So, yesterday we made several types of ice cream. Today, we made mousse with three different methods, biscuits, meringue, macarcon and started layering…..
Joconde sponge disc, topped by cassis mousse layer then raspberry coulis, then raspberry mousse and second Joconde sponge layer with crushed hazelnuts.
Chocolate dacquoise sponge baked with dehydrated raspberry pieces, then soaked with raspberry syrup, layered with chocolate mousse, then raspberry coulis then another layer of chocolate mousse closed with second dacquoise layer (and decorated of course).
Chocolate bomb; chocolate icecream outer layer, vanilla mousse with centre of blackcurrant mousse, sitting atop a sweet pastry biscuit.
meringue disc base, cassis mousse cast in a ring mold with centre filled with vanilla parfait, covered with chocolate disc, then caramel ice cream layer with second meringue on top.
Baked Alaska; pate a choux sponge disc covered with snow sugar, meringue disc, rasp sorbet layer, vanilla parfait and mango sorbet then entirely covered with meringue (torched).
Charlotte: pate a choux sponge, snow sugar, rasp sorbet, then blackcurrant mousse layer, blackcurrant coulis, and finished with rasperry sorbet. Meringue fingers on outside and fresh raspberries on serving.
Exotic Charlotte: pate a choux sponge disc, snow sugar, rasperry sorbet, mango sorbet and coconut sorbet layers.
Gluten free macaron strip filled with raspberry sorbet, decorated with sugar spheres.
Buche de Noel: made with pate a choux sponge and raspberry sorbet
popsicles made with leftover sorbet, ice cream, single flavours and double flavour layers, or with coulis inserts
Orange granitas made with pink champagne
Pictures of all of the above will be on Friday’s buffet pictures.
As I said yesterday, it’s a whole new world for me – previously the most exotic I got was two different flavour scoops of ice cream…. We are learning what works for ice cream inclusions, and how to modify if not, how to make it crunchy, how to adjust the recipe to include different ingredients…..
Tomorrow looks to be a busy day as the board is full of extra recipes, and tons of scaling (weight measuring for the recipes). We have three LONG strips of labels for tomorrow’s recipes… Tomorrow’s flavours include popcorn, Timut pepper, Litchi mint, marscapone, Bergamot, Horchata amongst others…
Finally back to the good stuff. We all straggled back from our 4 day weekend, lots of tired looking people today! Super interesting stuff on how to compose ice cream and sorbet properly and balance ingredients, then we set off making chocolate, vanilla, caramel ice cream and raspberry and mango sorbet. We made hazelnut dacquoise and Swiss meringue to put inside and use for sandwiches, and caramelized hazelnuts to sprinkle on top. Joconde and a few gluten free recipes rounded out the day, which whizzed by very quickly.
We were instructed to clear room in our freezers, and dust off the tupperware containers…
American Thanksgiving on Thursday, and it appears that all but retail workers take the Friday off as well making it an incredibly busy travel weekend. A good one to stay off the roads… We had a four day weekend as well, with the Americans disappearing home and some of the international students off touristing in LA and San Francisco, both within comfortable driving distance (or a quick flight).
Mahi Mahi for Thanksgiving Dinner (Canadian Thanksgiving was the first day of classes here!) but the pumpkin tart had long since disappeared (delicious it was too, with sweet potato in the recipe). Very quiet on the roads as I headed down to south Las Vegas Thursday a.m. to check out the only thing resembling a real botanical garden showing up on google. Interesting, as growing conditions are great here and there doesn’t seem to be a shortage of water (at least by the behaviour indicators). The rose garden was tiny and more like a community park, but deserted and lovely to sit in the sun there with the scent of roses – surprisingly there were still some out despite the chilly nights. Having just spent 1 1/2 days trying to recreate one in sugar, I studied them carefully! Kasha would have loved the park which had a big open green space but all fenced in, as did the golden doodle and his buddy that arrived to chase balls. Told off by the city employee who came to check the washrooms as the dogs were off leash – Kasha would have been too, I have to say, with almost nobody else around…
The next day was Black Friday, a shopping nightmare but also a retail day where the Mon-Friday chocolatier shops were accessible for us students so I organized a visit with a classmate to Jean-Marie Auboine Chocolatier to get some more ideas. This classmate (from Australia, originally Kazakhstan) was without a vehicle and hadn’t been to Red Rock Canyon so we headed there first for a short hike – good thing we went earlier in the morning as it was already busy when we arrived, and when we left we were constantly harassed for our parking spot in the small lot. Lots of people on the trail, but many didn’t make it to the top so it was relatively quiet there – the small amount of scrambling involved put a lot of people off I guess. Lovely rock! Nice views, great temperature and good conversation so we knocked it off in pretty quick time. At the top, which had some spectacular dropoffs, one poor dad was being encouraged by his two small kids and wife to come up for a picture – he had a fear of heights and conquered it to get there but the kids pointed out that he was shaking and he certainly clung to the rock, poor guy.
