Sorry for the super late update!
My sis came down from Korat for a few days' visits and I was kept busy for the whole of last week, coupled with the recent heavy rain in Bangkok...my Internet connection was not connecting well as it should be. Plus! I've bought a few really nice books to keep myself entertained (I LOVE BOOKS!) on days that I didn't want to do anything but laze around. The past weekend was those days. HAHA!
I ended up reading 4 books within 24 hours.
Anyway!! Before I forget, I would like to update on what I've learned during the past one week in school, just gonna touch up briefly on things, run through slightly more detailed on the cakes I've done.
On Monday, Chef Marc did a demonstration on Plaisir & Tarte Ricotta.
The Tarte Ricotta is a beautiful cheese tart made with a sable breton base, with layers of savoie sponge cake, cooked pear fillings and ricotta mousse. It is then decorated with white & pink spray consisting of cocoa butter & white chocolate, alongside with beautiful macaroons and fresh berries.
The cheese is just right, not too strong, and pears oddly well with pears. (Pun intended!)
Beautiful cake to look and eat, but I'm pretty sure transportation might be a one hell of a problem!
Next, we have the Plaisir a.k.a Pleasure, which is a entremet consisting of layers of Jonconde Biscuit Sponge, Vanilla Supreme (Bavarian Cream), Chocolate mousse and caramelised Pate a bombe on the top. A heavy on mousse, less on sponge cake type of cake.
Here's my version of the Plaisir!
The difficult part about this cake, is when you are glazing the top of the cake with neutral glaze. The top layer is actually a piece of sponge cake, applied with a thin layer of Pate A bombe, which is a type of cooked egg yolk mix with syrup.
After caramelising the top with sugar, we have to lightly brush the syrup over because too much force will result in unnecessary peeling of the caramelised surface.
The chocolate fans - which sort of delighted my soul a little because it's a little chocolate action (FINALLY!) This time, instead of using a triangle tool, we used our flexible 'fish' knife to scrape the fans instead. The change of tool resulted in slightly pointy fans.
Mew and myself was super pleased with ourselves for getting the layers filled equally. Mew even went to the extend of measuring the depth and filing the mousse accordingly! HAHA!
My mascage (scraping batter/mousse to cover up the sides of the mold) of the chocolate mousse can be better, somehow it just doesn't seemed to dress the mold well no matter how well I am doing - I always have a gap one or two somewhere.
Then, for Wenesday, we have the Mont Blanc (Revisite) and Dôme Aux Noisettes!
The Mont Blanc is a revisited version, a little different from the traditional version of twirls looking like mountains. This is a round entremet, and has 6 different components like a sweet dough pastry base, biscuit layer, chestnut mousse, french meringue, white chocolate vanilla cream and chestnut cream. It is then decorated with white chocolate spray, chocolate squares, macaroons and gold leaf.
I've not tried Mont Blanc elsewhere, so I can't tell the difference, but I do feel that the chestnut here is kinda overload in a good way. It's sweet but not revoltingly sweet. I wished the cake was decorated with chestnut rather than macaroons though.
Then, we have the Dôme Aux Noisettes a.k.a Hazelnut Mousse Cake. Which is a cute (but huge) Ferror Rocher looking entremet with hazelnut dacquoise layers, almond milk panna cotta and hazelnut mousse, decorated with hazelnut glaze and covered around with tempered chocolate pieces.
This is my version of the Dôme Aux Noisettes!
Have I mentioned that this was a white exam? Heehee! I had so much fun doing this white exam because after so long, I finally sort of mastered the technique of knowing what to do, just by looking at the ingredients!
The white exam went really well, as you can see! Chef's comment was "perfect! Very good job! Glaze and chocolate very beautiful, chocolate writing of 'OPERA' was very beautiful too!"
=)
One of the major concerns I had, was the glaze. Any thing that doesn't seemed like a nice smooth pouring chocolate ganache glaze, or the neutral glaze, I get on the worrying part already. I didn't want to go through the agony of not having my glaze set as it should be.
So, I was on the strict look out for the right sticky consistency before I glaze my cake, chill it a little bit and set out to decorate it.
Thank goodness my chocolate set as well! A few of my classmates couldn't get their chocolate set well, but I know it has to be something wrong with the temperature when they use it. Ever since my previous chocolate tragedy, I've been careful to take note of the temperature, trust my feelings and go with the flow.
Finally, on Thursday, Chef Marc went through the demonstration for Lait D'Amande-Abricot and Cake Fraîcheur Framboise-coco!
The Lait D'Amande-Abricot a.k.a Apricot Almond Milk is an entremet with pine-nut lady finger biscuit, creamy apricot filing and almond milk panna cotta, before being glazed with apricot glaze and thereafter, decorated with macaroons.
I love apricots, especially on the side of a cheese platter. This cake is seemingly light and refreshing (Doubt you can have the same taste back in Singapore) but not everyone loves almond, so the almond panna cotta didn't exactly excites my taste buds, chances are, I wouldn't bake this when I am home.
Last but not least, we have the Cake Fraîcheur Framboise-coco a.k.a Raspberry-Coconut Fresh Cake, which is an entremet with a savoie biscuit sponge layer, raspberry jelly, coconut mousse and praline coconut layer.
Presenting to you, my version of the Cake Fraîcheur Framboise-coco!
Unlike Chef Marc's cake, mine didn't have the side column because the flexi mold's diameter is bigger than his, so the face of my cake is perfectly covered with the holes.
I think this cake does look pretty! And it taste good too, as usual, of Raspberry and Coconut milk. It's little wonder why I'm now falling so much in love with Vanilla, because it is a type of flavour that is smoothing and refreshing for me now. I used to dislike Vanilla man!
Look at the two tone sprays! We had a go at spraying the white and red sprays on our cakes (as part of the decoration) and I just love the subtle hints of red! :) There is not much difficulty in this entremet, just slightly take note of the time required to blast chill the different layers of the cake, the jelly, the mousse, the feuilletine etc.
I faced the difficulty only when I was placing my fruits. I had like one last strawberry in my hands and I was thinking where to put it! I stared a little too hard into my cake, and Chef G was like "What's on your mind?"
I was like "Oh, just deciding where to place this last piece of strawberry, Chef. There's one or two spots that looked empty and could use a strawberry."
Chef G, " You're having it too hard, Christina. I think it looked perfect, it's beautiful, everything is great. I think it's a very good job done.".
With that, I thought for a while, and decided not to place that last strawberry on my cake, then I asked Chef to grade me, as I thought that he was just chit chatting with me earlier, he told me "I already did.". Me: "..."
So, that marks the end of my week in school! I packed all 3 cakes for sis to bring back home, hence no layered photos of my cakes.
Met my sis and her friend, and we went to Chinatown for seafood feast! Heehee!! =)
Alright, that's all that I have to share! The upcoming practical class has got me all excited because we are gonna be making lots and lots of chocolate fans! =) Finally, one cake that allows us to practice something related to chocolate decorating!
Till the next time!
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