IP Lesson 12: Marquise au Chocolat

Last Friday Chef H showed us how to make the lovely Marquise au Chocolat, which is essentially a chocolate mousse cake, with a bottom layer of chocolate biscuit that has been imbibed with rum syrup, a middle layer of crispy praliné, and the rest of the cake is just dark chocolate mousse. The top of the cake is glazed with a dark chocolate glaze. I have to say, the taste of this cake is simply divine.

Chef H made it look so easy, but I found out otherwise. As I was making it for the first time this morning, I found it quite difficult to get the consistency of the chocolate mousse right.

We were supposed to make a full-size cake and a plated dessert of the Marquise, but I could only manage to complete the full-size cake in the given time of 2.5 hours. I had no time to plate the mini dessert at all. My other mistakes were the overworking of the mousse (resulting in a slightly grainy texture), and the temperature of the glaze on top was incorrect. The glaze should have been a touch warmer and more liquid, so that it covers the cake more evenly.

This was what my Marquise au Chocolat looked like at the time I presented it to Chef N:


It really was the best I could manage on the day, and that's all I can ask for from myself.

Chef N said I had nice ideas for decorating the cake, but that I will need to correct the mistakes I made in the making of the cake. Oh well, I live and learn...

Basically, there's nothing else to do but practice (and gain experience). I guess I will have to work faster in the future, but I worry that my attempts to work faster will result in more mistakes, so I will have to be very careful. I will have to review what I did today and come up with a plan for next time. I really do like this cake a lot and I want to make it well.

Anyway, I am heading back to class this afternoon to watch the chef demonstrate the making of the croquembouche, which we will have to make on Wednesday morning.

Volunteer Event (RCMP)

Yesterday I spent over 13 hours at School (before 10am till after 11pm) helping out with the special event that LCB Ottawa was running. Frankly, it was an interesting experience for me!

You see, sometimes LCB Ottawa runs team-building events for corporate groups or people outside of the School, which means these people (who may be from the same company or organization, but who don't know each other) come into the LCB kitchens to learn to cook a special menu, just as a team-building/networking exercise. When LCB Ottawa conducts these events, student volunteers are needed to assist in the kitchen. And that's what I volunteered for.

Yesterday it was the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) who were doing their team-building exercise. About two dozen of their senior executives from different parts of Canada were here, and they were asked to prepare all the dishes on a menu created by a consultant (they were given recipes to follow). My classmates and I had assembled all the necessary ingredients beforehand, and we were on hand to assist if they needed help with the cooking. But the participants, divided into teams, basically had to work out how they were to tackle the task of making a five-course fine-dining meal.

I was assigned to assist in the pastry kitchen, while a couple of my classmates were in the cuisine kitchen next door. By the way, here are some photos of the pastry kitchen (where I normally have my practicals):

That station at the end (where my classmate is standing) is my favourite station. If I am lucky (i.e. I get into the kitchen first when Chef opens the door at the start of a practical), I go for that station. It is nearest to all the ingredients we need (sugar, flour, butter, etc.), so that is why everyone likes that station.



This is the other side of the pastry kitchen. Marble kitchen bench with refrigerators and freezers underneath, and stoves/ovens across from the kitchen bench.



The stoves, ovens and pots we work with, along with racks on the side for baking trays.


We assembled ingredients and did the mise en place from 10am to 12noon, then we had a break for lunch. From 1pm to 3pm, the consultant briefed us on what needed to be done (the schedule, procedures and protocols), and then the event began at 3pm.

The photo below shows the simple but tasty lunch that Chef JM (the supervising chef for the event, and LCB Ottawa cuisine chef) made for us - it was French omelette with salad and crusty bread. It was so good!




Anyway, back to the event... As a former educator, I found it fascinating to observe the event participants working in the pastry kitchen. These senior police officers were very good at following instructions - they read the recipes and they followed the steps closely (more so than us students would have, I reckon). They started out working on small tasks as individuals, but by the end of two hours they were communicating and negotiating the tasks as teams (as you can see in the photo below).


The participants working in teams.


Below are some of the dishes the participants had to prepare in the afternoon (3pm-5:30pm). The participants prepared the food for the appetiser and dessert, the volunteers cooked the main course and plated all the dishes, then the restaurant servers took the dishes downstairs to the restaurant below the pastry and cuisine kitchens to serve to the participants at dinnertime (6:30pm), when all of the participants had changed into formal attire and gathered in Salle Cointreau.


