Another week on plating! We did mise on place on Thursday, preparing the components of Vacherin: meringue discs, raspberry sorbet and vanilla ice cream. Vacherin is actually a Swiss cheese, and the dessert is so called because it looks like the vacherin cheese. Tell me about it..I don't suscribe to the resemblance but oh well, just a piece of history on the dessert to keep in mind.
I was going to do an igloo theme for the dessert because of all the frozen sorbet and ice cream inside, but the penguin meringue that I piped didn't really look like a penguin at all. I think it looked more like a porcupine. Anyway, I'm not sure if the freeer broke down from over usage but our frozen desserts simply did not harden like Chef's ones did. So we had to spread the sorbet and ice cream onto the meringue instead of cutting them into nice discs to assemble. I was probably still thinking of Valentine's Day and feeling a great sense of injustice that I had not made any Valentine's Day dessert that was truly my own creation (St Honore's design was pretty standard so that doesn't count!), so I decided to make it a really sweet Vacherin dessert (it is really sweet in taste also by the way).
I was going to do an igloo theme for the dessert because of all the frozen sorbet and ice cream inside, but the penguin meringue that I piped didn't really look like a penguin at all. I think it looked more like a porcupine. Anyway, I'm not sure if the freeer broke down from over usage but our frozen desserts simply did not harden like Chef's ones did. So we had to spread the sorbet and ice cream onto the meringue instead of cutting them into nice discs to assemble. I was probably still thinking of Valentine's Day and feeling a great sense of injustice that I had not made any Valentine's Day dessert that was truly my own creation (St Honore's design was pretty standard so that doesn't count!), so I decided to make it a really sweet Vacherin dessert (it is really sweet in taste also by the way).
The next dessert - Hot and Cold Souffle. I've never tried a souffle before and the closest I've come to sniffing it is reading food reviews which laud the dessert. Oh well, granted that it rises really high but taste-wise, I wouldn't put it on a pedestal. For the cold souffle, we made one flavoured with grand marnier and froze it. Like many others, mine collapsed...
And the hot souffle...this is one dessert you have to work really fast with and prepare your plating decorations before it's ready, because it deflates within minutes out of the oven. We made a Morello Cherry Souffle, I went for classic, and was rewarded with the honour of getting my plated desert onto Chef's phone gallery. It was a great feeling. I really like it too..cos the plating can be done real fast and still looks clean and elegant..Chef always emphasizes to us that in the industry it is not just about making the nicest plated dessert, but about making something that is pleasing to the eye yet time-economical in the preparation. Now I am beginning to understand what he means.
Second day was also a good day because I got full marks for my theory test and two marks shy of a perfect score for a written assignment.
Third day...return of The Chocolate. Yup, we had to work with chocolate again..tempering..tabling..it isn't too bad really..just rather messy. We made almond rochers and vienna almonds. I totally love the vienna almonds..they have this wonderful caramel flavour and crunch and I'd swear by the pringles jingle for this one..once you pop you can't stop! The rochers were a tad too sweet...I actually love the slivered almonds coated in sugar solution and icing sugar, and then toasted slightly..it tastes like the sugar-coated kachang puteh they used to sell outside the cinemas in Singapore. But once you coat them with the milk chocolate, it kind of loses that natural, almost fresh taste. The lesson was easy, but the chocolate decorations were time-consuming as we tried to make different types of decorations. I did cut-out shapes, a little chocolate writing, and also tried to make the swirl cigars that I had seen a chef doing on youtube. It's fun! But I need more practice on it.
Third day...return of The Chocolate. Yup, we had to work with chocolate again..tempering..tabling..it isn't too bad really..just rather messy. We made almond rochers and vienna almonds. I totally love the vienna almonds..they have this wonderful caramel flavour and crunch and I'd swear by the pringles jingle for this one..once you pop you can't stop! The rochers were a tad too sweet...I actually love the slivered almonds coated in sugar solution and icing sugar, and then toasted slightly..it tastes like the sugar-coated kachang puteh they used to sell outside the cinemas in Singapore. But once you coat them with the milk chocolate, it kind of loses that natural, almost fresh taste. The lesson was easy, but the chocolate decorations were time-consuming as we tried to make different types of decorations. I did cut-out shapes, a little chocolate writing, and also tried to make the swirl cigars that I had seen a chef doing on youtube. It's fun! But I need more practice on it.
I called my plate Fantasy because savouring the vienna almonds and rochers is such a nice feeling and you feel like you're in fantasyland. :)