Gateaux Part 1

The cake unit was one of my favorite units so far. Even though I have experience baking and decorating cakes, these cakes were very different. They were the French style of cakes- many were made with genoise, mousse, meringue, Bavarian cream, biscuit, and jaconde layers - mediums I am not used to or that familiar with. This made it interesting. It was also the first time we were combining a couple of complicated moving parts to create a composed whole dessert.

Pound cake. Pretty straight forward, creamed-butter method. I don't like pound cake without a soaking solution, or whipped cream and berries to accompany it. And the form we baked it in didn't really allow for that. Unfortunately.

Genoise cake. Here we made a simple plain genoise cake. Genoise is difficult to make correctly because it is very technique-driven. It is incredibly simple - just cake flour, butter, eggs, and sugar. It does not rely on the use of chemical leaveners, but rather a whole-egg foam that expands and sets in the oven. It is therefore extremely important to fold the flour in perfectly - overfolding causes the egg foam to collapse too much, and results in a sunken cake. Here, we assembled it with raspberry jam and a plain pate-a-bombe based buttercream. I am a fan this buttercream over Italian meringue based. It's less finicky, and I think provides a richer taste due to the addition of egg yolks. Put together, it was a nice cake.

Angel food cake. I don't eat a lot of Angel food. It's not something I order ever, and I have never been overwhelmed by a desire to make it. It is made by preparing a nice and fluffy French meringue, and then folding cake flour and powdered sugar into it. The texture of this was fluffy and spongy, but not too chewy. I think it would make for a nice summer dessert with fruit and sabayon!

Dacquoise au Cafe. Layers of Dacqoise (almond meringue) and coffee buttercream. I loved the coffee buttercream, but there was way too much of it - it took up half the cake.

Chocolate Ganache Cake. We used a cake mold for this, make a chocolate genoise and a whipped light ganache. Covered in chocolate glaze (my least favorite thing to use, btw) and candied rose petals.

Charlotte Russe. Lady fingers lining outside and bottom, filled with a white peach fruit Bavarian (fruit puree + sugar + gelatin + creme fouettee) and topped with whipped cream decoration. I thought I wouldn't like this because it's filled with what is basically an enhanced and stabilized whipped cream, but the fruitiness and texture were really nice.

Charlotte Royale. What a wierdo! Not only does it look like a brain boob, but it's not particularly tasty either! It's composed of a biscuit jaconde rolled up with apricot jam, sliced, and placed in a bowl. Filled with Creme Anglaise Bavarian cream , covered with plain genoise and chilled. Decorated with whipped cream. The only thing that had any flavor was the apricot jam, which comprised very little of the cake. The Creme Anglaise Bavarian cream didn't add much flavor, just a creamy mousse-like thing. If you can't tell, I was pretty meh about the whole ordeal.

Carrot cake! This was a pretty delicious variation of a carrot cake. I liked it better than the one we make at Mags. This one just had carrots and walnuts in the cake. The icing was the shit though - it had lemon zest and sour cream in it, which added a tangyness to it that cut the creaminess a bit. And it didn't have too much sugar either, which I really appreciated. Marzipan carrots! Adorable!

These chocolate cupcakes were the BOMB.com. I have made a study out of chocolate cake. At Mags, we changed our chocolate cupcake recipe from a chocolate buttermilk version made with butter, to one made with oil. While I appreciate the moistness of the 2nd version, it lacks the flavor of the first - butter trumps oil when it comes to flavor. And when there is buttermilk in the mix, all the better. So long have I been looking for a nice balance, and finally... here is one. For fat, it uses half butter half oil, which is heated together with the cocoa powder. There is also buttermilk in the recipe! This yielded a chocolate cupcake that was moist and full of chocolate flavor. I dorked out when I tried it. It's topped with a fudge icing here, which I really liked too.

Miroir aux Fruits. I thought this was delicious. Biscuit Jaconde with layers of raspberry jam in between, plain genoise on the bottom, and then a cassis fruit mousse filled in. Glazed with a nappage/cassis puree and decorated with cassis berries. I loved the fruit mousse flavored with cassis - it was a tart and creamy mousse with a beautiful color. Like most of the mousse and Bavarian cream desserts we have made, though, I do think it lacks a balance and there is too much "filling". I don't like eating mostly mousse. Flavor-wise though, this was my favorite of mousse/Bavarian cream varieties.

