almost done!

So this was my second to last week.  This coming week I only have one practical class, bread making…. so this week was really the end of the cakes and pastries!  

Chestnut Dome – dacquoise, chestnut mousse, and chestnut cream.  It is finished with chocolate spray, and decorated with chestnuts in syrup.

Passionata – Coconut dacquoise, passionfruit cream, raspberry mousse, and raspberry glaze.   There is colored joconde biscuit around the outside (very kitschy, if you ask me!)  

Walnut Triumph – walnut biscuit, a thin layer of caramel, caramel mousse, caramel glaze, and candied walnuts.  Yum!!

Croquembouche.  Yeah, its a croquembouche…. It pretty much took six hours to make.  The base is nougatine, which we rolled out while very very hot, which was slightly painful.  The base is decorated with royal icing.  The tower is made up of pastry cream-filled choux buns that have been dipped in caramel.  Finger-burning fun!

Some sweet…. some salty?

Another week has come to a close (and I had class this morning….. bummer, a saturday!!).  The schedule was a little lighter this week, but we still made some lovely things!  So…..

Plaisir… or, rather “Pleasure”.   (Where oh where do they get these names?)

Moist joconde biscuit, a layer of chocolate mousse, a layer of vanilla mousse, more joconde, and a thin spread of caramelized sabayon.  Not as delightful as the name suggests, but still tasty.  : )

What??  Savory things???  I know, I know, it was surprising.  We made inverted puff pastry, and then several little savory petit fours, things that one might serve at a cocktail party.  From top down: pigs in a blanket, cheese straws, ‘devils on horseback’ (another silly name!  but basically, prunes wrapped in bacon.  no pastry involved?), and chorizo stuffed puff pastry.

Wild Strawberry and Vanilla ‘Treasure’ – moist almond dacquoise, layers of strawberry mousse and fraises des bois, covered with caramelized vanilla chiboust cream.   The top one is my ‘real’ treasure… the other one is a baby treasure made from the leftovers!

Chocolate.

So this week, if it had a theme, would definitely be chocolate week.  We learned to temper, or should I say started to learn to temper… I have the feeling that it is something you have to do maaaany times before really getting the hang of it.  Here are some things we made this week:

Bavarois au Trois Chocolats – Basically, it has three layers of bavarois, which is like mousse: dark chocolate, milk chocolate, and white chocolate.  

Chocolats Cafe – marzipan flavored with coffee and rum, dipped in dark chocolate.

Truffles – dark chocolate ganache, lightly flavored with Cointreau, dipped in dark chocolate and rolled in cocoa powder.

Douceur Chocolat… also known as “Heavenly Chocolate” – hazelnut dacquoise, a layer of crispy praline, milk chocolate mousse, and milk chocolate disks.  This one was realllllly tasty.  : )

A busy week…

My schedule has been crazy.  But here are some photos of things I made this week:

Fraisier – Delicous, delicate, beautiful… one of my favorite things so far, I think!  It is made with a genoise that has been very well imbibed with a kirsch syrup.  The cake is filled with strawberries and mousseline cream, and topped with a thin layer of Italian meringue.

 

Raspberry-Anis Macaroon.  This is a “restaurant dessert”, which meant we got to experiment with plating.  I liked my plate until I added coulis…. oh well.  Anyway, it is a chewy, delicious macaroon filled with raspberries and a light cream flavored with Pastis.  

Opera – A small, but rich cake, the Opera is filled with dark chocolate ganache and coffee buttercream.  I am still working on my ‘writing in chocolate’ skills, but it is coming along!

Intensive Intermediate Pastry!

….As the name suggests, it is intense!  I just started the second level of pastry on Monday, and already this week I have had many classes!  It is far more rigorous that the Basic level was, simply because it is only one month long, instead of two.

