Did time just flew by or what?!
It felt like just 2 days ago I was celebrating my 23rd birthday with my friends, but in actual fact, I've been spending the previous wonderful weekend with my uncles back in Korat, planting trees on my mummy N's newly acquired land...spending the recent weekend with Ben, who took advantage of the long holidays weekend in Singapore and flew over to spend time with me!
& *drum rolls* The Teh Family is celebrating the new arrival of a chubby healthy baby boy, Evan Carl Zheng!
Well, technically, it's Zheng family cause my brother in law's surname is Zheng, which is the Hanyu Pinying version of Teh...due to my father in law's mistake during the filing in of the family name on the birth certificate I think!
Anyway!! I'm super proud of my SIL for delivering such a big baby without any epidural and through natural birth okay!! She's like super petite, and to do so must have put her body through so much stress! :( In any case, both mother and son are doing well, so I'm glad.
Being a newlywed (Yes lah, still classify myself under newlyweds), I do wonder sometimes, that...when you are in a relationship, your next step to prove that you really love someone, is to embark on the next life stage together, like getting married. Then, during the marriage, how do you 'up' that level and move on to the next stage in life? Probably by having kids?
I'm still studying and I'm still young, but not exactly very young if fast forward, I'm like 24 next year, nearly a quarter into my life span. To have first child would be nice and all, and seeing my Facebook full of newborns, friends having kids etc, it does evokes some sort of "AWW!!" moments within me, but not strong enough to actually consider having kids with Ben soon! Then, I feel really bad because Ben is not getting any younger, and I don't want him to still be slogging in his late sixties for our kids' education expenses! I'm torn between carrying out wifely duties and just taking our own time.
I'm thankful Ben is ready only when I'm ready. I read somewhere that, "You're ready to have a family when fun means nursery rhymes and not clubbing, watching cartoons on repeats and not late night movie dates, hearing little feet and cries in the house, and hearing little voices saying 'I love you' warms your heart".
Hell no, I'm not ready to go through all that, and sacrifice what Ben and myself have at this moment in life. I feel extremely blessed Ben has my back all the time. So yeah, penning this thought down, is like a reflection on my own feelings after the arrival of my new nephew, as well as the fact that I'm 23 already. ='(
I'm gonna warn you at this point, that this post is long. Like, MRT Track long. Lots of pictures, and lots of words. It's gonna be WORDY~. Okay, go on. Read about how I spent my birthday.
I went to school. (What, it was a Monday!)
We went through the demonstration for 2 tarts; Tarte Passion-Framboise & Tarte Chocolat praliné and on how to do inverted puff pastry.
Here, we have the Tarte Passion-Framboise, which is a Raspberry Passion fruit tart. This is slightly more acidity, with passion fruit cream and raspberry coulis; both of which is potentially sour. The tart consists of a sweet pastry tart shell with jelly raspberry coulis, chilled till frozen before spreading the passion fruit cream, otherwise the strong colours of both filings will mix.
Then, we have the Tarte Chocolat praliné, which is a chocolate praline tart, consisting of a sweet pastry dough tart shell, with a feuilletine bottom, chocolate ganache and finished with chocolate glaze.
Then, Chef Willy carried out the demonstration on how to do inverted puff pastry. The normal way is to wrap the dough around the butter block, keeping the butter layer inside. However, with inverted puff pastry, it's the other way round - wrapping the dough with the butter layer.
Doing so will result in a puff pastry that have more butter and hence, better taste.
After demo class, Mew and myself went for a birthday movie treat, watching Wolverine! That movie was awesome!!! Then we met the rest of the gang for my birthday dinner at Moom Muum Park, which is situated at Terminal 21, Bangkok.
Tuna Salad (L) and California Roll (R)
Som Tom (L) and Spicy Clams (R) , Prawn Paste Chili (Bottom L) and Morning Glory (Bottom R)
We ordered, or rather, I ordered so much food for the 5 of us! A little mix of Thai, Japanese and Italian food. This restaurant is beautiful, and serve really delicious food!!! Definitely worth the price and all.
Fried Chicken Basket
Fish - not sure if it's Garoupa or Sea Bass. I'm not fish savy. Bottom is a picture of a beautiful pizza which got divided up before a picture can be taken.
It's called the Fallabella Super Supreme Pizza, and boy, lots of ham, sausages, spinach, cheese and pineapples! This pizza is better than Pizza Hut, Dominoes, etc. The crust is thin, and there's extra filings around the pizza on the sides.