Las Vegas Valley with the strip in the distance just to the left of picture centreThe top is layered like a beautiful puff pastry….
We had a couple of other stops on the way back to take in the view, and more weird rock formations (willow creek loop). Lovely temp, sunny and warm. Lots of dogs on the trail.
The chocolatier was interesting – good sampling opportunities, and there were some lovely flavours. The Earl Grey tea flavour with Kalamansi jelly was a particularly good combination, with the tea uncommonly coming through (the recipe we used at the school with Earl Grey tea was unimpressive). There are a couple of other well known chocolatiers I’d like to visit, but unfortunately they generally don’t open on Saturdays. A majority of sales are done on-line now.
Bike riding on the wetlands preserve trail the next day was also very quiet, perfect temp to ride in short sleeves after a chilly start – it warms up very quickly. The ups and downs of that trail are fun and no vehicular traffic is an added bonus. Quick trip to the Indian market (love that shop!) to stock up for the next couple of weeks and home to tidy up.
Sunday I explored a local park and got to pet some dogs (I miss my pest!) and the evening saw a trip down to the Strip to see a magic show, Shin Lim. He is fantastic, and works with a Scottish side kick (Colin Cloud) who does mindreading tricks – also very impressive, and witty. Worth the admission.
As promised, we started the morning with more sugar rose making, then progressed to making ribbons, spheres, and then final assembly at last. The cast pieces were made by the interns and handed to us, so no learning opportunity there…
It was interesting to see the evolution in rose 1, 2, 3 and 4 (I eventually stuck rose 3 and 4 on the top). Not necessarily appreciated at the time, but definite improvement from the start. Few were able to make sugar blown apples and as predicted there were a number of explosions during the efforts.
Assembly of the top showpiece yielded a wide variety of styles, and some absolutely beautiful cakes overall (the Australian woman across the table has a real penchant for this). I managed to contribute to the ambient sphere explosion noise by breaking not one, but two of the butterflies, eventually gifted the one assembled by the chef during demo to decorate. To be fair, one crash wasn’t my fault entirely, I was attempting to separate the tabletop sugar booths (yet again) further apart from that of the opposite table due to the odour of burning…. at least the third time I’d done so. They were too close together, and the heat of the lamps combined had caused a problem, but it kept getting pushed together again by the opposite table. The edge of the booth when moved hit the assembled butterfly, and down it came crashing in spectacular style (and noise). The second time, really not sure what happened – the leg just gave way, and once again the smashing noise on marble was spectacular! Not the only one to have issues – a couple of other crashes were heard during assembly and cleanup. Then, we had to transport the whole effort to the front table which we all did with breath held tightly – another one bit the dust there but amazingly most made it intact.
Please note the antennae on the butterfly – quite proud of those.
The class effort – note the quilting effect on most of them (story in previous posting) with a pearl at the base of each diamond…. – was it worth the effort? The quilting does look nice, albeit absurdly labour intensive, but the pearls???
My only remaining wish at the end of this module was that the butterfly would fly away with my cake….
Many blistered fingers and fingertips in the class after today – we are off for the weekend now to recuperate, with most of the Americans going home for Thanksgiving. International students are dispersing to investigate LA and San Francisco, both within driving distance or easy flying. Friday is also a day off – planning a visit to a chocolatier in town, and a magic show booked for Sunday. Ice cream week next week, yahoo!
Fondant decorations finished this a.m., with some lovely results from some of my classmates. The cakes were put aside to be replaced with a different form of torture, sugar work.