Heart of palm cucumber soup, served chilled with sliced ham in a shot glass



Asian beef carpaccio on sushi rice, sprinkled with black and white sesame seeds and served on oriental porcelain spoons



Spicy shrimps sautéed in herb garlic butter, served with zesty ginger mayonnaise



Smoked salmon stack with mâche, avocado and mango, drizzled with a mustard herb vinaigrette and served with a bouquet of sprouts



Strawberries (dressed with Cointreau orange liqueur) and cognac chantilly cream sandwiched in kataifi discs, served with caramel sauce and fresh fruit (the orange fruit on top of the dessert is known as "physallis" or "cape gooseberry")


I didn't get a photo of the main course (lamb medallions, served with seared pâté, fruit-and-nut buckwheat pilaf and garlic butter glazed baby vegetables) because I was busy helping with the plating and it was quite hectic. The main course had to be served hot, so there was no time to waste. As soon as it was plated, it was served.

At the end of the evening (i.e. after service and after the clean-up), Chef JM and all the volunteers each had a glass of red wine in the pastry kitchen to debrief and unwind. Yes, I had a glass, even though I don't normally drink alcohol (I just used to prefer to cook with alcohol, rather than drink it).

In under six months, studying at LCB Ottawa has taught me to appreciate fine food (including the unusual ones, e.g. veal sweetbread) and food I didn't used to enjoy (e.g. lamb, pumpkin), to drink alcohol, and to make some pretty nice cakes and desserts by hand ... I think my friends and relatives back home would be amazed by the transformation. :D

IP Lesson 11: Délice Caramel

Yesterday morning we made the Delice Caramel in our practical. The day before that, Chef H had shown us how to make this cake, which is basically a mousse cake. Chef said we had to make the cake in two versions - a full-size cake, and a mini-cake for plated dessert.

The cake is lined with coffee lady fingers (done with the cartouchiere technique - piping the lady fingers like a cartridge of bullets) on the side, and the bottom is a disc of the same lady finger mixture, imbibed with pear liqueur syrup. Then the disc is covered with a layer of caramel bavarian mousse, studded with diced canned pears, then another imbibed disc of cake goes onto the mousse, and we top the cake with a pear mousse. After that, we put a thin layer of natural clear glaze, and decorate it with canned pear, chocolate decorations and caramel sauce (which is served on the side too).

Here's what my full-size Delice Caramel looked like:

Chef liked the way I marbled the glaze on the cake. I used the caramel sauce and some drops of coffee extract to create the effect.


Side view of the same cake.

Chef said I still need more practice with the chocolate decorations -- it is quite hard to make the chocolate fans and the two-toned chocolate cigarettes, because one has to temper the two kinds of chocolate and then complete a series of steps before using the metal scraper to create this "chocolate curl" (which we call "chocolate cigarette"). I still haven't quite mastered this technique yet.


My delice caramel as a plated dessert. I served the mini-cake with the caramel sauce, and a quenelle of caramel bavarian mousse. I was pressed for time to complete this, so my plated dessert didn't look all that special. I basically created this plated dessert in 5 minutes - I threw a few things together and served.

Chef wasn't impressed with this plated dessert, but at least I served on time. He also said my lady fingers were a bit too thick, which, I realised, made lining the outside of the cake a bit difficult.

Anyway, I am not a big fan of pear cakes. You might recall my least favorite cake in Basic Pastry was the Pear Charlotte.

I gave my cake away to the neighbours when I got home. I kept the caramel sauce for myself, though. :)

Then I went out to lunch with a friend at a sushi restaurant, called Banc Sushi. It is a nice restaurant about 10 minutes' drive from Wilbrod House, where it is all-you-can-eat for around $14. As a foodie, I have tried out many restaurants before (esp. in Sydney, Australia), and I rate this as one of the better restaurants I have ever visited.



After lunch, I went back to School for a demo class, where Chef CF demonstrated how to make a showpiece with pulled sugar, something we will be doing when we get to Superior Pastry (we are just getting a taste of things to come).


Chef CF's sugar showpiece, with a flower, a bird of paradise, ribbons and an apple (demonstrating a number of techniques for working with pulled and blown sugar).

I have to say Chef CF's demo was inspirational. I loved the way he got us all excited about making a sugar showpiece in Superior Pastry, even though I know working with pulled sugar is a "torture" - you work with sugar that is over 70 degree Celsius with your bare hands. (The hot water from your hot water tap is usually below 60 degrees Celsius, so you can imagine 70 degrees would most likely make you say more than just "ouch!")

No Rest for the Wicked

Well, I haven't had internet connection for a couple of days now, hence I'm a bit behind with my blogging. Besides, this has been a really busy week - when I'm not in class, I'm volunteering in Production Kitchen (and that means being there from 6am). Today I was in Production Kitchen from 6am, and I had a demo class in the afternoon (3:30pm), which meant I didn't get home until after 6:30pm... A long day at School.

