This week was busy. We visited Continental Patisserie's central kitchen where we were given a tour of the premises and an insight into volume production. Like this.
They didn't give us anything to sample anyways, so that left us sad and hungry, so we went for a little asian feast ourselves at Mamak in the city, then we trooped to Chef's Warehouse where I bought myself two bavarois moulds.
This week's lessons focused on making individual desserts. We made raspberry cheesecake on the first day, consisting of a scottish shortbread base, a thin layer of crunchy royaltine (made with praline paste, scottish shortbread crumbs and melted chocolate), raspberry marmalade, raspberry cheese filling and raspberry mirror glaze. That's cake for you in the modern pastry scene. Combinations and layers, so unlike the good 'ol straightforward "everything into the oven to bake" teacakes of yesteryear. Sadly, our marmalade failed to set, we were late putting our cheesecake into the blast chiller and it did not set properly in time for presentation. It was a disappointing day. The saving grace was my chocolate piece, which I made with some colour gradients using cocoa powder and some brown colouring.
The second day we made lemony stuff - pistachio macaron with lemon diplomat and a citron tart filled with lemon curd. In all honesty, I hate lemon. Lemon zest is nice when it's addded to sweet pastry, but oh man, lemon cream and curd? I love the colour but count me out. Anyways, chef said I made a good lemon tart..I liked my presentation too. But I wasn't happy with my macaron because I undermassaged the mix, hence it was a bit stiff and didn't develop nice feet when resting.
Saturday..I had to join another class for practical due to school renovations and clashes with my work schedule. A little apprehensive but I must say actually that after the lesson, it was a nice change working with this class instead of my usual class. This class seems to be less competitive..between our two classes, it is a well-known fact that our class is faster..it is good to be in a class where the output is of higher quality because you get to learn more, but I feel that it is also very important that in one's strive for excellence, we must not forget to maintain an attitude of helpfulness. Today's atmosphere made me feel very happy, and I like my cosy little workstation where I produced a linzer tart and chocolate banana tart with almond and cocoa nib tuille in good time.
Because we made the soft version of Linzer tart dough, the whole tart had to be piped, including the lattice pattern on top..that was fun. I also liked the almond and cocoa nib tuille but the recipe made a rather oily tuille. It is made in a similar way to nougatine and has the taste of a super-thin florentine biscuit or nougatine, but it behaves like a tuille 'cos you can manipulate it into shapes when it is still hot out of the oven. I did a spoon but alas it broke when I took it up to plate my desserts haha. So I settled for a wavy tuille piece instead and some caramelised banana strips. This tart is made using cacao berry 66% mexique, which has a really sharp taste but in my opinion it totally masks the flavour of the caramelised bananas inside the tart. I'd prefer a caramel banana and muesli tart anytime.
So this week was pretty good I must say. I also saw a rainbow and a nice sunrise during my walk to school.
So this week was pretty good I must say. I also saw a rainbow and a nice sunrise during my walk to school.
Looking forward to next week's lesson on decorated fruit cake and a little nervous about practice session for our exan gateau. Hope chef likes the combination of flavours I chose to make my cake with.