Hello! Welcome to my blog! I was inspired to start this from Allen Hemberger, who created an amazing guide to Alinea, which is a recipe book that goes over hundreds of items from Chef Grant Achatz's 3-michelin starred genius factory. He recreated every dish that was in the book over the span of a few years, documenting every step he took along the way. Throughout his project, he took incredible photos of his work along with helpful details and tips/insights on how to recreate them yourself.
There is a youtube video covering his blog and his experiences throughout the whole project, and it left me thinking to myself how badly I wanted to do that as well.
I have several cookbooks at this point and have not gotten close to utilizing their full potential (I'm probably closest to getting through Flour, Salt, Water, and Yeast, which is my bread bible). This led me to think about which of my books I would learn from and enjoy the most. The first decision (and only real decision) was whether I wanted sweet or savory. If any of you really know me, you'll know this wasn't really a hard choice, and thus, I chose the Bouchon Bakery book by Thomas Keller (the master chef of the famous French Laundry) and Sebastien Rouxel.
I hope that throughout this process I am able to help anyone who is thinking about getting into baking or improving upon their skills. This book heavily leans towards the more experienced home cook, but it still has a great number of entry-level baking recipes that anyone can enjoy at home. I have chosen to go through this book from start to finish, so each category will be tackled one by one. Throughout the blog posts, I'm going to walk you through how I went through the recipe and if you have the book or get it, you'll notice I'm probably repeating much of what's in the steps of the recipes. I will also be adding in some extra detail of things that I noticed or various observations that may help improve your attempts at making the same bakes.
I'm extremely excited and nervous to go through this book (as some of these recipes are quite difficult and daunting at this point) and I hope you enjoy and learn along with me! I'll be leaving contact information below regarding how you can get in touch with me if you have any questions or comments!