Homemade Danish Pastry

Well, this is the first lot of Danish pastry I'd ever made. I used the croissant dough that I had made from scratch (and completely by hand) a few days ago. Note: it does take a couple of days to make the croissant dough because you have to do about 3 turns for it, while relaxing the dough in between the turns.

Here's what I did with the prepared dough. First, I roll out the dough, and I egg-wash it before rolling it like a Swiss roll, then I slice it so that I get disc-like scrolls. Next, I proof the scrolls in a warm oven. After that, I put some canned peaches (which I had pat dry on a paper towel before using) on the scrolls. Finally, I egg-wash the scrolls and bake them. After they come out of the oven and are cool to touch, I brush on the glaze (= apricot jam + water, heated on the stove). These are basically the main steps for making Danishes.

I am so glad they turned out well.


Close-up of one of the Danishes. You can see the shiny apricot glaze on it.

Now, to find someone to help me eat the Danishes...

Random Reflections II: Whisking by Hand

I was cleaning my balloon whisk today and I realised with some sadness that we won't be using it in Intermediate Pastry (because we get to use a mixer). I think I will miss my balloon whisk.

At the beginning of Basic Pastry, I could not believe we would have to use a balloon whisk to whisk egg whites into Italian meringue by hand. In addition, we had to use our fingers to check whether the syrup for the Italian meringue has reached soft ball stage. I found I couldn't do either very well; I even told the chef I couldn't do it. But the chef forced all of us to persevere. Now, after weeks of practice, I cannot imagine not whisking Italian meringue by hand, and I'm not afraid to dip my fingers into the syrup anymore. Once you know how to do it, it really isn't that difficult. You just have to break through the psychological barrier in your mind.

When you are making Italian meringue, you have to watch your hand motion. The bowl of egg whites is tilted at an angle, and you use a smooth but large circular motion (with your elbow hardly moving), and you need to make sure you are not whisking from side to side as you tire. When you are whisking with the balloon whisk, the aim is to incorporate air into the mixture, so that it is light and fluffy.



Here, you can see my balloon whisk, next to the regular whisk, which is next to the offset palette spatula. These are three of the most commonly used tools in Basic Pastry, in addition to the weighing scale, plastic scraper, pastry brush, piping bags and piping tips.

Random Reflections I: Note-taking

Today I was tidying up my room and putting my notes in order, and as I flipped through my notes for Basic Pastry, I realised my note-taking style changed dramatically over the course of 10 weeks.

In Weeks 1, 2 & 3, I was writing everything down in my notebook, and then re-typing my notes at home (see photo below).


However, mid-way through the term, I decided it was easier to take notes in this way:


I basically have two columns. The left column is for ingredients, and the right column is for the process (what to do with the ingredients). For the process, I write abbreviated notes, because we learn many of the basic techniques early on (e.g. blanchir, which basically means "creaming") and we use these techniques often, so there's no need to write them out in full.

I ended up preferring handwritten notes, because I remember them a lot better. When I close my eyes, I can almost see my own handwriting (like a picture/image), whereas all the typed notes just look the same to me (in my mind, the black words on white paper just blend together and I cannot remember much).

Basic Pastry Exam Result

I received my student transcript on graduation day, and I was pleasantly surprised by the result I got for my exam.

If you recall, in my exam on 17 November, I was really disappointed with the dull and sandy ganache on my Pavé du Roy. However the transcript showed that my chocolate cake scored highly on taste, which is nice to know. Must be the extra rum I put into the syrup. ;-)



The exam mark contributes to 45% of the total mark for the course. My exam mark of 34.97/45 actually brought my overall score for the course up to almost 73% (which is considered a good mark, as I was told by a fellow student that virtually no student score over 80% at this School).

We are all on holidays now. This week I am helping my housemates with the construction of a gingerbread house for the Prime Minister's family. Next week and the week after, I will be volunteering in production kitchen every weekday (10 days in total). Then it will be time to celebrate Christmas...

