All I can do is apologize, I've been running around for the last month or so without much time to spare! Where did I last leave you.... Cakes, Week 2 was cakes
This is an orange bunt cake which I thought was pretty tasty.
Some advice: When you're making an angel food cake or bunt cake or cakes such as those. You want to spray the bottom of the pan, but NOT the sides. The cake literally clings on to the sides and pulls itself up and that's how it rises. When you take it out of the oven, you want it to cool upside down or it is quite the pain to take out of the pan.
And we decorated cakes, these were my first attempts at roses, not shabby.
And then I got bored with flowers and played with different tips. I just used the colors available. Nice flashback to the 80s, yes? I'm sure it still tasted good.
I then went to Utah for Ms. Sarah's wedding. It was a great time
Week 3- Tortes
The difference between a cake and a torte? Cakes are fattier and what we Americans think of as cake. Tortes? Generally less fatty, and European style. And 8 billion layers made of different components. This week was quite painful.
Tiramisu
Eros torte, hadn't heard of it and had a big breakdown while making it, but it's pretty good. Cooked pears that are then frozen, a couple different types of cakes, caramel mousse, a caramelly nut later, whipped cream, and that's spun sugar on top.
The last day, Chef said "he could tell he was losing us" so we had a cupcake day. Each team made some creative stuff. One did a bacon cupcake (bacon in desserts is in these days, one team did a multi flavored cake. My team made peanut butter mousse (YUM), raspberry mousse, banana mousse, and chocolate mousse, and did some fun filling and topping combinations.
Parents part one visited me
Lots and Lots of production this week. Not pictured are creme brulee (MMMM one of my favorites) and flan. Did you know that brulee is an actual verb? It's what you do to the product brulee=to burn, as you take a torch to the top and burn it.
Cheesecake- we made ours raspberry and mango. We also cooked it using the "low and slow" method. The oven was at 250 and it probably cooked for about 3 hours. The graham cracker crust is still my favorite part.
Eclairs and profiteroles (cream puffs), they're actually the same thing. Made out of a batter called pate choux. You make the batter almost like you make a roux (butter and flower thickening on the stove with a couple other things, then put in a mixture and slowly add eggs). Then you insert pastry cream into them. Pastry cream is a temperamental thing to make. You need to make it in a stainless steel pot (others such as aluminum will give it a green tinge), and you're boiling cream/milk/sugar and then tempering in eggs and starch, and cook stirring constantly til it's thick but not too thick (a delicate balance)
Napoleon; Puff pastry (we used pre-made) that you have to dock (put a bunch of tiny holes in which keeps the pastry from rising too much), and layer with pastry cream and strawberries.
We did some plating this week as well
Some chocolate bread pudding with banana in it. Oh, there's some creme brulee in the background.
Pear tart that you cook on the stove in a cast iron pan, you then keep cooking it in the oven in the cast iron pan.
St Honore cake which is cream puffs and more pastry and more cream drizzled with caramel, whip cream, and chocolate.
The picture didn't turn out too well, but I got quite the burn while making the napoleon.
Parents part 2 visited me
Week 5- sugar and chocolate
We had a guest chef come in that does competitions and things as well as being a pastry chef, and does amazing things with chocolate and sugar. Fun to watch! Not quite as fun to play because man it's harder than it looks.
Candy Ribbon
Chunks of isomalt sugar, it's actually really warm when you work with it, yikes!
After a short amount of time, the chef made this
Other classmates were pretty good
and creative
and realistic
but look what I made!!! I made a fish! I blew the sugar to make the body and pulled it for the tail and fins. I'm proud, it's above my stove.
I apparently didn't take any pictures of the chocolate (sorry). Chocolate is very temperamental to work with and you spend a lot of time getting it to the write temperature and texture to work with. But I learned to make some fun things. I also made some chocolate raspberry truffles, which I received some compliments on.
I went to Iowa for Megan's bridal shower. Had finals (intense), and Am finally wrapping up my spring break (too short of course! Not that I did anything but work and relax, but ahhh nice)
Next week I start 2 brand new classes. European Cakes and Tortes (man, I hope it's better than torte week), and Artisan breads (excited!)
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