The last week of intermediate term went by in a flurry. Time always seems to pass by so slowly here, but it has been so much better ever since I started work at Moana Bakery at the start of this term. They are really nice people and I've learnt alot of things from them.

So, to aptly draw the curtains down on what I would define as a great semester, we made an Opera gateau for our exam on Thursday. This time I was much more composed than last semester, knowing exactly what I had to do. I was determined not to ruin a good run of results this semester...I'm really hoping for a 'credit with distinction' this semester. This is the highest achievable grade. Last semester I had a 'credit with merit', which is the second highest possible grade, so I really hope to improve on that. I don't like settling for second best..I always believe in challenging myself to reach new horizons. With that, I made an Opera that chef said had one of the best coffee syrup soaked joconde in the class - an element that is critical to ensure the heaviness of the buttercream does not overpower the cake. I'm happy with my cake, but I will continue to practise my writing and everything that I've learnt over the past two semesters.

Friday was another one of those "relax-after-exam" days, so reminiscent of the end of last term. I bade farewell to my bench partner with a flat white and almond croissant at Pattison's (as she is leaving for London for a couple of months), and fooled around a little whilst waiting for the lesson to start.

As a famous culinary school, we have no choice but to voyage into this macaroon-crazy world. We started off with plain chocolate macaroons. Chef gave us a macaroon outline sheet but he also encouraged us to pipe freehand to better grasp the exact amount of pressure to apply when piping. Me being me, and relishing the challenge, I did it freehand and was the first to finish in the class..Chef said, "very good for a first time, you're 80% there". Yes Chef!

We also made biscotti and piped shortbread. Biscotti is Italian for "twice baked", as this biscuit is first baked as a log, then sliced and baked again to achieve a crunchy texture. For the shortbread, it is important  to ensure the butter is properly softened before it is creamed, and the mixture must also used immediately after being prepared, otherwise the final mixture may be too hard to pipe.

I dislike macaroons, if you must know..'em round blobs of things..did I say we made plain chocolate macaroons? Make that with strawberry jam...

Saturday...Saturday was my first day at school without Edna..I felt a kind of sadness slowly seeping through me. Anyways we made shortcake with mascerated strawberries and chantilly cream, and sable breton with diplomat cream and pistachio croquant.

To everyone that has been reading my blog, thank you and do check back again in the first week of May for superior term's desserts!

To let a sunny day pass by without soaking up the sun is a shame. So we went for a little trip to Surry Hills, to visit the famous Bourke St Bakery. It lived up to its name for sure, for there was a steady queue of people outside the bakery when we reached. Love the window display of pastries, especially the breads which were just stacked on top of each other a little haphazardly..gives it a homely feel.

All these made us very full, especially since the previous night we made pizza, calzone and pide at school.

The lesson was again, very relaxed. A little too relaxed for my liking. Just as I like to work hard for what I'm paid for, I like to receive a fair amount of learning for what I'm paying for too. Anyways, Chef was really nice and got me some chocolate 'cos I wanted to practise my chocolate writing. The last time I piped Opera I had some overlapping lines in the letters which I didn't like, so I tweaked the writing style a little this time. (Don't read this line and go looking for my spelling error yeah..it's a horrendous error and I noticed it right after I piped the wrong letter).

Actually, I wanted to make an important point from the picture I posted. See the Opera writings from left to right? The right hand side ones don't look nice because the chocolate has set a little in the piping bag. When that happens, you can't pipe nice, smooth lines anymore and the writing doesn't look elegant anymore, so always remember to test your chocolate's viscosity before you pipe that word on the cake!

Oh I know I know, you must feel like kicking me..I know all you want to know is how my croquembouche turned out. I can't tell you now...because I haven't assembled it, but the mise en place is ready and all the action will take place tonight! Excited!
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Yup, I think it turned out pretty well..got down to some planning and mise en place before today, sketching out my ideas and making little figurines out of marzipan..marzipan reminds me of playdough. We also made nougatine, which is a pliable mixture of cooked fondant, glucose, flaked almonds and butter. It's not that hot to work with really, even though it is over 100 degrees celcius.

Then I put it all together...

Chef asked me..where's the knight's horse?...I think the horse ran away chef, hahaha...

All things sweet. The traditional croquembouche is made with choux puffs built upwards to achieve a conical shape, and this is, really, the traditional French wedding cake. But as you know it, people are creatures filled with ideas (mostly) and someone invented the chocolate croquembouche so that if one got bored of eating chips in front of the tele, they could get themselves this $150 masterpiece to nibble on instead.