Basic Pastry Exam Recipe List

These were recipes we had to memorise for our exams (for the bon d'economat):
* Tarte au citron
* Miroir au cassis
* Charlotte aux poires, coulis de framboises
* Saint-Honoré
* Succés
* Éclairs au chocolat et au café & religieuses au café
* Gâteau basque
* Pavé du Roy
* Tarte soufflée & gratin de fruits
* Forêt Noire (Black Forest)

These were the recipes each group of students ended up getting for their practical exams:
BP - Group A:
Tarte au citron
Succés
Pavé du Roy
(Note: each of these recipes was given to 3 or 4 students in the group, and there were about a dozen students in each group)

BP - Group B:
Saint-Honoré
Pavé du Roy
Tarte soufflée & gratin de fruits

BP - Group C:
Tarte au citron
Saint-Honoré
Pavé du Roy

Because each recipe has a different degree of difficulty, the requirements and scoring system for each cake are slightly different. After my exam, I was told (by someone who knows about things like that) the judges are instructed to look for particular aspects for each cake. For instance, the Pave du Roy is not really that hard to make because the chocolate biscuit (sponge layers) is a very basic requirement (a recipe and technique we learn early on in the term). However, the ganache is an element that is more difficult to make well, and if you make the ganache really well (i.e. smooth and shiny) and it tastes good, you score higher points. It is fair enough, I guess. (This sort of reminds me a little of how they score the diving in the Olympics. In terms of degree of difficulty, and how well a dive was excuted.)

Anyway, these are things I am filing away in my mind as I prepare myself for the next level of pastry. Basically, practice makes perfect, but a little bit of planning and analysis won't hurt.

Basic Pastry Exam

I had my basic pastry practical exam today. It consisted of two components: bon d'economat and the practical exam.

Bon d'economat is the blank form we have to fill out for a recipe, as if we were ordering all the ingredients required for the cake we are making (we each pick an envelope, and inside the envelope, it tells us which recipe we need to write the bon d'economat for). This means we have to memorise all the quantities and ingredients in the exam recipes (there were 10 exam recipes in total). We don't all get the same recipes. It is just luck of the draw.

I got the St Honore cake for my bon d'economat, and I was fine with it. I had made it twice last week, so I could remember the ingredients for that recipe.

After completing the bon d'economat, we each had to pick another envelope for the cake we have to make. I picked envelope no. 9, and it was the envelope for Pavé du Roy (chocolate cake), which was the cake I practised at home last week (and took to my French language class). At that moment, I really thought it was my lucky day.

However, it did not turn out to be as easy as I had thought. I was able to make the cake, but my ganache was overworked, and it was dull and had little cracks on the surface. I think, in my nervousness, I had stirred the ganache too much. But I managed to serve the cake on time, complete with chocolate decorations (to hide some of the imperfections in the ganache on top of the cake). I was not totally satisfied with my cake (again, because of the ganache), but at least I finished it on time.

Three of the chefs (Chefs H, T and N) were watching us make the cakes and they took notes on various aspects of our techniques. It was quite intimidating when they walked around, peered at the things you were preparing and said nothing (no reassuring smile or anything). When the time was up, they took our cakes into another room for the judges to taste and grade.

The judges are outsiders who have been invited to the school to taste and assess the finished products. They have to assess the cakes based on some criteria listed on a sheet of paper. Also, the judges do not know who made which cake. Each cake presented to them just has an ID number. Only the chefs know which student was given which ID number. And the chefs only grade us on techniques in the kitchen (and not on the finished product). I think this is a fair system of assessing students. At least no one can say a chef was biased towards/against any particular student. The cakes must pass a taste test by outsiders.

I think I passed, but I felt annoyed at myself for not handling the ganache better, especially since this is my third time making a Pave du Roy.

Anyway, if we do not get a phone call from the school on Thursday to say we have failed, then we are graduating from Basic Pastry on Friday (21 November). That's how it works here.

Fingers crossed.

BP Lessons 19 & 20: Choux Pastry (Part II) and Exam Preparations

Lesson 19 was basically about the St Honore and Paris-Brest. Chef N showed us how to make both cakes, but we only had to make the St Honore in our practicals.

We were told by Chef H a couple of weeks ago that the St Honore cake was the hardest cake to make in Basic Pastry, simply because there were so many components to it (and the soft chiboust cream is not that easy to pipe). Because of this, I asked to practise making this cake again in Lesson 20, which was our practice session for the exam (i.e. a trial run for the practical exam).