Jane & Framm had their practicals that afternoon after the morning class, and so they dedicated their cakes to me as my birthday cakes! =)
So blessed to have met this group of really fun friends!! We hang out together, drinks, dinner, bowling, movies and sight seeing! Without them, I wouldn't even step out of my room to explore! Super grateful, I tell ya!
Then, on Wednesday, we have the demonstration for Tarte créole and Tarte Mangue Coco.
Tarte créole is a sweet pastry tart shell, with coconut mousse filings, topped with savoie sponge disc, garnished with pineapple julienne/chopped and then piped with Italian meringue. It was created from an island in France, looking at the tart, it does sort of transport you to somewhere sunny and breezy doesn't it?
Noticed why there is two different pictures of the tart? That's because there's two different style of Italian meringue. Chef Willy got this silly idea of getting the students in pairs to duplicate the two piping for the tart, and he got this idea just by looking at Mew & myself. *the horrors*
Tarte Mangue Coco is a Mango Coconut Tart, which consists of a coconut sable breton (something like a biscuit), topped with a dark chocolate large square, and then assembled with a coconut mousse disc, garnished with drops of mango confit. Sounds exotic?
In case you have not noticed, mousse is pretty much the resident components for most of the entremets in Intermediate.
Then, for Thursday, it was demonstration and practical on puff pastry - this time, it's making petit four salés a.k.a Salty petits-fours.
There's [from left to right rows] Allumettes au fromage (Cheese straws), Croissants au jambon (Mini-ham croissants), Saucisses cocktail feuilletées (Cocktail sausages in puff pastry), Quiches, feuilletés au chorizo (Chorizo-stuffed puff pastry) and last but not least, Pruneaux au bacon (Devils on Horseback).
We didn't get to try everything due to limitations, so I had only the quiches. And boy, was it delicious!
Right after this puff pastry practical, I rushed back to my apartment to meet my uncle Kee & Aunty Mam, who came down all the way from Korat to pick me up for the weekend. At least seeing them did cheered me up a lot from the disappointing practical I had, doing the salty petit fours. More on that later. =(
Anyway! I spent a nice weekend at my uncle's place in Korat, my mum's hometown. It was a rainy cold 3 hours drive from Bangkok to Korat. My uncle was a steady driver! I slept through all the way on the journey home.
It was an impromptu visit! I had time to visit my mummy's new land for the first time, did some gardening, shopping and feasting on delicious Thai food in Korat.
The route to the land. The whole estate area is not developed yet, so no proper roads has been built. It was just a short distance away from Uncle Kee's place.
My mum's across the 'street' neighbor has since fenced up their plot of land!
Don't ask me how many acres. All I know is, it's big enough to build proper terrace house on it, complete with a front porch and a side vegetable garden.
Went shopping for trees! Mango trees, to be exact. Mum wanted some trees to grow on her land first.
My uncle's hidden talent at gardening. He cleared off the whole entire land's wild plants and weeds together with my Uncle Ta. Mum is the only sister in her family, she has 3 older brothers, and two younger brothers, Uncle Ta and Uncle Kee are the 2nd and 3rd older brothers, both of whom, I'm close with. I know how much family means to mum. Maybe that's why I'm super close to my two brothers and my sis...family means so much to me too. =)
Anyway!! The weekend was long gone, and I was back to school before I know it.
This time, it was a whole week on puff pastries, but thank god it was our final week on puff pastries. I've had enough with waiting in line for so long, just to use the dough sheeter (a machine that rolls out the dough.)
Chef Willy carried out the demonstration on Mille-Feuille Mascarpone and Mille-Feuille Praline.
The Mille-Feuille Mascarpone has a breton sable on the bottom, raspberry jam layer with raspberry borders, piped with mascarpone cream and then topped with a layer of crispy inverted puff pastry, more cream and finally, lightly decorated with icing sugar and chocolate decorations.
The Mille-feuille praline is about the same, except that it doesnt have rows of raspberry, but rather, with a thin layer of crispy chocolate praline made with feuilletine, piped with diplomat praline cream (Diplomat Cream = Pastry cream + geletin + whipped cream).
Baking a mille-feuille requires baking the dough with another tray on the top, in order to prevent much development from rising. The challenge in baking a nice mille-feuille, is to sprinkle the sugar before baking evenly, and then sift icing sugar evenly again during the second baking process to have a nice even caramelization.