Tomorrow (Saturday, and Valentine's Day) I am volunteering for an event at School, which starts at 10am, and goes on till late evening. So, as they say, "no rest for the wicked." (I do want to learn as much as I can while I am here at LCB Ottawa, so I am grateful for all the opportunities we get to volunteer for events.)

This week in Production Kitchen, apart from doing the usual pastry-for-staff-breakfast tasks, I learnt to make, shape and bake different kinds of baguettes (for staff lunches and for Bistro Cordon Bleu). It took me a while to master the techniques for rolling out the baguettes by hand, but I'm getting there.

Chef CP also asked me to make a batch of orange-pumpkin loaves, and they turned out quite well (even though this is the first time I'm making it). Chef CP said that he has had many students make this recipe before, but mine had one of the best textures he's ever tasted (it was moist like a banana cake/bread). That is high praise indeed.

Of course, I didn't tell him that I modified the recipe slightly as I was making it. :) What happened was, the recipe (from the Internet) required something like one-and-two-thirds large oranges (ground to a pulp with the food processor). I simply rounded it to two oranges, because the oranges we have in Production Kitchen are not all that big. Then I added almost an extra egg, because the recipe called for three-and-a-quarter eggs (which, in my opinion, is a ridiculous figure anyway). After rounding the figures up, I figured I'm adding extra moisture into the recipe, so I had better reduce it somewhere else in the recipe. And I reduced the amount of water. Anyway, the end result was quite good. I think I am slowly getting a feel for the science/art of baking.

In the afternoon, before my demo class, I helped a couple of my classmates assemble ingredients for tomorrow's event, but because we didn't get to complete the task before our demo class, we decided we would have to go back to school tomorrow morning to finish it (i.e. the mise en place), and that's how I ended up volunteering for tomorrow's event...

Anyway, I had nothing planned for tomorrow, so it was fine to volunteer for this event. I'll update my blog with details later.

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PS. Happy Birthday to T!

IP Lesson 10: Blood Orange Mousse Cake

Today's cake - the Blood Orange Mousse Cake - is supposedly the most difficult cake to make in Intermediate Pastry, but I beg to differ. Towards the end of the demo, Chef H said some people might find the Millefeuille Praliné harder, which I have to agree (given my lack of success there).

The demo that Chef H gave this morning was really good. He outlined all the things we had to do and showed us exactly how to use our time efficiently (since we have to do so many things in 2.5 hours). In the past, according to the chefs, students have always had problems with finishing this cake on time, but today we pretty much managed to finish on time (or just a few minutes late). All thanks to the way Chef H taught us to organise our time in the practical class.

The Blood Orange Mousse Cake is lined with a printed joconde biscuit (chocolate cigarette paste scraped with pastry comb and then overcoated with joconde sponge to give it the dark and light-colored stripes) on the outside, then the bottom layer is a disc of lady fingers biscuit that has been imbibed with blood orange syrup, topped with a layer of white chocolate bavarian mousse, followed by a disc of flourless chocolate biscuit, then topped off with a layer of blood orange mousse. The top of the cake is covered with clear glaze and a few drops of food color-tinted glaze (to give the attractive marbling effect). Then the fruit and chocolate decorations go on the cake at the last minute.

Here is the blood orange mousse cake I made:


You can see the printed joconde biscuit on the side. It is an attractive pattern, isn't it?


Chef H said my decoration on the cake was quite nice. It had "movement" (his word) in it.


The chocolate and fruit decorations were the things that took the least time to prepare, and I was lucky my placement of the various elements worked well today.


You can see from the side that the chocolate decorations has lots of curves and I think that's the "movement" that Chef H was referring to.

While my cake looked pretty and the montage was fairly good, Chef said there were a number of weaknesses I had to work on... Mostly to do with my forgetfulness. /sigh!/

First of all, I didn't use up all of my joconde mixture, and it puzzled Chef (I reckon I have a way of doing things that make the chefs here shake their heads in disbelief). Everyone else used up their mixtures, but I had a fair bit left over. I had simply made a thinner printed joconde, that's all. But that is risky, because you don't want the "walls" of the cake to be too thin, right? It might not be strong enough to hold in all the mousse.

Then I made a big mistake with my white chocolate mousse - I forgot to put the whipped cream into the white chocolate mixture. I poured the mixture into the cake ring, and Chef H spotted it and asked me if I added the whipped cream. I said, "Oh no!!!" He said, "Scoop it out and add the cream! It is not too late." Thank goodness Chef H has eyes on the back of his head! :) Boy, am I lucky he caught it in time (or my mousse wouldn't have set properly at all)!