The St Honore is basically made up of a pâte brisée base, with a pâte à choux ring piped onto the base, then lined with 8 choux puffs which have been filled with chiboust cream (= pastry cream + Italian meringue + gelatin) and dipped in caramel (which we had to do carefully, or else we would end up with burnt fingers). After that, the centre of the cake is piped with chiboust cream, and then decorated with either a choux puff or some spun sugar. The whole process was complicated, and required us to use many of the skills we had learnt previously.

(Aside: St Honore is apparently the patron saint of French bakers and pastry chefs. One of my housemates told me that the caramel on the choux puffs were supposed to represent a saint's halo. Interesting, isn't it?)

I made two St Honore cakes in 24 hours (last Wednesday night and Thursday afternoon), and I noticed a marked improvement in the second St Honore cake I made (even Chef H said so). I guess practice makes perfect. Check out the photos below.


My first attempt at the St Honore. The cream was not easy to pipe, because it was so soft. Besides, I had somehow ended up with some lumps in my pastry cream (which I subsequently attributed to my mishandling of the cornstarch in the recipe).


My second (and improved) attempt at the St Honore cake. The chiboust cream was slightly firmer, and hence easier to pipe. I had found a way to ensure the cornstarch would not become lumpy in the pastry cream. And I decided to do away with the (optional) spun sugar, and simply placed a choux puff on top of the cake.

One more day till my practical exam. Surprisingly, I am not feeling too nervous about it. I just know that whatever cake I end up being asked to make will be my second or third attempt at the cake, and it will be just fine.

PS. I made a Pavé du Roy (chocolate cake) to take to my French language class yesterday. I did it just so I could practise making the cake. It went down well with the teacher and my classmates. :)

BP Lesson 18: Entremets de Patisserie (Part II)

This was our second last lesson in Basic Pastry (we only have Lesson 19 and a practice session before our exam). In this lesson, Chef H showed us how to make a Charlotte aux poires (pear charlotte) and a pear cake, which is a 3-layered sponge, imbibed with syrup, layered with light cream (= pastry cream + whipped cream), and covered with marzipan.

The pear charlotte basically has an outer layer of lady fingers (lining a charlotte mold), filled with bavarian cream and pieces of pear inside. It is decorated on the outside with chantilly cream and served with raspberry coulis. Here is the chef's version:



And here is my effort:


The bavarian cream in my pear charlotte was just right, but my chantilly cream was a disaster (as you can probably tell from the photo above). Chef H thinks I might have overwhipped the cream, therefore it was not the right consistency for piping. This sort of happened to me when I was making the chantilly cream for the swans and the black forest cake as well. Anyway, I will have to practise making and piping chantilly cream again, because a few of our exam recipes call for chantilly cream.

Frankly, I didn't like the pear charlotte or pear cake in this lesson. Normally I like the taste of pears, but I just didn't like the taste of these two recipes. I doubt I will be making either of them any time soon (unless I get the pear charlotte in the exam).

BP Lesson 17: Entremets de Patisserie (Part I)

Chef H made two beautiful cakes (see photo above) in this lesson: The Pavé du Roy and the Entremets Casino. I liked the taste of both of them.

The Pavé du Roy is a rectangular, 3-layered chocolate cake, with chocolate ganache in between the chocolate sponge layers, which has been imbibed with rum syrup. The sides of this decadent chocolate cake are covered with chocolate vermicelli. If you like chocolate cakes, you will love this cake.

The Entremets Casino has a layer of thinly-sliced rolled sponge (i.e. a swiss roll) as the outer shell, and inside this "shell" is bavaroise (bavarian cream = créme anglaise + whipped cream + gelatin) and fresh raspberries. It tastes like an ice cream cake. It is apparently called Entremets Casino because the rolled sponge looks like roulette wheels.

Students only had to make the Pavé du Roy in the practicals, and we had a chance to make some chocolate decorations for the cake. I found it fun to make the chocolate decorations, but it was not easy. I spread some tempered chocolate (tempered by the chefs) onto acetate sheets and then did the following: (1) cut the sheet of chocolate into triangles, (2) scrape another sheet of chocolate with the comb, then folded the ends over so that it formed a teardrop shape, and (3) scrape a third sheet of chocolate with a comb (so that I would get long, ribbon-like strips), then twisted it. When these chocolate strips/pieces hardened, I used them to form the decorations you see on my Pavé du Roy in the photo below:



Everything turned out quite well. Chef T was very encouraging with his comments. I had imbibed enough syrup inside the chocolate sponge, and I had relatively even layers for the montage. I finally feel like I am making progress with my baking. At least now I can bake a chocolate sponge cake properly. It wasn't so long ago I had trouble with it. However, I do know I still need some practice spreading chocolate ganache and making chocolate decorations.

