Finally, I'm updating from real life timing (at 11.25am, on 17th June), recently been really busy and tired from recovering from flu, the rainy season in Bangkok, and practicing my lining of the tart, crimper the edges and piping for my upcoming exam on the 2nd of July!
It's hectic, I tell ya!
Been away from school for far too long, and now, I'm trying hard to get my studying/mugging motor on up and running mode.
And the rain - my god. It's raining season now in Bangkok, and it doesn't rain! It POURS!
The streets is flooded, close to knee length, and you can't really walk!! The rainwater comes up to the pavement, and due to the cars and motorbikes trying their best to whiz by, it sends waves after waves of rainwater up the pavements and at times, into the shops.
Last Tuesday evening, my friend, Mew and myself had a hard time trying to flag down an empty cab, and instead stood in front of a restaurant seeking shelter, and waited for the rain to be lessen, before we decided to take the plunge and walked back to my place.
I nearly lost my right slipper while wading through the 'river'.
Halfway through, I froze in shock when what floated pass me, was a dead cockroach. Up till that point, I just thought, "Ah, just walk through the flooded areas and get home, no biggie." Then when I saw that dead insect, images of dead rats, dead everything else flashed through my mind, and I cringed.
I took a video during my walk, but unfortunately, my phone didn't have enough space to store it. =(
Anyway! We got half way through my journey to reaching home, and I saw an empty cab about to leave for the opposite direction; I ran with all my might, like a crazy woman and pleaded in the rain for the uncle to send us home! Thank god he did - the walkway to my apartment was completely submerged and flooded as well.
Alright, moving on, let's run through my week's worth of school!
On Tuesday, it was a demonstration and practical on chocolate; naming, on tempering couverture chocolate.
Chef Marc did the demonstration on tempering the chocolate, making truffles as well as molding chocolate into fanciful shapes like an egg, or different motifs using plastic molds specially for chocolate.
Taken out from my school's notes on tempering chocolate:
" What is tempering?
To achieve the desired high gloss and hard, brittle texture, and to make the chocolate more resistant to warm temperatures, it is necessary to temper it. The cocoa butter in chocolate consists of many different fat groups with melting points that vary between 16°C - 46°C. The fats that melt at the higher temperatures are also the first ones to solidify as the liquid chocolate cools. These fats, when distributed throughout, are what give the chocolate its gloss and solidity. A properly tempered chocolate should break with a crisp snap"
Meaning to say, by tempering the chocolate, we are actually helping to spread the fats which gives gloss and stability around.
A look at the chocolate egg made by Chef Marc, decorated with various chocolate patterns created using the plastic molds, There's also the coloured pralines.
For practical on Tuesday, all we did was tempered the chocolate and created 3 different chocolate products for decorating the up and coming cakes we will be baking in later lessons. One of which, you'll get to see at the end of my post. =)
For Wednesday's lesson, it was all about génoise sponge.
Here, we have Framboisier; a raspberry layered sponge cake with butter cream and covered with marzipan and decorated with royal icing. It is quite light and sour (due to the raspberries) and Chef Marc explained that this is one of the common wedding cakes back in France, where they will have even more elaborate decoration/design made using royal icing.
Then, we have the Moka; a.k.a Mocha Cake, one of my exam questions. It's a 3 layered 1.5cm/layer génoise sponge cake brushed with coffee base syrup, masquer with coffee buttercream and decorated with sugared pralinette.
Last but not least, we went through the recipe for baking a pain de Gênes. It is baked, by coating the cake in with butter, flour and almond flakes, and the sponge batter filled after that. Hence, resulting in the almond flakes being nicely baked right on the top of the cake.
Ready for a look at my Moka???
I've tried baking layered cakes before, but it was never quite successful. I had a hard time trying to frost the cake, and most of the time, the cakes will always end up sliding side ways, or completely collapsing altogether.
This time, during class, I found out that the trick, is to build the cake as accordingly to the cake tin. I normally build the cake starting from the top where the cake normally rise and create a dome. I would cut the dome off and cut the rest of the cakes into layers, before frosting them with butter cream and decor.
We made the pralinette by making syrup, and once the temperature reaches 117ºC, throw in the chopped almonds and stir till the almond bits are coated with crystallized sugar.