This involves making a sugar concoction boiled to 165C, then cooled a little to form a mass and then “pulled” to introduce air. It makes the mass shiny and white, and quite attractive decorations can be made when in the right hands….
Needless to say those weren’t mine. We donned gloves (and some of us a layer of cotton gloves underneath the latex) but it was still uncomfortably hot to work with… we were all dipping our hands in the cold sanitizing sink in the dishroom thankfully by the end of the day and comparing red, raw hands, some blistered.
The task of the day was to make a sugar rose for the top of the wedding cake. Ha, ha. The petals were to be thin and delicate and we were warned not to produce cabbages….Mine looks more like a brussel sprout so I think I succeeded in that hee hee! First effort yielded petals that were too thick, so I spent the rest of the afternoon trying to pull off thinner petals – many of which shattered when I attempted to attach them to the rose centre… there is a happy medium that I couldn’t quite hit. After a frustrating plateau in the middle of the afternoon when it felt like I was getting worse, not better, I think I eventually made some progress. I did ruin one early “rose” by attempting to flatten it on the bottom so that it would stand on the cake. Actually, turns out I tried to flatten the top, not the bottom – perhaps some indication of how excellent it was, when the top couldn’t be distinguished from the bottom?? LOL.
Working with the hot sugar mass meant working under a hot light, and returning it to the microwave frequently to make it malleable (and of course hotter on the hands). Some beautiful efforts – the Australian woman across from me produced gorgeous thin petals, and gallantly tried to impart that knowledge to me… on the other end of the spectrum, others produced “flowers” that were yellowish, and even thicker petalled than mine, so I was a bit cheered by the shared general level of incompetence! I can definitely see that good results could be achieved with practice, and there are reasons to master this craft. We get another effort at roses tomorrow a.m., and then move on to making a butterfly, blown sugar, and casted (molded) sugar which looks intriguing.
Tiring work though, and we thankfully packed up after my partner killed her sugar mass by overcooking in the microwave. More decorating fun tomorrow and a picture of the wedding cake and its’ upcoming sugar showpiece monstrosity on top will be forthcoming. Ice cream week next week, much more my taste both literally and figuratively.
Well, that was easily the most absurd day I’ve spent in a long, long time. Wedding cake decorating now equates to tedious and ridiculous in my book..
Picture decorating a styrofoam block, which we are using instead of real cake. First step is to put a very even 1/2 cm layer of buttercream icing on, and make it perfectly smooth, and perfectly straight edged. Three tiers, mind you, so repeat the process times three with strict instructions to get it absolutely PERFECT.
Is this an easy process? Clearly to some, as noted we have some very experienced cake decorators in class, but for novices, OMG. You get it nearly right, then the last turn around on the turntable pulls off a patch of buttercream and so you add more, smooth – and make some more defects. Then eventually, many turns and patching later you get the sides straight and clean, and the right depth. So you progress to smoothing and perfectly flattening the top, and then there is a rim around the top so you smooth the side again to sharpen the edge and yep, another defect. Many moons and curses later, and reworking of the Italian buttercream to make it spreadable, you finally put the finished masterpiece in the fridge and when you take it out for the next step, discover that someone has hit your cake with their tray and left a ridge on the top….
So the novices in the class, clearly visible as they are four steps behind (this week’s partner is an expert so sailed through), STRUGGLE through the tiers (nearly both types, ha ha – and had the window been able to open, I’d happily have hurled it through). At least I’m not the only dunce in this activity – and not the worst, astonishingly, but the chasm between us and those who are very experienced is vast…..Then we are called up front to learn how to apply fondant. That looks even worse, and fussier, especially as I’m still on tier one…. Dread starts to build. Then they start talking about decorating the middle tier, by a quilting type process – apply pattern imprint like the stitching on a quilt, take wheel and go over the intricate pattern by hand all the way around to make it more prominent, and then, the piece de resistance – apply tiny white “pearls” at the base of each diamond all the way around. About – ?80 tiny pearl decorations, by hand, without tweezers. At this point, the absurdity hit my funny bone and I just burst out laughing…. The fact I didn’t sleep well last night might have been a factor but applying all those teeny tiny pearls that I could barely see, let alone apply, just surpassed the ridiculous factor for me. Fortunately the instructor took it well and the class had a “moment”. I noted through my uncontrollable laughter that quite a few people joined in; I was definitely not alone in detesting this module.
