Wednesday, March 9, 2011

Rest of pastry school

I graduated from pastry school about a month ago. Caught up in the whirlwind of it all, I didn't really have time to post. But now, enjoying my first 3-day weekend in a LOOOOOOOONG time (more on that later), I thought I would play catch-up. Here is my summation of the last 2 months of school:

Sugar 2:

We learned about different sugar techniques, none of them that interesting. You can pour it into a mold! Blow it like glass! We did a lot of sitting, burning of our hands, and I did a lot of breaking. In fact, I broke the class's final project, something I am not too proud of. It was bound to break anyway - made out of sugar!















This is a basket I "wove" out of sugar. Exciting!



















The project I am most proud of, my gangster pig made out of the components of a sugar owl mold. Check out that chain, gatt, and bullet belt!

Onto a unit that I am actually excited about, Plated Desserts 3....

I have a horrible memory, hence writing this blog so I can remember what I ate. I don't remember a lot of the components to these desserts, so forgive the BSing.















uhhhh.... spring rolls? I think there was banana in them.
















Mango beggar's purse. I hate this presentation.











































You make streusel by stretching a simple dough to as large as a table - you need 2 people to do this. Sprinkle with clarified butter, make a filling, and then roll it up. We made an apple version, with vanilla ice cream. It's kind of like sheets of phylo, but the mode is different.















Zeppole. We filled them with vanilla and chocolate pastry cream. I am shocked that these made it to the plate.














Zeppole plated in a classier "uptown" version.



















Beer-battered fruit beignets. These were meh. Lindsay and I did go rogue and made a triple-battered coconut version that I remember very clearly.















Churrrrrrrrrrrrrrrros.















Passionfruit and raspberry fruit souffle. Dang son, look at that rise!















Blue cheese souffle.














This was a cake made with a dessert wine that was delicious. Not too fond of that other shit on the plate, though.














Chocolate cake.















Have no idea what this is. But I do remember that the ice cream was pink peppercorn flavored - yummo!














Gingerbread cake, cranberry compote.















Olive oil cake, orange salad.















Tropical fruit tasting plate.















This was my own creation, of which I am very proud. It was part of our menu project, in which we had to conceptualize a restaurant, and create a dessert menu for it. Our chefs chose 2 dishes, and we had to create and present them. This is a brown butter nutmeg baumkuchen, with caramel blood oranges, candied fennel, and earl grey ice cream.
















Another one of my selections from the menu. This is a chocolate fig cake, with dried fig compote, balsamic ice cream, olive oil powder, and chocolate decoration.





































Wedding cake! We each had to make a cake based on a theme created by the class below ours. They chose a crazy overdone Victorian theme. So I made the best of it and went classic and simple. I did pulled sugar strings for decoration at the base of each tier, and spent most of my time making roses, peonies, and hydrangea flowers out of sugar.


























Final. To be honest, at the time of the final I had already checked out. We weren't making anything new at this point, and I had no interest in making some food I had already made for judges I didn't know. I made a genoise with buttercream, a gateaux St. Honore, bourbon pecan cookies, and spice bon bons. All came out relatively well. I made a showpiece based on Boston (which I guess I forgot to take a picture of?). My family came to my graduation, we celebrated, and I graduated with honors and perfect attendance. Peace out, school!