HAPPY JULY'2014!!!
Damn. Its already more than 6 months into the year'2014. Just like that!
I'm have so much to share - a new job coming up, orders I've done during my short hiatus since I've got back from my Perth trip...creating new memories and new goals - there's so much to share and so many old entries to complete and post up, HAHA!
Huge thank you to all those readers who dropped by my blog recently. I've seen a huge surge in readership and I have no idea why!! And where are you guys from?! In any case, I hope my blog is informative and helped you in one way or another!!
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Anyway!!!
I'm here to update the demonstration being carried out...sometime between early November to early Dec'13?
First up, we have the birthday cake looking wedding cake workshop, where we learnt how to decorate a 3 tier fondant cake and played around with pastillage, which is something also known as gumpaste.
If anyone would like some sort of proof that in the world of French patisserie, "fondant" is very much detested, look no further - just right here is a good example.
If this isn't the worst wedding cake available, I don't know what else can top this.
Everyone (believe me), moaned and gasped in horror upon finding out that we had to recreate this during our practical class, and trust me - we weren't even allowed to use just a few pastel colours, we has to use a couple of colours; dark rich colours, no pastel ones allowed for the macaroons!
The end product was so much like a birthday cake man. I nearly died.
We also had the chance to create gumpaste flowers, with royal icing yellow centers. These was then rested overnight in a egg tray to create a blooming look. (Please note that at this point of time, we were all weeping for this cake).
It being a wedding cake, everyone created different toppers for their cake, and I, in a throwback moment to my wedding day, created a pair of love birds!
We stayed back after class to complete the cake within a day. We stick the decorations using glue guns, and boy, these guns was really HOT!!! Some of my classmates burnt themselves real bad.
Lovey dovey love birds, haha!
We also created a huge flower using 5 pieces of leaf looking petals, added a stamen, created leafs and some twirls looking thing for deco and volume.
This was then stored in school till the end of our sugar exam, where we have to place the sugar showpiece on top of the cake!
Then!!!
We had like a week or two out of our final last month in school to learn, practice and complete a sugar workshop and examination.
Chef Fabrice did the demonstration for the whole sugar workshop, and we learned a few different stages of sugar art; namely - poured sugar, bubble sugar, blown sugar and pulled sugar.
Here, we have the different forms of the rose petals done by Chef Fabrice - look at how shiny it is!!
The rose petals or any sort of floral decorations are usually created using the pulled sugar recipe/method.
Pulled sugar consists of sugar, water, glucose and acid drops. In a large pot, we will first cook the the sugar with water and let boil on the highest cooking temperature as possible, removing the foams (impurities from the sugar) just before the boiling point.
Glucose is added once the sugar liquid starts to boil, and upon the mixture reaching the temperature of 160℃, we add the acid drops.
The sugar mixture is now usable as poured sugar (for bases/structure building) or onto baking paper laced with alcohol to create bubble sugar (More on that later.)
Below is a picture of a completed sugar rose done by Chef!
Gorgeous isn't it!
This is pulled sugar without any addition of colouring - plain pulled sugar which is transparent will tranform into a beautiful pearl white colour upon satinage - a pulling action or rather, a folding action of the sugar lump repeatedly to cool down the sugar down enough to handle.
Below is the completed sugar piece done by Chef. It is also what we have to create for our sugar examination.
Bubble, loops of sugar, ribbons and structural pieces - these are just some of the variation of pulled sugar shapes we can create, molding it around any objects we can use/find.
For the examination, we have to create at least 3 flowers for decoration along with ribbons and other optional creations.
Chef's sugar piece left us all in awe, it was so neat and beautiful...arranged in a way that it's so classy and big. But do you know it's really tough working with sugar, you have to handle the sugar at its hottest stage - which can go up to 170℃!
Here is a picture of my first sugar piece created during a workshop, where we spent hours pulling the sugar, reheating the sugar lumps in the microwave when it gets too hard - we first poured the sugar into entremet rings which was oiled with vegetable oil to create the base - the ring was placed on a silpat mat.
We also wore special gloves (some bandaged their fingers with heavy duty plasters and wore latex gloves for extra protection from the heat) while working with the sugar, screaming in pain and enduring the heat emitting from the sugar while carrying out the process of satinage.
The corals looking sugar pieces was created by pouring the sugar into a bowl filled with ice cubes and over time, created these beautiful unique coral pieces.
As you can see, I wasn't very good with creating petals. HAHA!