Later in the practical, I walked around the pastry kitchen looking for the blood orange pulp (I even asked Chef where it was), when it was right in front of me in my station. Chef had given each of us a bowl of blood orange pulp at the start of the practical, and I put it next to the mixer and simply forgot about it. Arrrrrgh!!!

OK, I basically had two "senior moments" in one practical. When it comes time for grading, Chef tells me I have to concentrate harder next time (and not to make the same mistakes should this cake turn up in the exam). I reckon I was concentrating so hard today that I forgot the little things. I think that's known as absent-mindedness.

Anyway, the white chocolate mousse didn't set as well as Chef H would have liked it, but everything else was basically OK.

What a day!!!

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PS. I am so sorry to hear that the death toll for the Victorian bushfires has risen to 173 today! It is so sad! I hope the grief-stricken communities recover from this tragedy quickly.

Winterlude

Yesterday afternoon Le Cordon Bleu Ottawa organised an excursion to the local Winterlude festival.




Some of the students and staff of Le Cordon Bleu Ottawa (Note: None of the chef instructors are in the photo). Most of the students who came on this Winterlude excursion were international students like me (I guess most of the local students and the chef instructors had seen enough of these sorts of things, so they didn't bother to come along).

We saw Chef A's wonderful piece of ice sculpture that came second in the single-block ice carving competition:




Chef A is also collaborating with another ice carver (one of his nephews) for their stunning Poseidon Adventure ice sculpture:



Later, some of us also went down to nearby Rideau Canal to skate.

This was the first time I had ever put on a pair of skates and I really couldn't keep my balance. I fell heavily a couple of times in the first 10m and gave up. I just walked the 3.5 km on the frozen Rideau Canal to a major rest point (to meet up with the other students), and had a cup of hot chocolate with a cinnamon & sugar beavertail (LCB Ottawa gave each of us a coupon for this).

A beavertail is a very Canadian snack, and is basically a piece of fried dough (tastes like doughnut, but is flat and oval in shape) with different toppings. The most common topping is cinnamon & sugar. I quite like the cinnamon & sugar one, and also the garlic butter & cheese one (which I paid for myself). I had tried the one with hazelnut paste and chocolate topping before (when I first arrived in Ottawa), but I didn't like it all that much (it was too sweet for me).

Anyway, here are some photos of the memorable day:

Skating on the canal


Coming up to a major rest point (where food and beverages are sold) along the canal


A stall selling different kinds of beavertails ($4 or $5 each)


A stall selling maple taffy


Maple taffy on snow

At the end of the day, we came home exhausted but really glad to have experienced ice skating on a frozen canal. I am thinking of going back to the canal to learn to skate later...

IP Lesson 9: Plated Desserts

Early this morning, Chef H showed us how to present a pistachio dacquoise (i.e. a nut cake) and a chocolate lava cake as plated desserts.

A chocolate lava cake basically is a small chocolate cake with some coffee ganache inserted into it, so that after baking, the ganache is melted, and when you cut it open, the ganache flows out like lava.

Anyway, Chef H got us into teams of two or three students to work together during the practical in the afternoon, where we helped each other prepare the basic compoenets (e.g. pistachio dacquoise, lava cake, coffee ganache, granité, etc), then we each had to plate our own desserts, in the style of what would be presented in a restaurant, for example.

Here are my first-time efforts with plated desserts, which I was quite proud of:


Chocolate lava cake, served with some fruits, fruit coulis, tuiles, and chocolate decorations. Those of you who are Star Trek fans might recognise a subtle tribute to Star Trek in my lava cake presentation (because I am a Star Trek fan).

One classmate actually commented that my plated chocolate lava cake looked like a romantic dessert that one might serve on Valentine's Day, which is coming up soon.


Pistachio dacquoise, served with fresh berries and cherry granité, and decorated with chocolate sauce, mango-passionfruit puree and raspberry coulis.


Side view of the pistachio dacquoise as a plated dessert

When it was time for grading, Chef H looked at my presentation and gave me some tips on how to make the desserts look nicer, and he also encouraged me to be more bold with my designs (esp. with the height of the plated desserts).

Overall, I was pleased with my effort. I wanted to make something pretty and I did it. I couldn't ask for more today, especially after the disappointment with my millefeuille the other day.

This lesson was so much fun!!!

Next Monday we will have to make one of the most difficult cakes we will have to learn here -- the Blood Orange Mousse Cake, which has at least six different components to it and is quite difficult to finish in 2.5 hours. I hope I can manage. Fingers crossed!

