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Chocolate opera cake is a slight twist on the traditional French dessert, with thin layers of chocolate cake, coffee buttercream and chocolate ganache. I attended culinary school for two years. Three mornings a week, we started the day with a 5-hour Production "class"—making all of the treats that were sold in the school's bakery, which …

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I'm celebrating Galentine's Day with this take on chocolate-covered strawberries: cream puffs filled with strawberry pastry cream and drizzled in chocolate. Happy Galentine's Day! What is Galentine's Day, you ask? It's a fictional celebration from the television show "Parks and Recreation." It's the best day of the year. Celebrated on February 13th, women leave their husbands and their boyfriends …

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Today's recipe comes from the production manual of the culinary school I attended. The school has its own pastry shop, and every morning, pastry students take a "production" class, where they make the items that are sold to the public in the pastry shop: cakes, eclairs, cookies, brioche, baguettes, croissants, muffins, and more.  The muffin …

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In honor of the evil co-worker who brought in mini cream puffs and eclairs, and left them in the break room (where I was tempted to bring the whole box back to my office, so I could eat them all), I'm posting my recipes for choux (pronounced "choo") dough, and pastry cream. Pâte à choux …

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