Au revoir, Intermediate!

WARNING: LONG & LENGTHY POST

Man, I'm tired.

I reached home at about 11pm, Bangkok's time, and that is pretty late by my own standards! I was out with my friends at a nice restaurant/live band place near school, called "Seasonings" having dinner, drinks and a great time!

I'll update the photos taken at that place once I receive them from my friends, meanwhile, allow me to go through the events for a really hectic yesterday afternoon.

First up! My practical exam for the Intermediate Level! 

As you all know by now, the exam cake is purely by luck. You get to participate in a lucky draw, in which the coloured chips indicate which cakes out of 3-4 narrowed choice you'll get to do on that day. Each class's choices is different, and you won't have the same repeated cakes.

I found myself extremely lucky that day, picking a blue chip a.k.a Croquant Gianduja as my  exam piece. Mew was equally lucky to be doing this cake together with me as well!

In fact, there was 5 of us who will be attempting to do this cake, while the rest got either Plaisir or Passionata.

I remembered thinking to myself when I first did this cake, that it would be nice to do this cake again for the exam so that I get to eat another round of the Irish Cream filing, but yet at the same time, I sang "There will be no next time!" to Mew when it suddenly occurred to me that there was quite a few number of components involved.

The Chocolate flour less biscuit, the feuilletine base, the Irish Cream, the Gianduja Cream, the streusel and finally, the dark chocolate glaze. It started off really alright, we were all weighing the ingredients required for the first item, and subsequently, the 5 of us was always at the same station at about the same time taking the same ingredients to do the next component. I found myself being the last at everything. I was the last to put my cake into the blast freezer to freeze, to bake, to chill etc.

To top it off, my bowls from the station was slightly different from the usual bowls. I have a few too small bowls that can't be used for beating or whisking, and the big bowls are way too large to blanchir just 40g of egg yolks with sugar. Thank goodness my neighbour, Top helped me so much, I'm eternally grateful to him for life.

He allowed me to use his bowls which he didn't have any use for it, and also allowed me to use his pots and bain marie for my own needs. He even help me prepare sieve and bowl for my glaze after he was done with his cake and have already presented his work.

I saved valuable time with his help, which at that point of time, I was pretty much 15 minutes late for presentation. This cake is super duper busy. Even back when we had it just for practical, it was already busy, let alone we still have to do everything now, on our own.

At one point though, I've got to admit, I nearly breakdown because I was already late, and yet, I still have two ingredients not scaled yet for my glaze. At that very moment, my mind just went blank, stunned for a few seconds. All I can see was the boxes of different variety of chocolates, big bowls of egg whites and yolks, butter in the bucket, weighing scales, and then I was clutching on my bowl, but my hands just won't move to collect the things I need.

Even Top, my classmate could see that my hand was shaking when I was transferring the cake over to the cardboard. That was a first - I'm not exactly known for having shaky hands. 

But boy, I'm glad it was all over. I pretty much remembered on every single technique required for the cake, and hence for my technique scores, I had better scores as compared to my basic term. In fact, I was so much better than in Basic Term. =) Overall, I'm pretty happy about my cake, and my opera writing.

And that marks the end of my long 3 hours of exam.

A group shot of Group C. After a long 3 months together, I've come to appreciate my classmates better, and realised that with them, Mew and myself actually pushed ourselves so much harder because this group is intensively progressive, fast and really in great form. 

Then, in the afternoon today, I went for the final demo class held by Chef Willy, who was to present his special chef' creation. 

We watched a DVD on all the talented pastry chefs from France, in French, and watched in awe the beautiful, marvellous creations they have done. I particularly fell in love with one of the revisite Paris Brest they have done, and am looking forward to baking that at home this time round.

While we were watching the documentary, Chef Willy and a few assistant was prepping the dessert plates for every single one of us. I was honoured and quite proud of that! I mean, Chef Willy wor! Plating desserts for us! Heehee!!

He presented to us, a lovely plated dessert consisting of tomato molecular biscuit, meringues, sugar flakes, raspberry pieces, which is separated using Nitrogen, streusel, dollop of sour cream, greek yogurt and a nice Raspberry-Beetroot sorbet. Which is a unique combination, but interesting!

We also have pieces of Fromage Yogurt Ice cream to taste, and it was heavenly! Subtle tastes, making me wish it was bigger than just a small mini pebble stone size.

Here, he was trying to create the 'fog' effect for us to take photos. 

But of course, there was a huge crowd around the table, and this is the best I could get from my angle. =)

After which, Chef announced the top 5 for the term, and all 5 was from my class!!! =)) I was super pleased for each and everyone of them, but was also slightly disappointed that I wasn't there as well. I had great hopes, but of course, I hope to do better next term! =)

Then, as with last term, we started taking photos.

