The Construction of a Gingerbread House: Photographic Evidence

In this post, I am including some photos of how the "Shrek the Halls" gingerbread house was built.

As you can see from the photos below, we gradually built up the gingerbread house by making all the individual pieces (many of which are made of marzipan) first and then adding them to the "shell" (or basic gingerbread structure).

Along the way, royal icing (= egg whites + icing sugar) was piped onto the front of the display to create the impression of snow. We also used royal icing to stick many of the marzipan pieces or items to the board or onto the gingerbread house.


This was when the baked gingerbread pieces were glued to the board to form the basic "shell". By the way, the curved pieces were baked on a metal bowl and a wine bottle in the oven. The gingerbread dough had to be cut to size and shaped before baking.


The white parts of the structure are made of marzipan, which was used to make it look like tree roots.


These were some of the first individual marzipan pieces we produced. They had to be shaped, painted with food colourings and then air-dried.


More marzipan work. You can see the unpainted Shrek there in the top left corner.


The basic structure of Shrek's house is taking shape. The tree roots are painted with brown and green food colourings.


This is the interior of the house, decorated with piped garlands and holly candy.


These are the miniature mosaic paintings I made. I glued some store-bought candy onto pieces of gingerbread (thumbnail size: 2.5cmx2.5cm) that have been covered in royal icing and made to look like miniature picture frames. I made four of these to represent each of the seasons: spring (flower), summer (sailing boat), autumn (maple leaf) and winter (snowflake).


I made the anchor (with marzipan), while my housemates made the ladder (with marzipan and pretzels) and dining table (with gingerbread, fondant/sugar paste and royal icing).


Royal icing is piped onto the roof of the house, and more marzipan objects added to the roof.


On the reverse side of the house, more details are gradually added.


The front of the gingerbread house is covered with piped royal icing. It is starting to look like a winter landscape now.


More things are added to the front of the house.


This is the lovely bookshelf one of my housemates built with gingerbread pieces. I made the opened book on top of the bookshelf and wrote the words "Once upon a time ..." onto the marzipan.


This is the "Christmas tree" the project leader made. It has tiny Christmas lights hidden in the trunk of the tree. Instead of making a traditional Christmas tree, he made the tree look like something Shrek would have found in the swamp. I personally thought it was a very clever idea.


This is a photo of the almost-finished gingerbread house. It is simply missing the "Smelly Christmas" sign at the front.


An almost-finished version of the interior of the house.


The finished version, with a red ribbon stuck to the edges of the board to make it look neat and presentable.

Voila! Our second gingerbread house is complete.

Here is an amateur video of the gingerbread house, taken by me but posted on YouTube by the project leader: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HJQ93Tc4o_Q

PS. We are working on a third gingerbread house. More details later.

Our Second Gingerbread House: "Shrek the Halls"

Our second gingerbread house was delivered to the Prime Minister's residence today. The theme for this gingerbread house is "Shrek the Halls" (based on the short film of the same title).

Six of us living in Wilbrod House worked on the gingerbread house for about a week (evenings and weekends), and this is what we made:

(Note:You can click on the photos below to see larger versions.)


Front view of the gingerbread house


Puss-in-boots, pretending to be a snowman


Donkey, peering out from the WC


Shrek, with the sign "Smelly Christmas", and the three blind mice


Back view of the gingerbread house


Close-up of the chimney


Close-up of the intricate work with marzipan figures and various household objects


Close-up of the chandelier (which took one of my housemates hours to make)


Close-up of the dining table


Close-up of the "Shrek the Halls" rug I made with sugar paste

All in all, it was another fun experience.

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.

Slippery and Dangerous

I slipped and fell on the Wilbrod House driveway yesterday. I was walking to the bus stop located right next to the driveway early in the morning (to catch a bus to my French language class in the city), and that's when it happened. I just felt my feet give way under me. I fell heavily on my left side, and now I have a few bruises on my left hip to show for it. Fortunately, I'm no worse for wear. I just have to learn to be more careful next time.

Because the weather has been fine, the snow from the other day melted and turned into a layer of very smooth ice at the end of the driveway leading onto Charlotte Street. It's literally like walking on wet glass (or what I imagine walking on wet glass would be like).

The locals seem to know what to do in this sort of condition - they seem to avoid the areas where the snow has turned into ice. Being a foreigner, I didn't even know what to look out for until yesterday morning. Oh well, another learning experience for me.

On a brighter note, I saw a squirrel out and about, foraging in the snow not far from Wilbrod House. It cheered me up considerably. I wondered where this squirrel was hiding when it snowed the other day ...

I'm still waiting to see the resident raccoon that my housemates tell me lives around here. My landlady hates the creature because it comes around the night before garbage collection day and rummages in the garbage, sometimes scattering garbage all over the street.