BP Lesson 16: Entremets de Cuisine

We were given our written exam when we turned up for Lesson 16 demo last Thursday. I am not sure how I did on the exam, because I ran out of time at the end, and did not manage to answer all the short-answer questions. Some of the true/false questions were tricky too (because of the wording). The multiple-choice questions were fine (I either knew the answers or I did not, and I knew the answer to most questions).

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

BP Lesson 15: Cakes and Almond Paste (aka Marzipan)

This morning Chef H showed us how to make a Gateau Basque, a lemon cake, and some marzipan flowers and animals.

In our practicals, we had to make the Gateau Basque, a marzipan rose and leaves, and at least five marzipan animals (choices: duck, mouse, elephant, frog, cat, rabbit).

The Gateau Basque was not all that hard to make. We basically make a "cake dough" (well, it is like a dough/paste, but softer) from butter, eggs, sugar, lemon zest, flour and baking powder. We then pipe the "cake dough" into a genoise mold to form a shell -- first in a spiral to cover the bottom of the mold, then in rings around the side of the mold to build up the shell. Next, we pipe the special pastry cream (which has almond powder and rum) into the shell, followed by cherries and more pastry cream. Then we pipe the "cake dough" on top to cover the whole thing. After that, we use our spatula to smooth out the top, brush on coffee egg wash, score a pattern with our fork, and bake for 35 minutes.

The whole thing looks like a pie. Instead of pie shell and lid, we have the "cake dough". The filling is the pastry cream and cherries. When baked, the Gateau Basque tastes like a pound cake with pastry cream and cherries inside. Chef H told us the cherries are optional -- the cake actually tastes quite nice without them (i.e. with just the pastry cream).

Below is my Gateau Basque:


In this photo, you can see the marzipan rose and leaves we had to make as a decoration. Chef T said my cake was fine. The texture and consistency were as they should be. I baked it at the right temperature for the right length of time. He did ask me to practise making marzipan roses, as mine had uneven petals and oversized centre petals. I have to agree my effort was mediocre. I know what roses should look like (since I have taken hundreds of photos of them), but it was not quite as easy to make marzipan roses.

The marzipan animals are not quite finished yet. We have made the basic shapes for the animals, and we still have to colour them on Thursday. I made a mouse, a cat, a frog and two ducks. Unfortunately, my mouse looks more like a pig, which is not on the list of animals Chef H made. :) I must practise making the mouse again.

I have a scheduled production kitchen shift tomorrow, meaning it is a compulsory shift and it starts at 8:15am. But I usually start my voluntary shifts at 6am anyway, so I will just stick to my routine. I wonder what it will be like to walk to School in the snow at 5:55am...

My Second Mousse Cake

Because I failed in the making of the miroir cassis (blackcurrant mirror/mousse cake) the other day, I decided to practise making a citrus mousse cake for my French language class yesterday (there was a potluck party organised by Alliance Francaise). One of my housemates gave me a hand with the cake. He was there to watch me make the mousse and he corrected my mistakes (esp. my incorrect whisking/whipping technique) when he spotted them. It was almost like having a private tutor.

Here's what my cake looked like (I used 2 teardrop-shaped molds we have in Wilbrod House):


For this citrus mousse cake, I used fresh lime, lemon and navel orange pulp in the mousse. Because the mousse has a combination of citruses, it is not as sour/tart as the plain lemon version (the miroir citrons version). Everyone who tasted the citrus cake said the flavour was really good. I'm pretty sure I will be making this mousse cake again, because I myself loved the taste.

BP Lesson 14: Hot Soufflés

This morning Chef H showed us how to make a tart soufflé with fruit gratin and coulis. He also made a hot soufflé, called the Soufflé chaud Rothschild, just for demo only.

Immediately after the demo, I had my practical class. Here is my tart soufflé with fruit gratin and coulis:


This is what I presented to Chef N for grading. The coulis (sauce) is to go with the tart soufflé.