White and Dark Chocolate Mousse cake with Pate a Cornet. This was a pretty good mousse cake. We did this cool trick where we made this thick chocolate paste, pate a cornet, which we stenciled onto a silpat and froze. We then prepared a Biscuit d'amandes batter, spread it on top, and baked. When we unmolded the thin cake layer from the silpat, it revealed the stenciled pattern. This can be done in almost any color, with almost any design- freehand or stenciled. The mousse cake itself was chocolate genoise on the bottom, filled with alternate layers of dark and white chocolate mousse, with the biscuit d'amandes wrapped around and topped with whipped cream and chocolate shavings. Pretty tasty, but nothing mind blowing.

Marjolaine. This was mind blowing. As my recipe states, "The cake was considered one of Fernand Point's masterpieces. Years of trial-and-error experimentation went into its creation, not to mention pounds of ingredients, before he was satisfied that he had achieved the right combination of tastes and textures and could serve it proudly to his guests.". The combination he came up with is as follows: a layer of chocolate genoise, chocolate ganache, dacquoise, creme d'or, dacquoise, praline buttercream, dacquoise, stabilized creme chantilly, praline buttercream coating the cake, a final chocolate glaze, topped with candied hazelnuts. Let me just say this is my favorite thing we've made so far. A lot of my favorite things all together, in a well-balanced tasty masterpiece! BINGO!

Sachertorte. Mmmmmmm.... not interesting. This was made by famous by the Sacher Hotel in Vienna, which is one of the only places officially allowed to make it. It rose to prominence in the Austrain-Hungarian empire, when the King wanted a pastry he could easily ship to his embassies. Let me tell you that given that its ability to be transported is the only thing this Sachertorte is good at, it should have stayed in the Austrian-Hungarian Empire. OH SNAP! Pretty bland chocolate cake with an apricot filling and glaze, and a chocolate glaze on top of that. But wait for the grand finale: "Sacher" written on it! WOW! The Sacher Hotel can keep their lame cake.

Dobos Torte. Dobos sponge with layers of chocolate buttercream, chocolate rosettes, and caramelized Dobos sponge on top. Nice presentation and pretty tasty, but I think there was too much chocolate buttercream. Seems as though the French always put too much of what I think of as filling in their cakes.

Flourless chocolate cake with chocolate meringues. This was a standard flourless chocolate cake. But to decorate it we made some simple chocolate meringue (french meringue + cocoa powder, powdered sugar), piped them in long strips, baked, and stuck them to the cake using a whipped ganache. It looked pretty cool!

Chocolate Hazelnut cake. Layers of Chocolate-hazelnut Biscuit and Chocolate-hazelnut mousse. Combed on top, wrapped with a decorated piece of chocolate. I LOVE chocolate and hazelnut together so I was a fan.

Final Exam! For our final exam, we had to prepare the first cake we made, which was a plain genoise with raspberry jam and plain buttercream, and add to the top 2 marzipan roses, and a marzipan plaque inscribed with "Happy Birthday" written in chocolate. I was really proud of my cake. My cake was baked perfectly, I filled it with a good amount of jam, my buttercream was super smooth and the edges of my cake were clean. I was really happy with the color and outcome of my roses, and given the circumstances, my inscription didn't look half bad. My chef said that the only thing I should change is the placement of my items on the top- I could have arranged them to display each of the components a bit better. Overall though, I was happy with my final cake!

Viennoiserie

Viennoiserie was a particularly hard unit. Our class coasted through puff pastry with relative ease and then we were hit with Viennoiserie. Bread is all about timing and caring. You wait for the bread, the bread does not wait for you. It is an impatient, living organism. And it demands respect.

Our class used a proofing cabinet , the refrigerator and the freezer to regulate the growth of yeast. We learned a lot about it's temperament, and we used this information to best regulate the timing of each of our steps. But we fit a lot into each class, and keeping an eye on a bunch of babies at one time lead to some difficulties. Overall though, I think we achieved a lot, and I learned a lot. There are a few missing pictures from the unit, when my camera died.

