I just want to say...I miss my mummy already!
On the day we left for Korat, I returned straight home from school and we immediately head out. It was only upon our return back to Bangkok, after I've dropped her at the airport for her departure back to Singapore, and I returned back to my apartment - that I realised that she has helped tidy my apartment and cleaned the whole place.
I came back to squeaking feet because my parquet floors was that sparkling clean. My mum also helped iron all my uniforms so that I didn't have to rush through it on Sunday night. ='(
I'm super blessed to have two great mummies, my own mum and Ben's mum.
Sometime last year, I injured my hand and was unable to do house chores. I was supposed to do the laundry and all for Ben and myself, as our help was back at her hometown for her two weeks holiday. Then, my mummy J dropped by, did the laundry and clean the house, and even made one pot of delicious, yummy Lap Cheong Fun (Preserved sausage with mushroom hot pot rice) for us as dinner.
='( Whoa. Talking about these brings tears to my eyes! I always count my blessings and I thank fate for allowing things to fall into places. For me to be loved and to love.
Anyway!! *wipes tears away* Back to school people!
For the second week of school, we have the four sec prestige, which is the hard petit fours, and fours moelleux prestige, which is the soft petit fours. First up, we have the Sablés Lyophilisés, Arabica, Craquant Noisette and Sable Des Iles.
The Sablés Lyophilisés is a petit fours consisting of baked crumble dough and dry fruits. The word lyophilisés refers to dry fruits. In this case, Chef used strawberries, peach, apricot and blackcurrant. The fillings is then mixed together with the crumbles and then filled into molds, before freezing it in the fridge till it comes apart together nicely.
It looks and taste like a good old energy bar.
Arabica consists of a small sable dough base with a piped dough and filled with coffee croquant consisting of almond, coffee bean, butter and nib sugar. The assembled petit fours are then freeze before baking.
Croquant Noisette consists of a crumbly soft dough base, topped with a ball made from coriander hazelnut praliné and coated with dark chocolate. It's a straight forward recipe, but I didn't like the coriander addition to the hazelnut praliné. It reminds me so much of black pepper ba kua (grilled pork slices) HAHA!
Then, we have the Sables Des Lles, which consists of coconut sablée dough (3 pcs, stacked together) and filled with fruit jelly in the middle. The difficult part, is to work the dough cold and fast, because the addition of coconut causes it to get soft real fast, and your squares will not be squares by the time you bake all of it.
Presenting to you, my Sables Des Lles and my croquant Noisette.
Stupid dough. I've had to chill it several times in order to be able to work with it.Oh, and we get to use gold leaves now that we are in Superior! Woohoo!
Then, for the second class that week, we had the four moelleux prestige, the Le citronnier, Delicatesse, Douceur Chocolat, Amaretti macaroons and Financiers red wine.
First up, the Financiers red wine, which is a modern take on the classic financiers, here, Chef presented it topped with red wine jelly.
Then, we have the Le Citronnier, which is also another financier topped with lemon jelly. This petit fours reminded me of the Moelleux Chocolat I've done during my Basic time, and boy, how I miss that chocolate ganache soft cake!
Next up is the Delicatesse, which is a soft orange cake baked with a blackcurrant jelly in the middle, and dipped in orange punch for additional softness. I've got to say, that this is really nice! HAHA! Cause the whole texture, soft and a little chewy in the middle makes you can't stop at just one!
Amaretti macaroons is a type of macaroons from Italy, and is made plain, with no filings sandwiched in between, but it must have candied oranges in it. Unlike the French counterparts, this macaroons is best enjoyed with a cracked surface, and as dry as possible, so it has to be rest enough prior to baking to ensure that the mixture is dry enough before baking.
The Douceur Chocolat is a soft chocolate cake with a ganache filled center. A simple easy petit four.
Presenting to you, my Le citronnier and Delicatesse!
Mew didn't come for practical, so I collaborated with Ying, another classmate to do these recipes. We did a great job together, I would say! And the difficulty we both faced, was piping the jellies. As I had to bake the blackcurrant jelly together with the sponge, I had to first pipe the hot jelly into the molds before it sets and boy, it was boiling hot!
Ying had to pipe the lemon jelly into her sponge after it was baked, and it was so hot she spilled the lemon jelly all over her desk the minute she cut a opening to the piping bag.
Overall, it was great, and I went back home, to a steamboat fest with my friends. =)
The last class for the week was on new style traveling cake, we had the Provence Traveling Cake, Caramel Mou Brownies and Week-end Cake Citron.
The Provence Traveling cake has layers of pistachio and vanilla almond sponge cakes, layered in between with fruit jelly and decorated with passion fruit puree, chocolate disc and fruits. More on that later.
The caramel mou brownies is a new take on classic brownies - it is round, served with two chocolate dices and is presented upright. The brownie is filled in the centre with soft salted caramel. I prefer my brownies slathered with lots of fudge and with a scoop of ice cream - the American style.
A closer look at the atas brownie. HAHA!
Last but not least, we have the Week-end cake citron, which is a lemon cake bottom filled and baked with a almond paste-lemon confit centre and piped St. Honoré coconut dacquoise. It's a butter cake with a chewy top.
Presenting to you, my Provence Traveling cake!
Everyone was having trouble filling the holes with the passion fruit puree because it just kept seeping out. Finally, chef offered a solution, which is to fill the hole's surrounding with neutral glaze before filling the puree in. It worked!
Everything was good, besides the fact that the sponge layers has to be of the same thickness, which Mew and myself have neglected. During this practical, we also had the chance to use a new ingredient called "Mycryo", which is basically, a type of really fine cocoa butter powder, which helps to give the chocolate it's shine and stability, but without the need to carry out the tablage method.
So, school's out, and to pamper ourselves, Charmaine, Framm, Mew and myself head out to town for some retail therapy (bought books), movie (watched Smurfs 2, it was so damn funny!! I laughed the hardest!) and had late tea at Let Them Eat Cake.
I've always wanted to visit this cake shop for the longest time, and was finally had the chance to visit it the other day.
We ordered the Vanille Eclair, the Bellini St Honoré, Thai Tea Tart and the Coeur Noir, a chocolate mousse entremet with a chocolate biscuit base.
The Thai tea tart was my favourite, the creamy white chocolate gananche was delicious and flavourful, the tart shell was so thin, and the mousse was light. The vanilla eclair was also nice, the pastry cream was full of vanilla flavour, and creamy, just as how it should be. My only opinion is that it has too much icing sugar on the top.
The Bellini St Honoré has peach and a little liquor taste to it, if I'm not wrong, but it wasn't my favourite. I wanted to try their Thai Tea St. Honoré, but it wasn't available at that point of time. Lastly, the Coeur Noir is not worth my time, and calories. The raspberry coulis in the middle was weak, I didn't feel taste much of it, and the mousse was not light as it should be, it tasted really dense, so my opinion is that they should have a nice thicker sponge in the middle to balance out the thick mousse.
Ah, well. I shall go around trying out new cafes!
That's all for now, till then!
Let Them Eat Cake
4th Floor, Siam Center.
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