This is the fruit gratin. Mixed berries topped with some diplomate cream (= pastry cream + chantilly cream), which was torched and then decorated with strawberry fans and a slice of lemon twist. The decoration was my own idea. Other students made tuiles to decorate theirs.


Here you can see a cross section of the tart soufflé. It has a pâte sucrée base, then filled with almond cream (which we learnt early in the term) and topped with a soufflé mixture (= pastry cream and a sort of meringue/egg white mixture).

Chef N said my soufflé was fine - it was the right texture and consistency. But he said I needed to dock the pâte sucrée (sweet dough) tart shell properly so that the bottom of the tart shell wouldn't lift off the tart mold when baking. Also, he said I had put too much diplomate cream into the fruit gratin. I think I was trying to use up the diplomate cream and ended up "drowning" the berries (raspberry, blackberry, strawberry) in it. :)

Apart from that, it was a good day for me. My coulis was perfect. But then it is not the first time I've made coulis. I guess experience is very important.

I'm not a big fan of the sweet, hot soufflé, but I don't mind a savoury version. I should ask my housemates (the cuisine students) for a nice cheese soufflé recipe.

BP Lesson 13: Miroir

The focus of this lesson was mirror cakes. These are essentially mousse cakes with a layer of glaze on top, making them mirror-like. Hence the name.

Chef H showed us how to make a blackcurrant mirror cake (Miroir au Cassis) and a lemon mirror cake (Miroir Citrons). I prefer the taste of the lemon mirror cake. The flavour of the lemons is refreshing. The taste of citruses just reminds me of home, where lemons, limes and other kinds of citruses are plentiful.

In our practicals today, we had to make the blackcurrant mirror cake. It was quite a task, because there were so many little steps to making this cake. First, we had to make a biscuit (sponge cake) mixture. Then pipe it onto a tray, in diagonal lines, and then bake it for 8 minutes. We line the cake ring with the biscuit, then pour in the mousse (which has Italian meringue, gelatin, blackcurrant pulp and fruit, and cream). We chill the cake in the fridge for 30 minutes. After that, we glaze the top of the cake, before finishing it off with the decorations (blackcurrants, marzipan leaves and white chocolate piping).

My cake looked fine from the outside, but when Chef H cut it open, he could see that there was some problem with the mousse inside. The meringue inside the mousse seemed to have collapsed, making it rather "soupy" (this is Chef's way of saying too much liquid). Basically, my mousse wouldn't set properly, even though it was in the blast chiller for 30 minutes.







Anyway, I plan to practise making this cake (or the lemon version) again. It is a nice cake to eat, but just really troublesome to make. Still, I am determined to perfect my techniques for this cake, even if I have to keep doing it 10 times. I'll learn from the experience.

BP Open Lab (20 Oct)

Last night at 7pm I turned up to the Open Lab session at School to practise making eclairs and religieuses again. During the term, LCB Ottawa would hold practice sessions for students to give them a chance to use the practical kitchen to practise recipes that they are not confident about or need some help with.

Many students in my group decided to practise making choux pastry again because it was the recipe many of us found quite challenging and time-consuming. Besides, choux pastry usually comes up in the exam, so it pays to know how to make it well.

Also, it is important to perfect our choux pastry techniques now because choux pastry comes up again later in the term (in the St Honore recipe) and also at the Intermediate level (in the Croquembouche recipe). There's just no way to avoid it if you are learning French pastries.

My choux pastry came up better this time. Remembering my mistake from the previous time I made eclairs, I took the time to clean the sides of the eclairs so that the fondant looked nice and neat. However, I made my fondant icing on top of my eclairs too wide. Chef T said the fondant on top of the eclairs should only be two finger-widths (not three, like mine were). And that I had heated the fondant way too much, so it lost its shine. Chef T then told me how to fix the fondant problem. These are examples of little things the chef instructors will teach you if you put in the effort to attend Open Lab. It costs nothing; you just have to put in the time and effort.

All in all, it was a good practice session. I felt relaxed because we were not assessed for the practice session.

We were not allowed to take our Open Lab creations home (School policy), but I was able to taste one of my coffee eclairs, and it was really yummy. If eclairs were not so time-consuming to make, I really wouldn't mind making it often. (Making the choux paste by hand really kills your arms. In my opinion, it is harder than whisking meringue by hand.)