Chef Willy even had time to make a plated dessert. That, is something I would really dig in after a good meal at some fancy restaurant!
Then, for Wednesday's class, we have Pithuvuers, tarte aux pêches, Arlettes and the Galette Chocolat.
The Pithviers is a entremet with a puff pastry bottom, piped with Frangipane cream (almond + pastry cream) in the middle, and then covered with another layer of puff pastry, and rayer (decorated using the back of the knife) before being brushed with egg wash and bake. The tedious work, is actually trying to carefully cut out the curved sides which were made using cookie cutters.
Then, we have the tarte aux pêches; Peach Puff Pastry tart. If there's something I learned about French pastries, it would be that, they love their nuts, peaches and tarts.
Almost everything is tarts, almost every tart has almond cream. Peaches, is one of the top fruits to be used, coming second after raspberry and in third place, apples.
Almond, Hazelnut and Pistachio are the only nuts so far that I've used repeatedly.
In short, the tart above was getting boring. The combination of almond cream, peaches and a tart base is driving me nuts. There's only so much of almond cream I can take. *the horror*
Here, we have the Arlettes, a simple puff pastry dessert with caramel chantilly. If, without the cream, it can be used as a accompanying side for a plated dessert.
Last but not least, we have the Galette Chocolat, which is something like the Galette des Rois, a.k.a King's cake. This time, it is filled with chocolate coconut almond cream and with the addition of caramelized bananas.
Then, for Thursday, we had a little lesson on bread - Classique Baba, Pain De Mie Blanc (English White Bread), Kugelhopf Alsacien and Pain D'olives (Olive Sliced Bread).
According to Chef Willy, a traditional baba is usually finished with alot of aged rum. This entremet is made with baba dough baked and then soak in baba syrup consisting of sugar, water and zest of oranges and pink grapefruit till it doubles in volume and size, before being drizzled aplenty with aged rum.
The center of the baba is then piped with diplomat cream and topped with fresh fruits and glaze to preserve the fruits & rum.
The Pain de mie blanc is a simple bread that requires an hour to proof before baking. It's relatively heavy but goes really great with jam when it's served warm.
Next, we have the Kugelhopf Alsacien, which is a type of bread baked in a Kugelhopf mold with raisins in the dough, baked with almonds and served with icing sugar on the top.
Last but not least for the week, we have Pain d'olive, a delicious homely olive sliced bread. I must bake this bread when I'm back home, because my Teh family loves their dinner bread when we're out at a restaurant. Daddy Teh will have one too many breads before our mains are served, and he'll be too full to have any dessert. HAHA!
Anyway, lessons with Chef Willy has been fun, but we'll be having Chef Marc back with us in less than 2 weeks! On the bright side, Chef Marc is a lot more attentive to the finer details, and he reminds us over and over on what we have to take note on. For that, I'm pretty thrilled to have him coaching us during our second half of the term leading up the exam.
Whoop whoop! Pleased to present to you my two week's worth of baked eye candies!
First up! My passion fruit tart!
Sparkling shiny surface! It's like a mirror! Glazed with the neutral glaze by the ladle-ful and we had to freeze the passionfruit cream properly before glazing in order not to melt the cream. The black seeds you see are not sesame okay, it's passion fruit seeds.
I've also carefully coated the sides of the tart with coconut.
Chef Aum, the supervising chef for the practical said that my glaze could be slightly lesser than this. (By titling the glaze out from the sides more than I have done) but otherwise, the tart's good.
Sadly, this tart didn't survive the journey home; it was in a rollercoaster on its own in my school box, and by the time I get home, the layers have already separated.
Next up, I have the Tarte Creole!
Remember I've mentioned about Chef Willy wanting the students to do the different piping each? Well, I get to do the St Honore's piping because I wanted to practice my piping for that look. Not bad isn't it? The only dissatisfaction I have from my cake, is that I didn't know how to use the torch properly to evenly torch my meringue.
Special mention to Mew for giving me her cake, so that I have one more to give to my uncle! *kisses & hugs*. I even added gold leaf to the cake for a special touch. HAHA!
Then, there's my salty petit fours. In a box. Half gone, because it was a bad practical. No. It was the worse practical of the term, I didn't even have time to take any proper pictures of all my croissants and sausage in puff pastries and what not.