(Aside: They don't have wheelie bins here. I guess this is another thing I miss about Australia -- the ubiquitous wheelie bin.)

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).

The Start of a Snowy Season

I woke up this morning to the sound of a snow plough going up and down the driveway. Turns out we had 4mm of snow last night. This was what it looked like at Wilbrod House.










Here in this photo, you can see it is snowing lightly outside Wilbrod House.

Earlier, I was outside shovelling snow, making snowballs, and generally enjoying the snow, because it's still a novelty to me. :)

Thank goodness the broken heater in the House was fixed ... It started to snow gently when the workmen were fixing the heating system in the boiler room in the basement last night, and there I was, desperately hoping for heating after going 5 days without heating or hot water in the House. It was enough to make me realise how hard it is to go without heating in winter. I have to say this experience made us learn not to take the mod cons for granted.

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...

Gingerbread House, part 3

Here is a link to a YouTube video of the double gingerbread house:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wr-whysyS0k

In the video, you can see both the entries submitted by Le Cordon Bleu Ottawa. One is the Campus Team (Chef H's team) and the other is Wilbrod Team (our team).

The following amateur video of the double gingerbread house was taken by me, but posted on YouTube by the project leader (who is featured at the beginning of the video):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FPBZnMyUbk4


Here's an article about the double gingerbread house in OttawaCitizen.com:
http://communities.canada.com/ottawacitizen/blogs/omnivore/archive/2008/11/22/citizen-team-excells-at-gingerbread-house-competition-well-sort-of-maybe-er.aspx

Gingerbread House, part 2

Well, some good news. The Wilbrod Team came first in the gingerbread house competition. Which means we were presented with the $1000 prize. It was announced at a ceremony at the Rideau Centre yesterday. My housemates and I went there at noon (just before our graduation ceremony at the Marriott at 2:30pm) to accept the prize. The media and some important government dignitaries were there. It was a real buzz.





Firstly, we have to reimburse the School for sponsoring us. After that, I think we will be left with $600. The project leader plans to use the remaining prize money to take us all out to lunch/dinner, or something like that. It will be fun!

The double gingerbread house is now to be auctioned off to raise funds for a charitable project (Habitat for Humanity).

The Prime Minister's chef (who was at our graduation ceremony yesterday) asked if we could build a gingerbread house for the Prime Minister's family by early December. So it looks like we will be spending part of our holidays working on another gingerbread house... but I don't mind at all. It gives us the opportunity to hone our skills (e.g. marzipan work, and piping practice)

PS. I passed Basic Pastry. Yay!!! I'm going on to take Intermediate Pastry in January, so stay tuned.

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.

Gingerbread House, part 1

This year LCB Ottawa is entering two gingerbread houses in a local competition (to raise money for charity). Chef H assembled a team of students to help with his project. Those of us living in Wilbrod House decided to enter the gingerbread house competition as well, so the School sponsored us.

The double gingerbread house the Wilbrod Team (as LCB Ottawa is calling us) came up with is based on the movie The Nightmare before Christmas. One of my housemates was the project leader, and the rest of us volunteered our time to help out. We made Halloween Town and Christmas Town out of gingerbread, marzipan, and lots and lots of of royal icing. It's what we have been working on for a while (in our spare time). Basically, this is what one talented project leader and eleven other culinary students came up with, on a 60cmx60cm piece of board:


Halloween Town


Halloween Town


Christmas Town


Christmas Town, from another angle

This gingerbread house and the one Chef H made will be on display at a local shopping complex (the Rideau Centre) this weekend. We hope they raise lots of money for charity.

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. :)

Production Kitchen 10

This was my last production kitchen shift for this term. It didn't start well this morning. I accidentally locked the chef's set of keys inside the dry store, and we had to wait until another staff member turned up with their spare set of keys an hour later to get the chef's keys back.

Things got better after that. I didn't have to assemble any boxes. Instead, I learnt some more basic cuisine skills: e.g. devein foie gras (for the chefs to make torchon out of it), peel a large bowl of taro (for staff meals), prepare fish cakes (shaping the mixture into patties), portion a side of salmon and vacuum-seal the portions, and so forth. I enjoyed these activities a lot.

At the end of my shift, Chef CP showed me how to make chantilly cream properly. I had told him I'd been having problems with it in my practical classes, and he was kind enough to show me what to do. I now realise I had gone from one extreme to another: I used to under-whip the cream, so it was runny; then I over-whipped it, so it was lumpy. That's what been making my life so difficult -- not whipping the cream just right.

Anyway, now I have to concentrate on my upcoming practical exam. More details about that later.

24 Hours in Montreal

Last weekend I took a train to Montreal to see the opera The Pearl Fishers (Les Pêcheurs de Perles) by French composer Georges Bizet. It was magnificent!!!