Working with Chocolates

Today at Stubbe, where I am doing my internship once a week, I learnt to temper chocolate with a method different from what I am used to at school. I also dipped over 150 truffles, made heart-shaped chocolate boxes and some fruit-and-nut bars (as shown in the photos below).


A delicious fruit-and-nut bar. Contains hazelnuts, almonds, pistachios, dried cranberries, blueberries, cherries and dark chocolate.


The finished product.

It was an interesting day. I learnt and practised so many new techniques. I know in my heart now that I want to work with chocolates if I get the chance in the future.

IP Lesson 8: Millefeuille Praliné

What a disappointing day! :-(

Chef N showed us how to make Millefeuille Praliné (aka Napoleon) today. He made it look like it was a simple task, but during my practical I found out just how hard it was to make this dessert.

The millefeuille praliné is essentially made up of three layers of puff pastry, with a praliné base in between the bottom two layers of puff pastry, and light praliné cream in between the top two layers of puff pastry. The photo below is the lovely millefeuille made by Chef N:



In our practical, we had to make a puff pastry détrempe (flour and water mixture) and give it to the chef in exchange for one that was prepared earlier (because we do not have enough time to rest the dough). Then we had to wrap the butter inside the détrempe, and then roll out the dough and make the relevant turns in it.

I had done puff pastry from scratch before (in Basic Pastry last term), but this recipe is slightly different from the one we did last time, plus last time we had a couple of days to complete the turns. This time, we had to do all the turns and use the puff pastry in the same class (i.e. everything done within 2.5 hours). My puff pastry was a disaster (it was too elastic, and I just had so much trouble with it that I was almost in tears)... But I did my best to roll it out (even though it kept shrinking back like an elastic band), and I baked it.

In the end, I wasted a lot of time battling my recalcitrant puff pastry dough, and my puff pastry was overbaked on one side and underbaked on another. My light praliné cream was a bit lumpy because the pastry cream was a touch too cold when I mixed it with the cold whipped cream. There was also one other problem with the caramelized hazelnuts, but I think I can fix that one easily (it was just an oversight on my part).

I scrambled to get my millefeuille assembled, and I presented it on time (just barely). Chef N made some kind comments and gave me some tips for correcting my mistakes, but I was really mad at myself. I *must* practise making more puff pastry between now and the exam.


As you can see from the photo, my millefeuille looks fine, but it was not quite edible. Chef tasted a little of my millefeuille, but I felt so sorry for him. He really didn't have to taste it to know it was quite awful. I wouldn't eat it anyway, and I certainly wouldn't inflict it on any other human being. Oh yes, I hope the resident squirrels find their way into the garbage bin and enjoy those three hazelnuts that I dipped in caramel, even if they find my millefeuille puff pastry unpalatable.

Having said all that, I shall conquer this problem. If you recall, I had problems with Chantilly Cream last term, and eventually I learnt the skills for making a decent Chantilly Cream. Now I must do the same with Puff Pastry. Exactly six more weeks till exam time...

Random Reflections IX: How I Learnt to Make a Marzipan Rose

Because I was struggling to make a realistic-looking marzipan rose for my Fraisier recently, Chef N was kind enough to give me a step-by-step demonstration. The following are some of the photos I took to help me remember the steps for making it.

These first two photos simply show what you need to make the centre of the rose. To make a petal, you need to flatten a ball, so that you have one end very thin and the other end quite thick. The thin end is the top of the rose; the thick end is always the bottom of the rose.





The next two photos show how you form the centre of the rose. First, you roll the petal tightly to form the very centre, and you flatten the base so that you can sit it on the table. Then, you add two more petals around the very centre, as shown in the subsequent photos. In other words, the first three pieces of marzipan petals are used to form the centre of the rose.





This photo here shows the shape of the petals you need. The top petal is round in shape, and is used for the outer layers of the rose. The bottom, tear-drop shaped petal is only used for the centre (which you saw in previous photos).



Here, you can see the round petal is wrapped around the centre of the rose, but one side of the petal is left open (for overlapping with the next petal).



The next three photos just show how to build up the rose, as you continue overlapping the petals. Use about 5 round petals to form a nice rose shape.







This long, oval-shaped marzipan ball is for the final petal. It needs to be wide enough to almost cover the outside of the entire rose, to finish off the rose.



Now you compress the base of the rose slightly (to make the petals unfurl a little), and then cut the rose itself off from the base with a paring knife.



Use your fingers to curl the petals outward very gently. This gives the rose a more realistic look.





This final photo here shows what can be made using the basic principles above.



Acknowledgment: Many thanks to Chef N for patiently showing me how to make beautiful marzipan roses.