BP Lesson 12: Christmas Log

This was a really fun lesson. Chef CF showed us how to make a Bûche de Noël (Christmas Log) yesterday. His demo classes are always entertaining because he has a great sense of humour. He tells us interesting/funny stories as he is demonstrating a recipe. Never a dull moment. Makes the 3-hour demo go by quickly.

Here's Chef CF's Christmas Log:


The Christmas Log we were taught to make basically consists of biscuit roulè base (like the sponge cake in a Swiss roll), imbibed with rum syrup and buttered on one side with chocolate buttercream (made using the French buttercream technique, which we learnt in the previous lesson). Then the sponge cake base is rolled tightly and covered with more buttercream. We scrape the buttercream with a special comb to create the wood-grain texture. We leave the cake in the refrigerator for a while so that the buttercream hardens, then we decorate the cake with marzipan leaves and so on.

Here's my creation (from different angles):




As you can see, I kept my design simple and uncluttered. I am really pleased with my effort because this is first time I've made a Christmas Log, and it turned out well. I included some chocolate shavings around my cake, and dusted the cake with icing sugar to create the effect of snow. Officially, I used chocolate shavings at the base of the log to simulate leaf litter and slivers of bark and woodchips. Unofficially, I used the chocolate shavings to cover the smudges on my cake board, which I could not clean very well... Hey, I'm learning to be a creative problem solver. ;-)

Chef T, who was supervising my practical class, showed me how to make the marzipan leaves. He does not speak a great deal of English (and I don't have enough French to converse with him), but he is very good at demonstrating how to do something. His techniques are easy for beginners to learn. I always learn a lot from Chef T when he is supervising the practical class.

BP Lesson 11: Russe, Progrès, Succès

Lesson 11 deals with buttercream cakes with dacquoise bases. Chef N demonstrated the following cakes:
** Succès (dacquoise with praliné buttercream)
Progrès (dacquoise with chocolate buttercream)
Gâteau russe aux noix (Russian buttercream cake)

Students made only the Succès in the practical class.

A dacquoise is a cake base made with nut flour (e.g. almond powder). It is basically whipped egg whites + nut flour + icing sugar + sugar. When baked, it is quite light, and it has a lovely aroma.

The buttercreams used in this lesson are known basically as French buttercreams (= egg yolks + sugar syrup + butter).

The Succès has three piped and baked dacquoise discs, with two layers of praliné buttercream sandwiched in between. It is masked with almond slices around the side, and dusted with icing sugar on top. Then we add the decorations on top.

(Aside: Praliné is hazelnut paste with sugar. It tastes like nutella because nutella is basically hazelnut paste + sugar + milk chocolate.)

Here's my Succès (photo courtesy of a classmate, because I forgot to bring my camera to the practical class):


Chef T tasted my cake and said I should have baked my dacquoise for 2 minutes longer. (These chef instructors are pretty good with things like that, and I guess that is because they have tasted lots and lots of students' cakes over the years.) And he said I still need more practice with chocolate piping. Otherwise, the cake tasted fine because the buttercream was OK.

PS. I was successful in making a Black Forest Cake at home the other day (13 October 2008). It's the first time I have been able to get the genoise sponge cake to rise so nicely. Of course, some of my housemates (Intermediate Pastry students) were on hand to give me tips on various techniques -- they picked up on all my little mistakes and corrected me. Now I can finally say I can make a sponge cake properly. (Aside: 13 October was Canadian Thanksgiving Day, and I give thanks to my housemates.)


My second Black Forest Cake

BP Lesson 10: Petits Fours Secs

The day before yesterday, Chef N showed us how to make petits fours secs (which, he explained, meant "dry, little pastries" -> bite-size pastries that have been baked in the oven). In the demo, he made the following:
** Madeleines
Almond Tuiles
Batons de Maréchaux (coated with chopped nuts and chocolate)
** Palets de Dames (raisin cookies, with raisins macerated in rum)
** Cigarettes & Tulips
(We had to make the ones marked with asterisks)

Here is Chef N's presentation of the petit-fours he made:


And here are the petits fours I made and presented to the chef for grading:

From left to right: Madeleines (coated with chocolate on one side), Tulips (can be used as an "edible cup" for ice cream or other desserts), Cigarettes (with one end dipped in chocolate), and Palets de Dames (basically, raisin cookies)

