Baking - Final Exam (Entremet)

Hello Peeps!!

Since I've got bitten by the blogging bug, I've decided to just go all the way and clear as many back log as I can!

For the longest time since before the end of last year, I'm pretty sure my friends (those who have been following my blog since the beginning would love to see the very first cake I've created from scratch right!)

Today's blog entry is on my final exam entremet!! 

To be honest, our batch has got to be the luckiest batch so far in LCB's Bangkok!

Reason being, we get to create a cake from scratch!!! The past batches had to create a main entremet and petit fours, but using only one flavour or something. Our exam theme was Christmas Cake, seeing that it's December, and we have to create one new entremet with flavours consisting of dark chocolate AND banana, along with 3 other petit entremets of the same cake.

Our entremet has to be made up of 4 components, not including glaze. 

The moment Chef Fabrice announced our exam topic, the whole demo room burst into anatomies of excitement and panic mode.I can sense everyone's brain started to run through all the ideas and possibilities there can ever be into creating this cake.

Mew started to blabber some ideas and her biggest idea was Harry Potter related, my own mind was driving on adrenaline, churning out ideas after ideas, and basically, our super awesome group started to have insomnia, just staying up all night racking our brains harder than anything else!

Cake can seriously make you sleepless, I tell ya. Like what Chef Willy is always saying "I think of cake before I sleep. I think of cake when I wake up".

That was all that was on my mind - Cake.

We had to do a report with diagrams, clear written recipes and also do up a ordering form consisting of the exact amount of total ingredients required for our examination cake.

This was what I had in mind - I called my cake "forêt enchantée" because I wanted to create a christmas cake with lots of trees, a play between white and dark chocolate triangle decoration, and since I have mentioned to Mew before (a insider joke), I like guys with hot bod, so I shall create a "naked" cake, by using cake crumbs to glaze my cake instead of using an actual glaze.

There was endless possiblities, but I decided to play safe with my flavours, going with a crunchy hazelnut bottom, salted caramel cremeux, with a layer of sauted banana, chocolate flourless sponge and complete with a dark chocolate mousse.

The only challenge we have, was of us not having a kitchen of our own to practice baking!

We needed to experiment with baking - taking note of how well the flavours worked together, the time taken to complete the whole process etc.

Luckily for us, we had our good friend, Jane to help source for a rental kitchen, in a small baking supplier's store, where the owner was a former student at LCB. All in all, I spent close to 1700 plus baht for about 5 hours for the rental of the kitchen, on top of that, we had to purchase ingredients as well from the shop itself, spending another 1500baht at the shop - on chocolate, decorative gold leaf, flour etc.

The space at the rental studio was pretty big, we used all 6 tables available, fully utilise the portable stove and cake mixers in the shop, and the endless pots and pans and mixer bowls. There was 4 of us, and we all worked well together to fully utilise the oven, baking and tasting and assembling the cake components. I even managed to temper the chocolate using cocoa butter and spread on chocolate sheets for decorations.

The best part was - we didn't have to do any wash up! There was two store assistant in the kitchen to help wash and clean after us, so it was pure bliss and lesser time wasted on cleaning up!=D Well worth the money spent, I would say!

The first trial went well! But I was hardly happy with my final product! It looked so good on screen than in reality, how ever, I must say - It looks exactly as how I drew it on screen. HAHA!

The powdered red sponge crumbs was a hassle to make, and when I started to dress my cake, it looked kinda messy. In fact, the whole cake looked so bad! It was missing something, and I didn't like to use the raspberries at all, it's kinda extra to be on top of a cake that has no raspberry component within it.

The flavours all was really good, because caramel is one of the complimentary flavours which goes well with banana!

Below, is a picture of my petit entremet of the same cake. 

Mew, Jane and myself then packed up and left the studio, returning in another week's time for a final practice before the actual exam.

This time with Framm, I lugged along my trusty beloved IKEA stroller, filled with all of my tools and equipments and ingredients! I seriously looked like an auntie, but it was worth it - espeically when at the end of the practice, the rest was lugging heavy bags of tools while I just pulled my stroller along.HAHA!