Had to pipe the border using the smallest star tip found in my tool kit - I really have to practice more on piping skills, need to pipe evenly, at the same height and size to be more uniformed.
Sonya and myself did the butter cream together (the recipe was for 2 portion) and we made a mistake at not beating the butter cream longer, so that it will emulsify further; to create a better, lighter butter cream - which will then increase in volume and will be lighter in color.
I had a hard time trying to masquer the cake, because the butter cream wasn't smooth, eventually, we re warm the butter cream on bain marie.
But overall, it was nice! I have to make sure that I properly brush the base syrup into the layers, otherwise it will be dry and not good for conservation!
Next up, it was a good day on Thursday!
Chef Marc had only two recipes to go through, hence only two demonstrations we had to watch and write notes for - The Mogador and the Forêt-Noire.
The Mogador is a chocolate génoise sponge single layer cake with chocolate mousse and glazed with raspberry seed jam and decorated with chocolate squares.
The making of a génoise sponge is slightly tricky; having to beat the egg and sugar over the bain marie with a balloon whisk till the temperature is between 55ºC - 60ºC, any higher and you'll cook the eggs. At this stage, the egg mixture would have doubled in volume like a meringue, before folding in the flour and chocolate powder.
Here, we have the Forêt-Noire, which is the traditional black forest cake. This is a family' favourite. My mum usually request for this cake on her birthdays. Now, I'm so glad that I can bake her one next year!
I'm sure this cake, like the croissants, needs no introduction? Layers of chocolate sponge cake masquer with whipped cream and rum cherries, before being coated with chocolate sticks on the sides! This is a classic masterpiece, I tell ya!
So, to wrap up this week's pastry posts; I'm proud to present to you, my Modagor!
I still have a lot of things to work on; like making sure the sides of the mousse is smooth! I have no idea where the holes comes from, prior to filling the mousse into the cake tin, we have a plastic cling called "Rodoide" wrapped around to give it a nice smooth texture when we unwrapped it.
Somehow after layering my cake and soaking it in the rum syrup, it became slightly smaller than the cake tin size itself, most likely it shrink. Then the plastic cling was kinda loose. I was actually happy with my glaze, but wanted to smooth it out a little more when my Chef Willy said that, that's enough.
Then, during presentation time, he was commenting on how my glaze has to be thinner. *smacks forehead*. I was expecting him to say something about how I didn't mix my mousse well enough, because on the sides, there's a patch of white streaks (very minimal, but naked to my eyes), but no, he had to talk about the glaze, which in my defense, I think it's okay! It's the same shade as Chef Marc's during demo!
Blah. That aside, I'll consider his comments, and see in due time to improve slightly if I get this during my lucky draw pick for my exam.
Check out the chocolate squares which I've tempered during Monday's class! Sizes of 3X3, and we had to ensure that we placed the chocolate squares in a proper manner where we can't see the beginning and the ending! It was relatively easy, but I hoped I can do it better the next time round!
I really adore the red vibrancy color from the raspberry seed jam, what about you?
As usual, I distributed the rest of the cake to my security guards, and I kept about 2 slices from my friend, Sonya (because hers has more brandy! HAHA!) for dessert!
The past weekend, Mew came over for a sleepover because we wanted to practice lining of the tart and some piping works, and to avoid the sudden downpour, I decided that she should come over to sleep, so that she don't have to head home! We had lunch, dinner bought back home from the streets and I had great fun hosting my friends over at my apartment. We always seemed to get hungry all the time when we're together!
Anyway, tomorrow marks slightly about two weeks to my final exam on 2nd July, and I am so slightly worried that I cannot get the steps and techniques right to baking the different 10 types of pastries recipe! I wished they would let us pick the exam question a day before the stated date so that we can focus more on the right techniques to use and memorise correctly.
But I doubt the school would like that. Blah!
On the bright side, I'm coming back home on the 4th July!! =) So excited!! Can't wait to bake some of my pastries for my families and friends back home! I'm also thinking of doing a flash bake sale to earn some pocket money for my second term HAHA, just a thought, when it's more confirmed, I'll share the details again.
Anyway, have a good week people!
Till then!
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