Suffice it to say my “cake” will be plain sided, as the quilting was optional – no way in this lifetime am I doing that – and I can safely say I am unlikely to be making my living decorating wedding cakes. The fondant application turned out to be easier than expected, so at least one step was less difficult than predicted. More detailed decorating to look forward to tomorrow – at this point we have a three tiered marvel which I can hardly wait to be shot of. Only half a day more on wedding cakes tomorrow TG and then we switch to sugar decorating and our sugar “showpiece” (that word was mentioned and evokes horror after the chocolate showpiece) is to decorate the top of the wedding cake. I am full of fear for tomorrow…..
So, pah to those interesting and unknown implements we started with this a.m. They are vessels of torture! I intensely dislike the taste of fondant in any case so my conclusion is – pecan pie at the wedding, thank you very much.
Rinse and repeat! Just like school, Saturday was cleaning, shopping and tidying.
Winds energetic overnight, something kept banging and kept me awake for quite awhile. TG for those silicone earplugs, which had their inaguaral run and were very effective…
Sunday morning I headed out to Mt. Charleston, half an hour north of Las Vegas, thinking there was a downhill ski area there for some reason. Never found that, but had looked up some trails and picked one fairly low (I thought) to avoid icy trails described in “All trails” posts for the upper ones, with recommendations not to traverse without poles as we’d already had the first snowfall of the year.
A lone cyclist noted toiling up the hill to the park – nice wide shoulders, roads nearly empty of traffic and a mild grade – not a bad looking training ride. (Saw another at the park gate on the way home, but there was a lot of traffic by then, not so enticing at all).
I was surprised to pass the 5000′ elevation mark, and then passed the 6000′ sign. Hmm. Really did not realize there were such sizeable mountains in this ‘hood. Trail was easy to find and lovely to start with; again, hardly anyone on the trail though a couple of families in the parking lot enjoying the snow.
So off I trot in some lovely terrain:
The snowpatches start and it’s quite warm outside, so I’m hopeful the trail will be manageable.Some longer runs of snow as I climb, and as the canyon doesn’t get the sun until very late in the day from the west, so its unlikely they’re going to soften up alas.Eventually had to abort and turn back when I reached the narrower part of the canyon, hardpacked and ice sections completely covering the trail which steepened considerably, and no option for side-of-the-trail travel. Pretty while it lasted, and ruing that I didn’t come up to Mt. Charleston in October, before the snow hit (or brought my trekking poles).
Happily there was a side spur to another trail, Eagle’s Nest, and as it was south facing it was almost completely clear and lovely to walk on with some nice views of the snow on the north slopes across the valley.
It was warm and pleasant, and I enjoyed some suntime and complete peace and quiet at a rest stop, a real brain cleaner. Not another soul on that trail, though I’d met a few (and some nice dogs!) on the Fletcher canyon trail.
South facing slope above, north facing across the valley below:Vegatation at the rest stop
Back to the trailhead, it was time to find that supposed ski area, so I drove up and up and up – eventually reaching the high point at 8437′. More surprise at the elevation, but a lovely view across the valley. No ski area here.
Down below again and going further on the first road past the original trailhead, I found a substantial town called Mt. Charleston that was reminiscent of Whistler, with an old town part (smaller log houses closer together vs. the Whistler types, huge structures perched on cliffs). There was roadside snow and many more hiking trails (now busy with people) but I guess the only skiing one does in the area is cross country. It must be lovely in the summertime up in the mountains, several degrees cooler than down below – the ambient temp out of the direct sun today was 8C up there, and 16C in the valley when I got back to town.
The day started with caramel cutting and wrapping and the moments of truth – did the caramel get cooked to the right temperature to be cuttable this morning? The raspberry caramel was all okay (that was ours – absolutely delicious), the salted caramel varied from softish to spreadable/unusable but the softish was manageable with a brief visit to the blast freezer and some quick cutting (yumm). The chocolate caramel was bitter (in my humble opinion) but good texture.