Truth to be told, we were really scared to head out during that period of time because the riots in Bangkok was on going, just that day itself when we were in the studio kitchen baking, there was a bomb incident nearby, resulting in us being wary of our surrounding and returning home earlier as possible.

Charmaine, my good friend and classmate also came over to my place for a stay over, for fear that the riots/protests near her place will result in her being late for school and exams.

The traffic was slightly bad, but as we were all heavily dependent on the trains for transport, we were really lucky that the protest didn't occur very near our apartments.

After serious racking and going ideas after ideas, I decided to go ahead with a 50/50 chocolate mirror glaze!

***

This was the end product of my exam entremet - which, to my delight, was the first Christmas looking cake Chef Willy (Who was giving comments and grading) had seen so far during the cake workshop practice. He said the flavours was perfect, I didn't have to change the components. But the only thing is that I didn't managed to glaze well, and my sides was a little untidy, which he then suggest to me to cover up the sides with chocolate squares or something.

He also didn't like the white "christmas lights" which I've used on my dark chocolate "christmas trees" because he didn't like transfer sheets that much.

The thing is, I really liked that christmas light feel. I liked this transfer sheet so much I bought a couple of it to bring home. But since he was one of the judges, I decided to heed his advice and do without it during my actual exam.

A look at my petit four - the cake was so well received by the tasters, and that boosted my confidence by a huge leap! I was more or less rest assured already of my taste, and I looked forward to finishing up my last exam!

Within a week, the day for the exam arrived, and in a blink of an eye (Or rather afters close to 6 hours), we baked, assembled and presented our lovely creations to the judges for final tasting, final judging and final presentation - it was such an important day, that we even had a guest judge, Chef Joël Robuchon! It was such an honour! 

I'm proud to present to you, my exam piece..

 Forêt enchantée !!!

We presented our cakes in the exam room in such a manner - one 18cm entremet, alongside with 3 petite entremets; one with full decoration, one half with the intersection showing, and one fully glazed. 

Like I've mentioned, I've decided to heed Chef Willy's suggestions to do without the transfer sheet. I decorated the "trees" with gold and silver powder instead. And included a round of chocolate squares to cover up my glaze as well. 

The one and only mistake I made, and which to me, I wanted to kick myself in the ass so hard is that - my chocolate was too thick. 

Seriously...of all the chocolate lessons I've been through, this is the first time my chocolate is so thick. I really really have no clue at all, until it was time to assemble my cake, I was like staring real hard at the thickness, I thought there was something wrong with my eyesight!!! 

I remove maximum chocolate when I was spreading my chocolate on the sheets, so the only reason I can conclude is that, I may have grab the wrong steel bars; instead of 2mm ones, I may have grabbed the 3mm ones in a haste. =( 

In any case, the exam was finally over, and I was in a jovial, relief mood!! What's done has been done, I can't reverse that, but I really was feeling so happy, so delightful. Ben was also in town, giving me all the moral support I need!

I truly enjoyed the planning and the execution process. The end result was important, but it wasn't as important as the process itself.

Here's a picture of my petite entremet! Many of my classmates commented that it was so cute. Did you feel this way too? :D

Another look! It's the intersection with all the layers - sorry for the bad lighting! It was pretty dark in the room.

Everyone took turns to take a picture with Chef Fabrice while holding up our own creation. Thanks to Rae for sending me this picture; it was taken off from the board, months after our graduation.

Last picture to conclude that examination day!

This was taken during our practice day I believed! Because on the actual examination day, we had NO extra time like this to take photo! HAHAHA! Everyone was rushing like mad!!!

Looking back, I am so glad to have gone through all these with this bunch of people, who have become friends for life, on Facebook etc. The memories is never forgotten! It still feels like yesterday when I've just completed the cake. HAHA!

Again, SP (B) ROCKS TO THE MAX! WOOHOO!! 

Coming up next would be an entry on my graduation!! Lots of photos and of me looking prettily! Cannot believed that this is already the last entry on the last cake I've baked in the lovely classroom kitchen in LCB Bangkok, I am all teary thinking about it again.

=')

Till then!