Here's Jane, Mew & myself with Chef Willy. The chef that have some disillusions problem, thinking that he is a Muay Thai fighter on some days, and a Ninja on the next few days.

Mew and Jane. Sabeel, Mew and Myself. 

Intermediate Group C with Chef Aum, one of the most friendly Chefs ever in school =)

L-R Top row: Earn, Gerald, Mo, Chef Aum, Beatrice (1st for IP), Way.
L-R Bottom row: Sine (4th), Top (3rd), Neaw, Hazel, Mew, Myself, Thon, Prapone (5th) and A (2nd).

One more, with Chef Marc and Chef Willy.

Ending off this post with a picture of a candid shot!

Now that I'm already done with my Intermediate level, the next term is going to be so much harder. There will be sugar show pieces to work on, and the examinations is completely different from what it is now. I hope my limited hands on sessions in class will enable me to do well for the exams. That's all I ask for.

For now, I'm going to just take this short trip back home to fully recharge myself before I come back for Superior.  Until then, I hope to be able to update soon on what new bake goods I will be trying my hands on!

Till then!  =)

Baking - Croquant Gianduja, Noiselier & Yoyo.

WARNING: LONG & LENGTHY POST! 

Hello guys!! 

Phew! What a day!!

I just completed my practical exam in the afternoon, and as you can see from my Instagram/Facebook, I've passed and will be able to fly home right on schedule this coming Wednesday!!!

More on my exam experience tomorrow, as I would like to wrap up the last demonstration in the next post as well! :) Meanwhile, allow me to share with you the final few practicals I've done to conclude the Intermediate Level for Pastry!

For last Wednesday's lesson, Chef Marc did the demonstration for two recipes, the Croquant Gianduja & Gianduja.

The Croquant au Gianduja, a.k.a Crunchy Gianduja, is a entremet with a insert layer of Chocolate flour less sponge, dark chocolate feuilletine base, Irish Cream layer and filled with Gianduja Cream, before being glazed with a chocolate dark glaze with mirror glaze and finally, decorated with streusel pieces.

I am deeply in love with the enticing flavours of this entremet, especially the Irish Cream, which we have added a substantial good amount of Baileys. Heehee! More on this later, because we did this during our Practical!

Here, we have the Gianduja, which is a small mini entremet consisting of a sablée dough base, hazelnut gianduja with tempered chocolate and chocolate coating with diced almonds.

It's more like a petite four type of assembly, with the tasting slightly a cross between a melt cookie base with a chocolate bonbon on the top.

I'm sure, you guys must be thinking, what is Gianduja???

Gianduja, is a paste made out of 70% Milk or dark chocolate, with the other 30% being finely crushed nuts like hazelnuts and then added with icing sugar and fats, like cocoa butter, pastry butter or heavy cream.

It is also characterised by its smoothness, so I am not really sure if I can do this at home on my own, because I highly thought that my food processor can process substance till as fine as 20 microns per whatever or however they calculate it.

I had quite a fair bit of my fun, doing the pastry cream for the Gianduja Cream, and making the streusels for everyone else. Mew was mad happy over the fact that there's alcohol (Bailey's) in this recipe. She was, however, quite unhappy that we had to boil the Bailey's and milk separately to prevent the milk from splitting.

She couldn't bear watching the Bailey's evaporate right before her very eyes. I was on the other hand, busied with making the Gianduja Cream (More whipping cream, melting of gelatin, chocolates and what not.)

Check out the beautiful layers! *Obsessed!*

Ben was lucky enough to be here the past weekend so we ended up devouring a quarter of this beautiful cake together (Oh yes, cue the mushiness and the love song). It was really good, he said, so I packed the other half for him to bring back home to Singapore. =D

One thing that weighed heavily on my mind, was the glaze. It is the same damn recipe of Chocolate Dark Glaze, which I've miserably failed to let it set the very first time I've used it - on the Bavarois deux Chocolats. 

This time round, I heed Chef's advice to let the milk and water boil slightly longer, before adding in the rest of the other ingredients - Neutral glaze and the cocoa powder. Actually. I soon realised that the previous attempt could be due to the fact that we had used neutral glaze with water added in already, instead of new neutral glaze, which is completely devoid of water.

Mew and myself cried tears of joy when it set beautifully. Could be better lah, in terms of sieving the glaze a second time to prevent little air bubbles and remove little unmelted chocolate bits. 