Chef N said we could brush some chocolate on our madeleines, so I did. I have to say it made the madeleines taste even better. Chocolate makes everything taste better. ;-)

The cigarettes were not easy to make because you have to work quickly while it is hot and pliable. You have to roll it into shape as soon as it is out of the oven, and I hated getting my fingers burnt for that. But, we all had to do it. I think saying "ouch, ouch, ouch" while rolling the cigarettes helped me to endure the pain. :-)

Chef N told me later that I could have used the latex gloves in the kitchen, if I really felt the unrolled cigarettes were too hot to touch. Why didn't he tell me earlier?! He had actually watched me go "ouch, ouch, ouch" but did not suggest the gloves (until later). In fact, at the time, he said "allez, allez, allez" ("c'mon, c'mon, c'mon" in French). He wanted me to work faster... Sigh!

I know I will have to master the techniques in this lesson really well, because (1)petits fours are popular with the public, and is usually part of a French pastry chef's repertoire, and (2)some of the techniques learnt here will be needed again at the Intermediate level, with plated desserts and so on.

Next lesson, we will be making dacquoise cakes, i.e. cakes made with almond powder or nut flour (as opposed to plain/all-purpose flour). I really like the taste of the dacquoise, so this should be a "delicious" lesson.

BP Lesson 9: Choux Pastry (Part I)

We basically covered choux pastry in this lesson. Yesterday morning Chef N showed us how to make chocolate and coffee eclairs, religieuses au cafe (nuns), cygnes (swans) and salammbo. Students had to make all of these except the salammbo.

In the practicals yesterday afternoon, we took forever to present our creations. All of us ran out of time at the end, and it was the first practical that we could not really finish on time. There were just too many little things that had to be prepared (note: everything was done by hand), e.g.
choux paste (for piping into various shapes)
pastry cream (coffee and chocolate flavours)
chantilly cream (for the swans)
fondant (coffee and chocolate flavours)

Then we had to pipe the eclairs, swans (body and head) and nuns (body and head) onto baking trays. Bake them, let them cool down, pipe pastry cream into the choux pastry (except for the swans, which required chantilly cream), cover the top of the pastry with fondant, pipe the decorations on the nuns, pipe the chantilly cream onto the swans and assemble them.

Everything had to be stirred, mixed or whipped constantly. I was the human equivalent of a cake mixer for a couple of hours. My arms are sore as I type this post.

What you see below were what I could manage to finish and present to the chef. I think things could have been neater if I had more time. Chef T made me redo some of the piping because he wanted the choux pastry to be a particular size or shape (which was different from what we were shown in the demo) and I was not doing it "correctly". So, a lot of time was wasted on getting things to be a uniform size and shape. Not easy if you have never practise this before. (However, I didn't mind the least bit, because I felt I learned a great deal from Chef T. It was good to know another way of doing things.)


Chocolate and coffee eclairs. Chef T said I should have "cleaned up" the sides of the eclairs. I agree it could have been better presented (i.e. cleaner).


Swans. Yes, I know the swan necks could have been slimmer, but that's what we were taught, and that's what I managed to make.


Religieuses (Nuns). Do you think they look like nuns? I cannot for the life of me see nuns. Maybe it is just that my decorations are badly done. So, here's the chef's version:



So, do you think they look like nuns? Make up your own mind.

Anyway, I was not keen on eclairs or choux pastry in the past, but now that I have tasted some that are fresh from the oven (e.g. the ones made by the chef instructor), I have to say it is actually very nice (if you can get them fresh and if they are well-made).

My Second Lemon Tart

Last night I made a lemon tart so that I could take it to my French language class today. My French teacher and classmates,when they found out I was studying at LCB, had asked to sample some cakes and pastry, so I agreed to bake something for the class. I decided on the lemon tart because I knew I could prepare it at home the night before, and chill it in the refrigerator.

It's the second lemon tart I've ever made in my life. I saw it as a good opportunity to practise my skills. I was told the lemon tart could be in the final exam, therefore I wanted to keep practising until I could make it from memory. I gave myself 3 hours to make it, and I was able to finish before then.

Here, you can see the first lemon tart I made a few weeks ago, and the one I made last night (I baked the Italian meringue for a bit longer, so it had more colour):




I am happy with the second lemon tart. However, I'm sure I will make a couple more before the exam, because I really could do with more practice.