I had to wait for so long, everything was just pretty messed up by the time I had time to finish doing my assembly, freezing, baking etc. Even Chef Guillaume didn't want us to present, and told us to pack it all up. I felt super dejected and super upset.
On the bright side, my relatives loved the pastries! They finished it up within two days. My cousin of age 10 was delighted with the sausage puff pastries, but hey. Who wouldn't be! =)
Then, for the National Day weekend, Ben popped down to see me! And he had the good fortune to taste the following pastries.
My mille-feuille praline!
I loved the beautiful caramelization I had (by stroke of luck when I sprinkled icing sugar over, it was quite even, except for a few spots here and there). We had to cut one big layer of puff pastry into 3 pieces of 14 by 16cm. I managed to get beautiful corners too, instead of cracks at the sides.
See what I mean? Its shiny and wet-looking, like water. Basically, that means it crumbles and melts in your mouth by the mouthful, baby!
There's still so much left to be improved with my piping though. Sometimes I get it alright, but sometimes, I don't. Which usually results in excess. Like the ones below. =(
Nonetheless, it was yummy!
Then, there's my pithviers!
Pretty rayer job, I would say! Except for a few lines in the curves which I slipped up. Spot them if you can! (The ends are usually supposed to be even, but a few has bigger sections. FYI)
The sides are supposed to develop more than this. Mine was just about 85% puffed up. The reason being this, is because I didn't rest my dough enough. Which is the truth, I rushed with one of the turns, and didn't allow the dough to rest for at least 20 minutes before doing the next turn.
Actually, I know my problems, and I've committed that mistake anyway, because my dough was still able to carry out another turn before it goes too warm, and I did that two turns one after another to save time for my practical.
Last but not least, we have my Classique Baba & Pain de mie blanc!!
Perfect glazing on the cake, but too thick of the glaze on my fruits - after that bad practical, I'm beginning to detest classes with Chef Guauillme, because he doesn't exactly helps, he checks on my dough and reminds me that my dough has to be proof soon, and that I'm running late on my timing! ~ But hello! I cannot add the butter when the dough is not even at the right consistency yet! Stop rushing! It's not like I'm the only person here not done with the dough! *GRRRRR*
PLUS!! He actually do admit that yes, the dough is not of the right consistency yet. Then??? Leave me alone. BLAH! I read my notes before class, I know what to expect, and I'm looking out for those important details/stages. I really don't think that the chefs in school should focus so much on the timing to present, but instead, focus more on really helping the students to improve their visual skills, techniques etc.
"Never glaze raspberries! It's a crime!" - Chef willy.
Here's my pain de mie blanc.
While preparing for presentation, Mew was trimming the sides of the white bread because it was what Chef Willy did, but also because of the littlest crumbs that made the bread looked untidy. Chef Guaillime was rather bemused by that, and he went "OCD much?" and then saying things like he wouldn't fail us for that if we didn't trim the sides.
In my honest opinion, I feel that trimming the sides of this bread, is like trimming the crust of a tart...scrapping away slightly or burned surface of a toast. It's how we present the product to a customer. It's not OCD or not. It's the same standard we have, the same respect we have to each product we makes.
I can understand that this particular chef is a baker first, then went on to study pastry. Which also means rough hands moving on to finer details baking. It's totally different. It's like to them, their perspective is already biased.
For me, If I were to move on to bakery after this, I will be watching out for every little, fine details. I'll be very neat and all because my pastry background trained me to be so! Instead of being all rough handed, not watching out for the finer details. I felt quite insulted by the chef at that point of time.
That's the story behind this white bread of mine.
It has since went on to serve the greater good of mankind. Met Ham, and Cheese and hang out together at an event called breakfast.
After a tiresome practical, I had the whole weekend to look forward to, with Ben in town! We went to a few shopping places, visited Floating Market, had dinner and a few drinks with my gang in Sukhumvit, and then he flew back home.
Ending this really long post with a picture which Ben took of the Floating Market. *swoons*
My hubby is in love with photography. Buying lens and magazines and trying out his new lens whenever he can. But if you ever ask him to bring it out with him on trips, he'll be like "But...baby..it's too heavy!".
Ya, his love for taking photos pretty much means it only stays within the vicinity of the house. This is a rare photo taken by him = one of those rarer times he brings his camera out. So, enjoy! Take a few minutes to appreciate my husband's hard work please.
Till then!
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