But hey! Successful try, I would say! =)

Next up, on Thursday, we have the Chocolat Citron and Noiselier demonstration by Chef Marc. 

The Chocolat Citron a.k.a Lemon chocolate is an entremet with an insert of chocolate biscuit base, chocolate mousse and Madeleine Lemon layer, before being filled with Lemon Mousse and White Vanilla Glaze. Finally, it is decorated with Macaré, a square type of Macarons. 

The flavours was a refreshing change from the usual raspberry and coconut combination, which is a change that I welcomed.

Next, we have the Noiselier, something that looked just like the Bavarois Deux Chocolat, with the same dark chocolate glaze being used, and the decorated with macarons around the sides.

I was slightly reluctant to do a photo shoot on this cake, because it's a little too similar to the Bavarois Deux Chocolat and even shared some similarities to the Croquant Gianduja on the inside layering.

If you're wondering what has Laduree got to do with my cake, well, all macarons other than the tiny one on the cake, is brought over to Bangkok by my lovely hubby, who has pampered me silly with my favourite sweets!

Okay, back to the cake. 

Have I mentioned that this entremet consist of a baked streusel base as the insert together with hazelnut cream, a layer of hazelnut dacquoise and filled with milk mousse, before being covered with the dark chocolate glaze.

This time round, we did so much better with the glaze and controlled the temperature well enough, as well as not have one too many air bubbles. We also made sure to sieve the glaze twice before use. That made me feel so much more confident with doing the same glaze if I have any cake that uses this glaze during the exam.

As you can see from the  layers, the only difference is that there's a layer of hazelnut dacquoise in the middle instead of the chocolate biscuit in the Crunchy Gianduja.

That pretty much wraps up my last week's practicals!

Then, for yesterday, we had a written examination during the first 30 minutes of Demo Class before Chef Fabrice began his demonstration for Tartelette aux Fraises et au Romarin and Yoyo. 

The written exam was fine, because I seriously studied the key topics and was quite pleased that most of the questions was in relation to that. I do hope that I get a pretty good score as compared to my Basics scores. I'm still a Singaporean you know, experience counts and skills counts, but I do feel happy if I get good results. HAHA!

Chef Fabrice is the school's Executive Master Chef, and the superior level would be taught mainly by him. When he first commenced the class, everyone was dead silent. I swear I could hear a mosquito buzzing. Then, midway through, his serious facade soon cracked and we were laughing so hard at his antics and funny faces, and his ability to make us want to learn more soon, won me over.

He's really coaching, sharing valuable information on a few key points of baking, but most importantly, he was teaching us, the importance of respecting each ingredients - that one ingredient can help or kill off the other ingredients. Yes, it seems basic enough, but often, the reason why both students can have the same exact ingredients yet produce different goods, is the attitude towards doing what you're doing. =)

It's really interesting. I hope to share more of my thoughts during the superior level.

Alright, moving on.

We have the Tartlette aux Fraises et au Romarin a.k.a Strawberry Rosemary Tartelettes, a mini tart with a sandwiched filing of rosemary mousse and strawberry coulis.

According to Chef, this is a look at the new generation for presenting. Having the tart shell around the filing, instead of always underneath the filing. The pastry world is ever changing, we can do whatever we want, but make sure it's practical, or simply, easy to eat.

The rosemary mousse, is a winner. When I saw rosemary listed as one of the ingredients, I was thinking about whole turkey/chicken and even the Foccacia Rosemary, but the thought of it being a mousse didn't cross my mind. However, the whole combination with the crisp Pate Sablée made this a winner.

Last but not least, for the final practical to conclude the intermediate level before the exam, was this.

Yoyo, a.k.a erm, yoyo.

It's a beautiful chocolate sphere (2 halves joining to become a ball), filled with Nutella cream and crumbled dough speculos, and finally topped with a nice little Raspberry mousse dome. My heart's desire to work with chocolate is now kinda appeased because we get to make the chocolate spheres in the mold, before unmolding and getting it assembled. 

The school didn't have enough flexible moulds to cater to the size of the chocolate spheres and raspberry domes which is the same as the Chef, so we made little Yoyo instead, about 30% decrease from the original size.

With that, we had so much of the ingredients left, and chef gave us the dessert glasses to take home! Mew and myself had so much fun doing the assembly. It feels like we are really at work. HAHA!

We topped the mini dessert glass with the chocolate cut outs from the spheres and the less than perfect raspberry mousse domes.

As for the actual Yoyo, we only have to make two, and present those two. It was quite a tough job trying stick the halves of the chocolate together, because this was our first try, the chocolate spheres turned out too thin on one side, and thick on the other.

