Hmmm. My partner reappeared this a.m., and it was very interesting. He drove up to the parking lot at 7:40 (most of us arrive at 7:30 to do the kitchen set up chores and scale ingredients for the day) – and then drove out again. He reappeared at 8 o’clock panting like he was out of breath, when all the scaling and chores were done – and no, he doesn’t live close enough that he went back to get something he’d forgotten. True to form. (Our table faces the parking lot otherwise likely wouldn’t have noticed). One day left, and at least today there wasn’t much actual partnering as we worked on chocolate molds, our own tempering and about the only thing we had to do together was a recipe of pecan ganache which got divided in two for piping. Not a very collaborative guy, happy to get a change on Monday (and I’m positive he’s also looking forward to a change, likely hoping next week’s partner doesn’t call him on his half of the dishes and table cleaning….).
It was a fun day in the chocolate kitchen today, sorry no pictures as lots to be finished tomorrow! and the buffet should be pretty. We worked with colour and spray today and did different colour combos and spray techniques. We tempered coloured cocoa butter for spraying which was great practice, and used some lovely vibrant colours (regal blue is my favourite). Tips on spraying equipment and uses, learned how to pan nuts (coat with chocolate, feuillitine and salt – yummm) and covered and rolled Swiss Rochers and rum truffles. Layered ganaches with citrus fruit jelly, will be very interested to try that out for taste as it enables use in molded chocolates whereas my fruit jellies have only been able to be made for dipping/enrobing as I’ve used the classic hot jelly technique up to now. Then more tabliering practice, something I was already pretty comfortable with, and we put it into a bar mold to leave overnight to check the temper tomorrow. My goal everyday is to work more cleanly, but the jacket went into the laundry again today and my shoe now has a lovely regal blue spot on it which will be there forever more as a reminder of my favourite chocolate colour…. let’s face it, I’m as unlikely to change from being a spatial klutz in the kitchen, as I am to becoming a competent Ikea assembler….
Cold today, only up to 12C and snow appeared on the mountaintops. The valley evaded the forecast of “possible showers” but it was really gusty again – had to wrestle the car door open against the wind. Should be back to normal temps again in the next couple of days though and back to t-shirt weather.