otherwise simple cookie. Here are my adjustments:

Delicious (Gluten-full) Chocolate Chip Cookies

1 cup butter
1 cup sugar
1 cup packed brown sugar
2 eggs
2 tsp vanilla extract
3 cups flour
1 tsp baking soda
2 tsp hot water
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup walnuts run through food processor

Caramel Chocolate Biscaitie

Odradeks is now sporting a fancy jar of freshly made Biscaitie on its counter and lucky for me, I have new ingredients to play with. Their dark chocolate morsels go fantastically with swirls of caramel. I sampled them for customers today, we'll see how long they last!

The Rosetta

This is my somewhat successful attempt at a rosetta latte. This one was made with pumpkin spice mix (hence the slight orange twinge to the foam). I'm done with my third day of training now, on to more complexity and precision.

Ginger Almond Biscotti

Its been awhile since I made hard biscotti and I was delighted to find that they are delicious extra crunchy. As I baked my "please hire me" cookies for my barista job interview, I considered that the owner might have a nut allergy or wouldn't be a fan of ginger: I never could have predicted that he is kosher and the manager gluten-free. The only person who tried my creation was the barista whose position I'm replacing...but the teaspoon of "please hire me" worked, I have a job!

Hopefully next week I'll start doing some baking. The small kitchen space is comparable to what I have here in Sunnyside, perfect! Our "trendy" diets will be covered at the coffee shop: kosher, gluten free and now me, the vegetarian.