The opera was playing at the Salle Wilfrid-Pelletier in the Place des Arts, in the middle of Montreal city. In my opinion, the opera had very high production values, and I felt it was better than most of the operas I had seen at the Sydney Opera House (I'd seen at least 15 when I lived and worked in Sydney). In short, it was beautifully staged. The costumes and props were something to behold. They were beautifully designed, with colours so bright and vivid that you cannot help but feel amazed by the creativity of the designers. The dance choreography was very good as well. But most importantly, the singing was superb -- I loved the tenor-baritone duet au fond du temple saint and the tenor aria je crois entendre encore. They moved me to tears.

After the opera, I stayed overnight at a hotel in the Latin Quarter, which is a relatively trendy part of town, with lots of shops and restaurants. The next morning, I went sight-seeing in the Vieux-Port area and then did a spot of shopping in the downtown area before catching a train home. Here are some photos for you to enjoy:


Montreal city skyline


Place Jacques-Cartier, looking down to the Promenade du Vieux-Port


Place Jacques-Cartier, looking up from the Promenade du Vieux-Port


The streets around Place Jacques-Cartier, with old-world charm and character


Bassin Jacques-Cartier


A juvenile seagull that came up close to where I was standing (I would say this one was probably expecting free food). The seagulls here look somewhat different from the ones we see in Australia (particularly in Sydney), but they behave in much the same way -- they are not afraid of people, and will come up close if they sense the possibility of food being handed out.


Gardens on the Quay


Scenery along the Promenade du Vieux-Port


Quirky sculptures in the gardens along the Promenade du Vieux-Port


Fall foliage in Place Victoria, which is near the central train station

Montreal is a beautiful city. It reminded me of a mix of Melbourne and Adelaide, in terms of the feel of the city (cosmopolitan, but with some old-world charm). However, the shopping complexes in the downtown area were like the ones in Sydney, except the designs and layouts were more pleasing aesthetically. I put it down to the French influence. ;-)

I have to say I suffered a culture shock when I first arrived in Montreal. Almost all the signs were in French and everyone spoke French. Even though I had been learning French for a few weeks, I really couldn't cope with the rate of speech of the locals. Fortunately, people will speak to you in English if you struggle with the French language.

When I went to pay for my purchases at the check-out, the check-out operators initially spoke to me in French. Only when I started to speak in English did they switch to English, but they were nice about it. No drama at all.

Anyway, Montreal made quite an impression on me. I will definitely be going back there for more shopping (esp. for clothes) and sight-seeing. After all, it is only 2 hours by train from Ottawa (and the return train ticket only cost me CAD$65).

Volunteering at the Ottawa Food and Wine Show

Last Friday, some of my classmates and I volunteered for the Ottawa Food and Wine Show. We were there to help out the chefs for their demonstration sessions, and it was quite an experience.

I think it is good to interact with the chefs outside of the classroom setting, because one gets an insight into the way chefs actually work in a commercial kitchen and in a demonstration (with audiences sampling the food afterwards).

In the afternoon, one of the cuisine chefs from LCB showed the audience how to cook duck breasts and foie gras. In the evening session, Chef CF and Chef T did the demonstration on chocolates, basically to promote the short courses that LCB Ottawa offers (mostly on weekends) to the general public. Prior to their demonstration, Chef A demonstrated how to make sushi, and then served up all the ones he had made earlier. They went like hot cakes, as you can imagine.

I was out the back (in the kitchen) doing whatever was required by the chefs (e.g. dishwashing, helping to peel apples, cutting up the sushi rolls, and so on). I really enjoyed the work. The seven hours of working in the kitchen was nothing, because time flies when one is having fun.

To me, the reward for volunteering was getting to sample the chefs' food. The chocolates, the duck breasts, and the sushi were all really delicious.

Here's what Chef A carved with different types of vegetables:


Chef A made a range of flowers and sea creatures with pumpkins, beetroots, radish, turnips, carrots, bell peppers and so on. The sea creatures were so life-like -- I couldn't believe those were originally vegetables. He was so good at it. He is not just a chef; he is an amazing artist!



Isn't this just amazing? Please enjoy the photos!

I look forward to Chef A teaching us some fruit/vegetable carving techniques in Superior Pastry. But first things first, I have to pass my Basic Pastry exam next week.

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).

Production Kitchen 9

I am only volunteering in Production Kitchen for one day a week in November. That's because it is now getting close to the exam date (which is 17 November) and I feel I really need extra time to study for it (which basically means memorising recipes and baking processes, plus some extra baking practice).

Today I spent nearly all of my time in production kitchen assembling demo and prac boxes. Nothing special there. Towards the end of my shift, I did get to learn some cuisine basics - I learnt to make bechamel sauce. Milk and cream, infused with onion, cloves and bay leaves, then cooked with the roux, which is butter and plain flour, then seasoned with salt and white pepper at the end. It was not hard at all.