Marshmallows, anyone? Every table made a different flavour of marshmallow yesterday which had been left to dry out overnight and they were cut by guitar this a.m., separated and rolled in marshmallow sugar (dextrose/powdered sugar mix). Surprisingly good – that diversification yielded flavours of apple, vanilla, banana, pear, orange, clementine, yuzu, raspberry, strawberry, kalamansi and blackberry.
As we just allowed the natural colours to come through and vetoed food colouring, they all came through in white or shades of yellow or pink so the flavour is a surprise! Yellow could be lemon, yuzu, kalamansi or banana….
Next we unmolded the jellies we had made yesterday, the tiny bilayered frogs being the most challenging. Again, lovely fruit flavours but each taste is a surprise as they were all jumbled into one container…
A layered frog in cassis flavour
Pate de fruits in several flavours was next, again cut by guitar and rolled in a mixture of sugar and citric acid powder. It gives a nice twang!
And so to the final item of confectionary – mint pastilles! Adding the mint essence was quite interesting, as a lot was aerosolized and scented the kitchen for quite awhile afterwards. They garnered good reviews though I just took one for the photo as I’m not a huge fan.
Several types of jam were made to conclude confectionary section, which will be used during entremet week. We also made chocolate hazelnut spread, and hazelnut spread (greatly preferred the latter – the former is “Nutella” without the chemical additives and definitely better than the branded stuff but not my cup of tea).
After moving back to the baking kitchen after three weeks in the chocolate kitchen, we set up the stations for wedding cake decorating next week (thankfully a short week, again not my cup of tea). This will include more sugar pulling, and cake decorating – there are a number of excellent and experienced cake decorators in our group so should get some great results. We made the Italian buttercream to use on the “cake” and will also use a thin layer of fondant on top of our three tier sytrofoam centres. A lot of foreign looking tools and pieces to work with, from my perspective. Should be interesting.
After the end of the week deep clean of the kitchen, we finished with a discussion of kitchen design essentials, and the essence of a dream commercial kitchen. Some people want a wok kitchen, I would build a chocolate kitchen if I won the lottery ha ha.
Confectionary days began. We made flavoured caramels, and classic and chocolate nougat which we cut and wrapped as bonbons. Learned how to make pink praliné – still a mystery to me why anyone would want to eat bright pink candy covered nuts though…..Then made fruit marshmallows of every variety – the smells of the different fruit purées were delicious as every table did something different. Happily my pair was gifted yuzu purée, one of my favourite flavours… Finally ended with fruit jelly and this was familiar territory indeed, as quince paté de fruits are a regular now for the Chocolate Pedaller. The twist here was to use a tiny frog mold, and layer them with the white layer that often accompanies frog jellies. Fun!
Classic and chocolate nougat bon bons
I earned the chance to make an extra batch of nougat by correctly answering a question about how to make bavarois, so was gifted a station and ingredients. Always better hands on than watching, I thought, so off I started with help from colleagues and along came the class photographer halfway through taking masses of pictures. It took longer than expected to work the cocoa butter back into the nougat but I finally managed and cast it. During cleanup I discovered the sugar (a major component obviously, this being confectionary week – 450 g) still sitting on the table…. ooops. Tried retrospectively to save the day presenting it as diabetic nougat for Craig (our colleague with diabetes in the class) but it met its maker, the texture was definitely unusable…. It will be soooo ironic if those pictures ever make it anywhere, ha ha. At one point I had a patch of nougat in my hair apparently….
Doesn’t top the student today who flushed the toilet at exactly the same time as dropping her locker key in it though! And there was the lunch break when one of the students spilled her entire water bottle on the table and we watched with horror as it ran towards the huge chocolate crocodile that lives in the centre of the lunch table. So I’m in good company, I reckon….
Morning saw more practice spooning quesnelles… Some last minute decoration making (sugar spheres, sugar pulling lesson 1 with isomalt, making of stencilled sugar decorations both clear and frosted) and we were then off to start with ice cream and sorbet making…. oh my. Oh my.