So while trying to attach the top chocolate to the bottom chocolate piece, I was pretty much shaking and trying my best not to crack the chocolate into two. We had gloves on though, so that helps a little.

A closer look at the inside of the Yoyo. You can see the crumbled dough speculos and the beautiful sprayed raspberry dome, sitting on the bed of the nutella cream! I piped my nutella cream and filled the dough twice into the dome, because it was rather flat looking during the first time.

And that, my friends, marked the end of my Intermediate classes. I'm more than ready to head back home and recharge, before my next & last 3 months for the Superior classes. I'm actually tired, both mentally and physically.

The studying and baking has taken a little toll on me, and being away from my friends and families is somewhat draining me out. I'm not going to lie and say that life have been a bed of roses, it is straining to be studying out here on my own, staying alone.

I miss everything I've left behind in Singapore to be here. 

Alright, 2 more days till I'm back home! Gonna recharge as much as I can and then be back here to put in all my best for the next term! *Fighting!*

Be sure to check back tomorrow, because I'll be sharing Chef's secret creations and on how my exam went. ;)

Till then!

Baking - Feuille D'automne

Happy Tuesday!

I woke up this morning feeling extremely excited because I get to do some chocolate works today during practical! =)

Yesterday, we had Chef Willy instead of Chef Marc, who was away on a long weekend break. It was a refreshing change because I missed the rose petal table top. HAHA! Anyway! Chef Willy did his usual lame jokes coupled with seriousness demonstration for two cakes, Feuille D'automne and Tarte Chocolate Aux Framboises. 

The Feuille d'automne a.k.a Autumn Leaf is an entremet with french meringue layers and covered completely, with chocolate mousse, before being decorated with a strip of chocolate and topped with pieces and pieces of chocolate fans, creating a nice huge bouquet of 'leafs'/flower.

Chef Willy finished the cakes in two different ways; one with snow icing sugar, and the other with red chocolate spray, resulting in a winter, and autumn feel. More on this cake below, because I get to do it! *Happy singing voice*

Tarte Chocolat aux framboises is, I'm sure you guys know by now, Chocolate & raspberry tart. Ta-dah!!

It is a entremet with sable dough base, flourless chocolate biscuit layer, raspberry ganache filling and topped with molecular biscuit (The pink pieces), cocoa streusel and yogurt ice cream with lollipop coating.

Well, what can I say!

This cake is really different, in fact, it looked like a garden, complete with fruits and soil looking streusel and specks of gold, yep! Only in Chef Willy's garden, can you find pink cotton plants and gold particles. HAHA!

Proud to present to you, my beautiful Feuille D'automne!

Which, unfortunately, looked nothing like Autumn leaves, but rather, more like an elaborate bouquet of a single stalk rose. Despite using the flexible knife, my fans somehow doesn't seemed to be pointy as it should be.

Chef advised that I can try to start from the left hand side of the chocolate tray in the future to see if that works, but other that that, my arrangement of the fans is good, and the size of each fan is equal! =)

I am quite happy lah, that I'm able to do such a beautiful piece of chocolate work. Sometimes I can't help but feel happy and lucky that I get a chance to come and learn these precious skills! Shall work harder to improve my set of chocolate decoration skills to do more beautiful works!

First, we made the french meringues layers/discs in our previous last practical, so all that's left to do, is to do the chocolate mousse and the chocolate decoration; today was a relatively wonderful, no stress, no panic day!

Then, we had to spread one strip of chocolate to cover the sides of the mousse. This was where Mew and myself got ourselves in a fix! We initially just measured the cake board size and cut the plastic strip according to end touching end, but who knows when we wrap the cake with that strip, it fell short by just a little bit!

Both of us stared at each other in pure panic (Wished there was a panic room then) and then an idea struck us both, we decided to cut another small strip to place into the hole, and quickly spread the left over tempered chocolate on our table before it sets.

My Chocolate strip was just of the right size, but during the peeling of the plastic strips' stage, the single piece of chocolate snapped. So, my cake got this ugly strip. =( Chef however, thought that we broke it while we were peeling the entire strip of the chocolate and told us to be careful while peeling.

HAHA! I guess that means we managed to 'fix' the situation to our advantage! =)

Alright, ending this post off with another pretty look at my 'Autumn Leaf', though I would prefer us being able to spray with red spray, instead of just plain old snow icing, making it looked more like winter. Heehee!

2 more days before the hubby's here! I am so excited! =)

Till then!

Baking - Plaisir, Dôme Aux Noisettes & Cake Fraîcheur Framboise-coco

Hello peeps!!

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!