Note: my partner in this unit totally sucked. She was probably the worst partner I could have had. She rolled in at 5:30 (when class starts, but everyone is always there early to mise and set up), didn't know what we were doing, stoned (literally), and then proceeded to rely on me the entire time to do everything. She never cleaned, and never seemed to care. I really disliked her, and resented her for most of the unit. The first couple of classes I really tried to be fair and patient, but when it was obvious that she just didn't give a fuck and had no respect for our partnership, I proceeded to take the lead (I was already doing everything anyway) and boss her around with menial tasks. She didn't like me for this, but my attitude was fuck you, I'm paying for this shit and I am going to learn so suck it up. And she did. I survived.

Challah. Not the best challah I've had or made. My attempt at doing a six-strand braid was pretty unsucsessful (despite my practice making friendship bracelets at summer camp) and it was pretty lopsided due to my mishandling. In addition, I think the 2nd proofing went too long and it lacked physical definition. Challah I've made before has been vuluptuous, like a nice jewish lady. This was kind of boring. And I wish it had raisins in it. I talked to my chef about my problems, she sympathized. At least I know I can make it well.

Orange cinnamon swirl bread. Sorry for the shitty picture. This was super tasty. Very basic dough, then sprinkled with cinnamon sugar and rolled up and baked. I wish it had more cinnamon sugar in it though. Our chef advised against it because it melts and creates holes. I would rather have holes though than too little cinnamon sugar! Please note in the picture below the french toast I made from it in the background - totally killer!

Blueberry muffins. Very basic recipe - mix wet ingredients, mix dry ingredients, combine, add blueberries, don't overmix. And success. Didn't need to go to pastry school for that.

Kugelopf (Austrain Bowl Cake). Not a fan. Sounding like a German army command works against it too. It was a yeasted bread using the sponge method with lemon zest, and raisins in it and almonds on top. To me this bread was kind of whatever - a cross between a regular white bread and a robust fruit cake, but not really cutting it in either direction. Give me more enriched breads, or give me none at all, don't half ass it.

Brioche Nanterre (Brioche loaf). I love brioche. A lot. Its like white bread only with the butter conveniently added in (along with eggs). This brioche was really good too. Nice and golden, ready to be pulled apart and spread with jam and maybe even more butter. We also made a smaller cuter version, Brioche a Tete Parisennes.

Savoy Scones. Pretty classic scone here, using the cut-in butter method, and bringing it all together. I only eat scones directly out of the oven (they get stale way too quickly), and never buy them, so I rarely get the opportunity to eat them. Always a treat.

Stollen. I loved it! Pretty much the same flavors at the Kugelopf, but more along the lines of what I wanted it to be. It had lemon and orange zest, candied orange peel, raisins, almonds, pecans, and walnuts in it, occupying I would say almost 2/3 of the volume of the thing itself. The bread was pretty dense, and then after baked, it was brushed with melted butter and coated in a combination of vanilla sugar and powdered sugar. It was really flavorful, not that fussy, and lasted on my counter for a long time, allowing me ample nibbling opportunities.

Pains au Chocolat, Croissants. Croissants combine bread baking with puff pastry. Make a simple bread dough, roll it, and then layer butter into it, folding, rolling, and repeating to create a layered dough that can then be cut and shaped. During baking, the dough bakes as if a thin layer of bread, and the butter melts to create steam and pushes the layers apart to create leaves, resulting in a yeasty, tender, flaky croissant.

Suffice it to say, they're a pain in the ass. You have to worry about managing a bread dough that's elastic, wants to rise, and does whatever it wants to, and then layering it with a beurrage (butter) layer that wants to melt, squish, break into the dough, and chunk up. Everything must be the right temperature, thickness, and consistency to work with, and then you have to have the know-how on top of that.

I had some difficulty with my dough (everyone did) because it was 100 degrees in the classroom and the butter layer was melting into the dough before we had time to roll it out, resulting in a less flaky end product. Still tasty, but not perfection. We will have another opportunity in Pastry 2 to try again.

Note: this did not stop Adam from eating I think 12 Pain au Chocolats in a 24 hour period. They still tasted good.