That's chef's piece above, made during the demo. I kinda figured everyone would do the same design (since we have the same types of truffles and coatings, down to the same LCB ribbon to tie around it..) and I really wanted to create something different. I wanted a butterfly to sit on top of my tower and when I googled butterfly the night before, I chanced upon the synopsis of the opera Madama butterfly, which I decided would be the theme of my chocolate piece. The opera (if I may bore you with a little about it) is about an American man who marries a Japanese lady, with their new home atop a hill. The Japanese lady is over the moon but she doesn't know that the man really just wants an American wife, and the story goes on and as you know it, the man finds his American wife and leaves the Japanese wife. The latter self-destructs upon finding out. It's a sad story but I thought it's beautiful too..a little romanticism, a little realism...and a alot of chocolate later..here is what I made..

I read on the Internet that fat-soluble colouring has to be used if we're colouring white chocolate, but we only had water-soluble ones in the kitchen. Anyways, I asked chef and he said I could use a few drops of the water-soluble colouring and it wouldn't cause the chocolate to seize up. So I did and I made two pretty pink truffles and a pink butterfly. It feels good to learn something new and try something new everytime.

We did white chocolate fudge too, but I didn't snap a photo of it as I was rushing for time, having to temper, and coat all the chocolates myself as my bench partner called in sick for the day. The fudge was way too sweet, so I gave mine a milk chocolate coating to reduce the sweetness (wanted to use dark chocolate but that had run out).

Now for the raspberry mousse gateau...the raspberry glaze was so pretty..like a mirror lake, so I did swans and flamingoes as my theme. I also did the tulip stenciling with chocolate flavour to get a brown colour instead of the red/pink colouring that chef used. Pink doesn't suit my palette...it looks a little "false" to me..But colours aside, this cake is really quite nice, a nice balance between the slightly tart mousse/glaze and a slightly sweet joconde sponge, as well as a variety of textures of the glaze, mousse and sponge all blending in together in one bite..YUM!

Alrighto. Off to sleep and one more revision for final theory exam on monday.

I think chocolate and humans don't make good partners, as they can both be so annoyingly temperemental.

Anyways, we made Opera Gateau for the first time (and probably the last time before the exam). This is a French cake made up of alternating layers of Joconde sponge soaked in coffee syrup, coffee buttercream and chocolate ganache, and usually decorated on top with the word "Opera" and some gold leaves. Gold leaves are expensive, perhaps too expensive for our very-expensive-school to provide us with, so we had to be content with decorating the cake with chocolate writing.

There are a few important points to remember about the Opera. First, the Joconde sponge should be well-soaked with coffee syrup. This can only happen if you bake the sponge until it is just cooked. If you take the baking a little longer, the sponge kinda forms a skin and the syrup doesn't soak through. You could dock the sponge but, you know, why create uneccessary work for yourself? So, just get the sponge right. Secondly, all the layers of sponge, buttercream and ganache should be of equal height, with the total height of the cake not exceeding 4cm. Thirdly, the glaze has to be shiny and smooth. This can only be achieved if you don't agitate the ganache. How do I know that? Well, I agitated mine, that's why. Lesson learnt.

We also made a Tiramisu gateau which wasn't really the best I've tasted...I think the recipe doesn't have enough liquor inside. The interesting part of making the Tiramisu was that we actually made the Savoiardi biscuits from scratch, commonly known as lady finger biscuits. I always buy them from the supermarket. Savoiardi comes from the word "Savoy", which is a region shared between Italy and France. Tiramisu means "pick me up" in Italian, and the gateau is named so because of its high coffee content which wakes the mind up.

On Saturday, I was a little on the high side with all the chocolate, sugar and coffee, so I had lots of energy to make one of my favourite desserts back home for my friends. Tau suan with you tiao!

The chefs probably secretly agreed with me that sugar levels were a little on the high side, so they played down the sugar a little too with a menu of apple strudel and quiche. I never thought much of strudel pastry..it isn't something that I would crave for. We have a few specialty strudel shops in Singapore..there's one called the Ritz Apple Strudel I believe, and I always thought, how on earth would one make money by just selling strudel! Well, let me tell you the secret. The dough costs peanuts as it only has bakers flour, vegetable oil, water and salt. And you only require a fistful of dough, a sprinkle of magic, and poof, you get a whole strudel worth 60cm in length. That's Chef stretching out the dough until it's paper-thin and you can see through it. Interesting to make but...I still don't like the taste of it.

Now we had Chef Michael in our kitchen today, which made me happy because he always goes around the benches and takes a personal interest in what each of us is trying to make and he likes to know more about us as persons also. We were supposed to make quiche lorraine (ham, bacon and onion) and quiche florentine (spinach and onion). But I really didn't like the spinach quiche that I tasted during the demonstration. Spinach itself is way too mild in taste and after you cook it with onions, and eat it with the pate brisee (savoury short pastry), it just seems to lose its "identity"..kind of. Somebody really needs to create something yummier for vegetarians who love quiche. Anyways, I asked Chef Michael if I could create my own quiche, and he said yes. So, I made Quiche "Florraine" (so said Chef, and he said it could be called Lorrentine too) - I mixed the bacon, spinach and onion together, so that the salty, firmer texture bacon would balance with the mild, soft spinach. I also added an extra egg to the recipe because the original was way too runny. And I tried doing five different quiche pie borders instead of just the plain one that Chef showed us. Below is a plain one and a jagged edge one which I made by putting angled cuts on the edges and then pulling them a little to overlap each other. I made a 5cm tall quiche but the pastry didn't stand in the oven haha. Next time I will probably have to put a foil around it all the way to the top. That was a little disappointing because I really love high quiches. They just have that "you have to eat me" kind of look.