We worked fast and quick under the sugar lamp and most of us tried to create petals as big and glossy looking as possible - if you did not pull enough from the middle of the sugar lump, your petals will shine as much as it should be - of course, this depends on your ability to be fast and quick because the god damn sugar is uber hot. :(
We also created ribbons and loops and strips by having strips of different coloured sugar (which we exchanged different coloured sugar from our classmates for those colours we don't have/ran out of) and pulling the whole lot together till it's long and cut using a hot blade. Again, the longer you pull, the shinier it is, and during demo, Chef actually pulled the sugar against the back of the assistant to create super strips for the ribbons.
My arms has limitations, so I only managed to pull a few strips for decoration; not enough to do pretty ribbons. :(
A picture of me and my sugar piece! We threw these away at the end of class, because none of us is able to bring it back - the humidity level in Bangkok would have these pieces melted into the same original state just before we reached home. HAHA!
After the initial practical regarding sugar, we then had another long practical consisting of 6 hours to create the whole entire structure from scratch.
This time, instead of just a single base, we have to do at least 3 disc-shaped bases, a curved standing structure, and a smaller curved structure to create the towering sugar piece just like from the demo classes.
For my practice, I chose to go with a pastel pink colour; created with drops of red and titanium powder.
The struggle I had here, was to create the structural pieces! It was so tedious, even though it's just a simple act of pouring sugar. We had long flexible rubber wire shapers which we used to form the shapes, sticking alot of black plasticine around the outer gaps of the shapers - to ensure that the rubber wire shapers does not move out of shape when we pour the sugar down. Also, we have to pour it well and in a steady but not slow movement so that there is no air bubble created.
You also have to make sure that it does not overflow, unless you will have to trim the excess part of the sugar and there is every risk of the structure being damaged due to cracks and what not.
And that was my mistake - pastel coloured bases is super obvious when there's cracks/finger prints etc. I also slightly over poured the sugar on my structure and I had to trim it, resulting in the removal of a lot more sugar then I had intended. I hide those parts with my flowers and coral pieces.
The bubbled looking pieces was created by pouring the sugar onto a baking paper laced with alcohol, this created a bubbling sensation, resulting in nice solid slab of sugar with lots of bubbles in it, you can then snap these into pieces and use it as decorations.
Here's a picture of my completed sugar piece after the whole workshop! We only had a day to practice constructing of the showpiece before the exam, and due to the intensive pulling and handling of the sugar for such a long time resulted in this - huge ass blister on my index finger!! Which is not a good thing because its the main finger I used to create and pull flower petals with.
I was biting my lips and enduring the pain as I was racing against time to complete my sugar piece. Half way through the practice I was thinking why is this part of the glove so loose, I kept pulling my glove to fit my hand better, it was only after a while that I realised, it was my skin which I had accidentally pulled and peeled off. ='(
Anyway!!! After the super tedious practice, Charmaine, Mew, Framm and myself went for a good hearty meal at Carl's Junior!! Super meaty, refreshing and basically, we ate and slacked there all the way, talking about everything and anything about what we love and hate about sugar, sharing our pains and battle scars.
After a short break from school, the day rolled over to our sugar exam!
Presenting to you my sugar piece!!
First of all, don't ask why we had to stack the sugar piece on top of our birthday looking wedding cake.
All of us was pretty scared of our sugar piece toppling over.
Mine was a far cry from the gorgeous pieces all of my other classmate created! I was having a really hard time during the first half of the examination creating the flowers - my petals somehow wasn't created well and big enough - resulting in really smaller looking roses.
I chose to go with a red transparent base this time with a hint of orange for the corals and a mixture of pearly white and pink for the flowers and ribbons.
It's super shiny!!! At least that's what I was really proud of! Coupled with my injured finger, I really tried my best at this.
Me and my examination sugar show piece!! I was the only one in my class who decided to create this look - which was exactly what the assistant created for the examination theme, but due to the tendency of imbalance in the structure, the top piece will snap off and break. Luckily for me, I managed to pour just enough sugar and create a lighter weight top curve.
Round one down, one more exam to go!!!
A group shot with all the other show pieces and with Chef Fabrice! =D
Everybody did a great job! Some of them created swans and birds and even bird nest to adorn the base of their showpieces! Super good job! Looking at this picture of us, it really evokes all the happy times and tiring moments I've undergone during the time back in Bangkok. I really, really missed those times!
SP (B) Rocks!!
Till then!!
I'll try my best to clear all my backlog entries, HAHA! :D
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