I really enjoy learning about French cuisine in the production kitchen, but I don't think I would want to do the Cuisine courses here at LCB Ottawa, because I cannot see how I could cope with the pressure of a cuisine kitchen. I have seen what things are like for the cuisine students (e.g. chefs yelling at students in the cuisine practical kitchen to simulate what happens in a real-life cuisine kitchen), and I simply prefer the gentler pace of the pastry kitchen, where the chefs don't really yell at anyone. :)

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

Production Kitchen 7 & 8 (and Happy Halloween)

I am feeling much more at ease in the production kitchen these days, so I'm working more confidently. But that does not mean I don't make silly mistakes. Last Wednesday I was making a batch of Italian Bread dough and I forgot to give the yeast (which I had put into a bowl of water) a good stir before mixing it with the bread flour, and the result was a little lumpy. Fortunately, Chef CP told me to use the large mixer to knead the dough for a bit longer and the dough eventually turned out fine.

These are just little things you pick up when you volunteer for production kitchen. It is good that you have a chef and a couple of work-study students to guide you as you learn from experience (or learn by doing things).

(Aside: The production kitchen usually has two work-study students, who work under the guidance of Chef CP, and they help to run the kitchen and supervise students who volunteer for production kitchen shifts. Work-study students are those who have completed at least one course at LCB Ottawa -- usually Basic/Intermediate Cuisine -- and they apply to work in the production kitchen for no pay for six months, in return for the School paying for their next course, e.g. Intermediate/Superior Cuisine. This only applies to those who have not paid their tuition fees in full yet. In other words, if you have already paid for your tuition fees in the next course, then the School does not refund you, even if you are lucky enough to get into the work-study programme, which (as you can imagine) is quite competitive. Disclaimer: The above is based on what I have heard from other students about the work-study programme. It is not from any official LCB Ottawa source.)

Anyway, I then made a batch of Ale dough (a dough with smaller quantities of yeast, but has a fair amount of beer in it). This time I knew what to pay attention to, so the dough turned out well.

On Friday (Halloween), I helped with the pastries again -- the usual tasks for staff meals, e.g. baking the muffins, making cinnamon twists, egg-washing the croissant, and so on.

After that, I assembled some demo and prac boxes (i.e. gather all the ingredients required by the chef and students for a particular demo or prac class). This is usually the most time-consuming part of the shift, and I know a lot of students dislike doing this because they consider it boring.

When I do "the boxes" (as everyone here refers to the demo & prac boxes), I try to focus on improving my skills in the following (just to name a few):
* estimating the weights and volumes of various products (e.g. I can now tell roughly how full to fill a particular syrofoam container for 50ml of olive oil or 200ml of madeira wine, for instance -- of course we still have to use our kitchen scales to check for exact measurements)
* mentally calculate the quantities required for 19 (or whatever the number happens to be) portions (e.g. 19 portions of 70g butter is about 1400g, and that requires 3 slabs of butter from the walk-in fridge)
* how best to preserve a product (e.g. put liquids in a styrofoam container and label it, wrap peeled shallots with cling wrap, wrap herbs in wet paper towels to keep them from drying out in the walk-in fridge)
* how to prepare the products for the chef who is doing the demo in a couple of days' time (e.g. when a recipe calls for 50g mirepoix, we know we must roughly chop 20g of carrots, 20g onions and 10g of celery and put all of these into a container; or when a recipe says "bouquet garni", we gather leek leaves, put some thyme, parsley stalks, black peppercorns and bay leaves inside the leaf and tie it with string, then we wrap the bouquet garni in cling wrap; and any peeled potatoes/turnips or dried beans or mushrooms must be soaked in water inside a container)

When "the boxes" were done, I peeled a large bowl of shallots and garlic for staff meals. In the meantime, Chef A was working in the station across from where I was, and I could see him carving some pumpkins for Halloween. When he finished (in a matter of minutes), I quietly asked to take a few photos of his carvings, and he acceded. He said I could show everyone the photos.

Chef A, with his amazing pumpkin carvings

On Friday night, the housemates from Wilbrod House invited friends from School over to the Halloween costume party. It was a lot of fun to see all the different characters! Even I got into the spirit of things (I wore an outfit I would not have dreamed of wearing in my previous career), and I giggled and laughed until I was near hysterical...

The highlight of the evening would have to be seeing a male (caucasian) housemate dressed up as a geisha. He looked pretty good in the costume (made of bedsheets and pillow cases) too. :) That's the thing about LCB Ottawa students: They work hard, they play hard (and they are very creative and resourceful indeed). I love being around my fellow students because they inspire me to be more spontaneous and creative (the opposite of what I am usually like).