Now, maybe if Bruce Feirstein tried my Le Cordon Bleu quiche, he might reconsider that real men do eat quiche. Haha.

Quiche rocks. Ok time to study for final theory exam!

I had to study for HACCP test, and I did study it really well. But in between I also had time to watch some movies which I borrowed from the library. They're pretty old movies, but interesting to watch. I especially liked the one on anger management. I mean, the title is really totally boring. It's not like some red velvet cake, just a plain butter cake. But somehow it caught my eye anyways.

It's about this guy (Adam Sandler) who has an implosive anger problem..he swallows his anger whenever it comes about instead of letting it out, which makes him kinda like a time bomb because you never know when enough is enough. So, his girlfriend seeks the help of a famous doctor who sets up a string of comedic events to cure his anger problem. Of course, everything goes well (like most movies) and he gets cured in the end. In spite of the predictable outcome, I like this movie because it recognises that silence or seeming peace on the outside does not guarantee that there is no turmoil brewing inside a person.

I also got a book on bread which I have just started reading. The way the chef works the dough is really interesting. He doesn't keep putting flour to knead it into a smooth ball. Instead he just hits and folds the dough until it develops enough gluten to form a smooth dough. He also shows how to fold the dough inwards to make layers and give the dough more strength in the structure yet without making the dough too tough. Will continue reading after tomorrow's test!

I think people should live to eat, not just eat to live. The world of pastry is Simply Amazing.

We did mise en place for Danish pastries on Thursday, preparing the Danish dough with 3 single turns, and making several fillings. The difference between Danish and puff pastry is that for puff pastry, the fat is calculated based on the weight of the flour, whilst for Danish pastry the fat is calculated based on 35% of the weight of the dough. Danish pastry should not have more than 35% fat otherwise the fat will seep through the layers, giving a soggy and poorly risen pastry. Because Danish pastry is only given 3 single turns, it has less layers than puff pastry, and tends not to rise as high as puff pastry potentially can. As we only had one dough breaker/sheeter, I decided to just roll out the pastry by hand instead of mucking around and waiting in the queue. Of course it doesn't do the job as well as the machine but it's good practice anyway, 'cos a chef must also know how to work without machines. In between waiting for the dough to rest and give it the required turns, we prepared the fillings as a bench. I was in charge of doing streusel topping. Streusel is German for tiny pieces of stones, and it is so called because streusel resembles small stones, similar to a crumble topping. The difference between streusel and crumble is simply the addition of liquid (egg/ water etc) to streusel. I like crumble better as it gives a better crunch.

Anyways, before class we thought we wouldn't have anything to bring home since it was all mise en place, but oh nono...there was a sweet surprise at the end...Baklava! Baklava is a sweet filo pastry filled with chopped nuts and cooated with syrup, originally made in Turkey, then in Greece. There are differences in the way it is made in the various places. For example, the Greek ones are made using only almond, while the Turkish ones are soaked in syrup and can be filled with a variety of nuts such as cashews and pistachios. This is an amazing dessert, so simple to make yet so addictive to eat.

Class finished ahead of time and I decided to practise writing for our Opera cake next week after looking at Chef Keith's writing as well as some writings off the web.

On day 2 we got the Danishes up and running...Chef showed us so many shapes - windmills, bear's paw, turnovers, crescents, lattices, twists, snails, scrolls, plaits...there are so many more designs but there wasn't enough time to demonstrate.

And we made some Chelsea buns too. I like cinnamon buns better, because cinnamon buns are made using a dough very similar to Danish pastry which is so much more buttery and fragrant, whereas Chelsea buns taste a little like hot cross buns.

And as usual, we always save the best for the last. We made bread on the last day! I love bread. It's my favourite part of the patisserie course, really. We did Foccacia bread, Baguette and Lavosh. Lavosh is a Jewish unleavened bread sprinkled with sesame and poppy seeds. It tastes more like a cracker actually, because it is rolled out to 1mm thick which gets it really crispy after baking.

Baguettes are traditionally displayed vertically (like so in the picture below) so that as it cools the moisture goes out from the side of the bread, leaving the front crust crisp. I need to angle my cuts on the bread more next time.

And how else can I describe the foccacia? Just simply lovely.

Have a great weekend!