After the 30-minute exam, Chef H showed us how to make vanilla ice cream, raspberry sorbet, and the classic French desserts -- créme caramel and créme brûlée. We had to make the créme caramel and créme brûlée in our practicals and also finish off our marzipan flowers and animals with the air-brush.
In my practical, I was a little distracted and ended up burning the caramel on the stove. I was so embarrassed, but Chef N was very understanding. He asked me to make another batch of caramel, and this time I stood at the stove and watched the pot the whole time. The caramel turned out fine. Just the nice light brown colour.
Having tasted both, I have to say I much prefer the créme caramel to the créme brûlée. Neither is hard to make, but it is important to pay attention to the little details (e.g. how much water to put into the bain marie when baking the créme brûlée) and to focus on doing things the right way (e.g. do not boil the milk, but let it simmer gently to avoid creating foam in the milk). Precision is the key to successful baking, that's what I have learnt.
Here are my creations for Lesson 16 practicals:
Here you see the finished créme brûlée (left) and créme caramel that has been inverted from the ramekin onto a plastic dish (right)
I hope you can tell I was trying to make 2 roses with leaves, a marzipan cat (playing with a red ball of yarn), a mouse, 2 ducks and a frog
Close-up of the mouse (which looked like a pig at first, or maybe it still does) and the frog