In any case, yesterday I made a Passionfruit Rasperry Tart.  The delicious crust is filled with a layer of jellied raspberry coulis, and a layer of lucious, smooth passionfruit cream.  The tarte is decorated with a clear glaze with passionfruit seeds.  All together, truly delicious!  It was exciting to make this dessert, also, because it has “real” flavors – not just butter, sugar, rum, coffee, etc, like so many of the things we made in basic.  This tart had pizzaz!  Yesterday, Anmama and Ben came to visit me at school, after my practical.  It was lovley to be able to share some of this wonderful expirience with them!  And, we sampled the tart.  If you can call it “sampling”…

Chocolate-y goodness

This week was my last week of Basic Pastry!  I made a few chocolate-y cakes.  First was the buche chocolat-pistache, a pistachio sponge cake imbibed with a Kirsch syrup and iced with dark chocolate ganache.  It’s pretty sleek as cakes go, but unfortunately the chocolate sort of over-powered the delicate cherry and pistachio flavors.  

Later in the week, we made the Alhambra, a traditional chocolate cake.  It has four layers of chocolate genoise, imbibed with a coffee/rhum syrup.  It, like the buche, is covered in dark chocolate ganache.  Very dark, rich, and chocolate-y!   It was fun to decorate, too, with candied violets and pistachios to add a little color.  The picture isn’t great… I had to snap one quickly in the practical room because, for the first time ever, the chef actually cut each cake open to taste!

On Monday I have my exam…. wish me luck!  We basically pick a recipe out of a hat and have 2.5 hours to make it, and to make a pie crust, put it in a tart ring, and crimp the edges.  Eeek!

Pithivier… aka Galette des Rois

Yesterday we made more puff pastry… this time creating the Galette des Rosi, traditionally eaten on the 6th of January, the Fete des Rois.  Usually, a little figurine is hidden in the cake, and whoever gets it in their slice is king for the day!  The rest of the year, the cake is known as Pithivier.  It is puff pastry filled with almond cream.  The most fun/challenging/nerve racking part of making this cake was the scoring…. but it sure came out nicely!

Mogador – chocolate and raspberries, a most delicious combo!

So yesterday was a busy day… I had a demonstration for the Mogador cake, then I had my written exam (yes, yes, there are exams in pastry school…), then I had my Mogador practical!  Whew!  I must say that this is one of my favorite things that we have made so far.  It is a chocolate mousse cake.  the bottom layer is a chocolate genoise that has been imbibed with a raspberry liqueur syrup and spread with a thin layer of raspberry jam.  The top layer is a creamy chocolate mousse.  The top is decorated with raspberry jam and piped mousse.  This is a really tasty cake – definitely I would want to order in a restaurant or serve to my family! : )  It was also enjoyable make and decorate.  The picture doesn’t really do the colors justice, I’m afraid.  Mais bon….

Charlotte aux Poires

Yesterday morning I made the Charlotte aux Poires, which is apparently a very traditional french dessert.  It is filled with smooth, light, pear mousse and pear slices.  The outside is lady finger biscuit that I imbibed with a pear brandy syrup.  I liked this practical because we each got to decorate our cakes differently, using berries and vanilla.  It is always nice when everything looks different!

In other news, I have started a stage (internship) at a local patisserie.  It is very interesting, and I think I will get a lot of experience, even though I will only be working there until mid-november.  They really do put me to work (which is a good thing!).  I have made flan and choux pastry, piped countless sheets of eclairs, chouquettes, and religieueses, glazed tarts, cracked eggs, and completed many other tasks.

Croissants, pain au chocolat, brioche…. what a heavenly smell!

Over the past couple of days, I have had several practicals.  On monday, we made croissants and pain au chocolats, which I have been waiting to make ever since I  got here!  A good croissant is tough to find in the states, so it is one pastry I really hope to master.  And oh man, did the kitchen smell amazing while our croissants were baking!  Mine came out looking very pretty, with many layers and a lovely shine.  Unfortunately, I think they were slightly under cooked on the inside, which was disappointing.  Also, I didn’t get a chance to take a nice photo.  Right after my practical I had a demonstration, so I left my pastries in my big tupperware box on a table… and when I returned they had been scarfed up!  It was a bit of a bummer.  Mais c’est la vie!

Then, this morning at the crack of dawn (ok, not really…. it was 8:15.  But it was dark and rainy, so it felt like the crack of dawn!) we made brioche.  It is a rather unruly dough.  It rose ridiculous amounts and in some cases began to tilt over the edge of the mold.  But the imperfect loafs are somewhat endearing, and certainly tasty!   We also made pain aux raisins, which are basically raisin buns.