With the ice cream machines, it took 6 mins to make ice cream, and 3 to make sorbet. Astonishing. Some of the flavours were amazing (orange – really tasted like fresh squeezed OJ), green apple was very fresh in the sorbet dept. and coconut was lovely. Cherry was disappointing; I’d use a stronger flavoured cherry next time. Our flavour was honey ice cream and it was quite strong and tasty – the chocolate mint ice cream was awesome, using mint leaves for flavour (overnight infusion) and of course passionfruit sorbet was tough to beat. The morning was punctuated with tastings of ice cream and sorbet… and a taste of what our chef labelled ‘real’ French toast, made with brioche dried out from the day before. Uck was my conclusion (shared by many others); too soft and doughy a texture for my taste.
After lunch we assembled our desserts table by table with an assembly line; the table responsible became the line director and the chief decorator, and helpers were pulled in as needed. Conclusion: In our restaurant, dessert comes slowly….. but is worth the wait! We made 4-5 of each so that we all got a taste. Apologies for the pictures which aren’t particularly good – we weren’t allowed to photograph ourselves. Descriptions below each picture.
Orange French toast: brioche french toast with caramel sauce and caramel praliné, cocoa powder stencilled sectional decoration, orange chablon, vanilla cream with orange pieces and orange sorbet quesnelle on breton sablé.
Black Forest: Chocolate roll sponge with cherry kirsch comfit filling layered with marscapone cream kirsch; whipped marscapone cream with chocolate dentelles and cherry sorbet quesnelle on Breton sablé, dotted with cherry kirsch compote and chocolate crumble.
Exotic cheesecake: Cheesecake mousse stones, passionfruit crémeux with almond crumble., passionfruit gélée discs, passionfruit caviar and basil leaves.
Honey citrus (this was ours): Lemon curd and melba cream dotted with crumble, citrus jelly, honey ice cream quesnelle on breton sablé, honeycomb dentelle and chocolate bee with meringue decorations.
Pear sablé breton: Vanilla poached pear noisette on melba cream with pear coulis; pear chablon, pear opaline decoration and vanilla ice cream quesnelle on sablé breton with dill leaves.
Paris Brest: Pate a choux filled with whipped marscapone and coconut praliné with caramelized hazelnuts, melba cream and citrus coulis decorated with ring of almond crumble and coconut sorbet quesnelle on breton sablé.
Chocolate soufflé tart: Baked chocolate soufflé tart nestled in chocolate sauce and topped with nougatine disc, surrounded by smoked cream and chocolate ice cream quesnelle on a breton sablé disc.
Lemon meringue tart: Lemon curd balls with whipped marscapone crémeux interspersed with crumble, sponge cake and citrus coulis; decorated with meringue flowers and tiny basil leaves.
Apple sugar sphere: Golden apple noisette layered wtih vanilla chantilly inside a sugar apple sphere, decorated with chantilly and crumble interspersed with green balm (dill leaves) and accompanied by green apple sorbet on a breton sablé disc. Unfortunately the picture taker didn’t show the apple sphere properly – side on it really looked like an apple, and was made of extremely thin blown sugar.
Red Fruit Pavlova: Meringue discs sandwiching raspberry mousse, marscapone cream and fresh raspberry accompanied by vanilla ice cream quesnelle on breton sablé.
Chocolate mint roll: chocolate sponge rolled with chocolate sauce topped with chocolate stick and mint leaves; chocolate mint sorbet quesnelle and chocolate crumble on breton sablé disc.
We stumbled out after tasting all of these after 5 p.m., our latest day yet, in a sugar coma despite very small tasting sizes, and having had an amazing day of learning! Half of the job competence comes from being able to organize production, planning ahead the components needed and being able to plate beautifully and efficiently. While many of the components can be refrigerated or frozen ahead of time, the life of the dessert lasts from 2 min (chocolate soufflé) to 2 hours.
My favourite? Chocolate soufflé I think, tied closely with the exotic cheesecake just because of its citrus prevalence and passionfruit, one of my favourite flavours. Would love to try yuzu caviar…. Black forest was excellent as well (very boozy with the kirsch though the cherry sorbet was meh) and the green apple was spectacular in flavour and presentation. Red fruit pavlova was also beautiful. And the marriage of chocolate mint in all the components of the chocolate mint roll….Okay, there weren’t any except the French Toast I wouldn’t happily eat or remake (though not today!!!).