Ruche (bee hive). Now we got to experiment with some sweet applications for brioche! And I loved making the beehive! It consisted of layers of brioche dough soaked with lavender honey syrup, and pastry cream. We decorated it with a piped and toasted swiss meringue, little bumble bees made out of marzipan and toasted almond, and then honey drizzled over! Not gonna lie, I fucking loved this. It tasted good, and I love bees and honey. Go bees, you are so necessary to human's survival!

Brioche tart. I really liked this too. Every unit we do some kind of fruit tart, and this was one of my favorites. Brioche dough we spread out like a pizza dough, pastry cream, bread crumbs, and then apricots. MMMMMM!!

Pannetone. This was like a cross between the Kugelhopf and the Stollen. Decent, not mind-blowing.

Pain de Mie (Pullman's loaf). This was our version of wonderbread. Making it, it looked like porcelain - a beautiful soft, smooth, white dough. Super easy to make, and then baked in a rectangular mold. Unfortunately, those in charge of the proofing cabinets weren't paying close attention, and our dough overproofed, overflowing from the loaf pans and resulting in less dough in the mold. Therefore, everyone's loaf ended up looking a bit concave (they're supposed to be perfectly square). Regardless, it tasted like good-for-you whitebread.

Not pictured (unfortunately): Spiked Pecan Sticky Buns (made with the cinnamon orange swirl dough), Sally Lunn Rolls (a sweet soft roll), Danish (there were BOMB!), and Fruitcake (pretty similar to the Stollen dough).

Test day, Unit 1 : Tarts and Cookies

My first exam at pastry school! Wooo hooo! It consisted of a 1 hour written exam, and a 3 hour practical. We didn't know what was going to be on the practical, so we had to be ready for everything. Each of us had to make a large tart, 2 tartlets, and a cookie. There were 4 different sets, and Chef Claudia assigned us a number corresponding to a set, and that was what we had to make.

I had to make the French nut tart, 2 ganache tartlets, and the bourbon pecan cookies. In my opinon, this was the hardest grouping. The French nut tart required a lot of things to be made perfectly, and then combine them perfectly- basically a lot of things could go wrong. The ganache tartlets are easy, but the decoration is a pain in the ass. The Bourbon pecan cookies- whatever.

I whizzed through my written exam (it was easy, and I had studied) and started planning for my practical with my remaining time. I was a little bit shaky at first, darting around, making sure my station was clean, while doing 3 tasks at once. I felt confident about my timing though. In the last 20 minutes, I was rolling. My French tart came out beautifully, and I was making my ganache tartlets. I rushed through that a bit too much, and whisked my ganache too roughly and incorporated some air bubbles. I tapped it a couple of times, hoping to release some air, and poured them into the shells.

Then I checked my cookies in the oven to rotate them. They were flat. They're supposed to be 1/4" thick, which is how I cut them. I must have mis-scaled. My heart sank. I decided to finish baking them anyway, so at least I could show something to the chefs. They had to rest in the fridge for an hour, so there was no time to remake them. There was nothing I could do. Flustered, I finished the decoration, and presented my product.

Chef said my nut tart was perfect. Great crust, perfect filling, perfectly baked. She said my ganache tartlets were good. Perfect crust, ganache a good consistency, but I had some air bubbles still and my decoration was a bit shaky. This I knew. She came to the cookies, and said "it broke my heart when I saw these cookies". She said I must have mis-scaled something (likely the butter or the sugar). We had to halve the recipe, so it is likely that I messed up in the scaling. She said that my procedure, and the ultimate taste and texture of the cookie was good though.

I was really bummed. In a bad mood for days. While happy I did something "perfectly", I couldn't believe I would make such a stupid mistake. I thought the best I could do on my test was a 66, given that one of my pieces was garbage.

Then I got my results back. A 103 on my written test (I got everything right, including the bonus questions), a 95 on one of my class days, a 97 on the other, and a 95 on my practical. Average for the unit was a 97. I could not believe it. This test was a sham- I deserved a much lower grade on my practical. I can't say I'm not happy, though.

Pastry classes, Days 7-9

I have a lot to go over, so I am going to combine days 7, 8 and 9 into one post.

Day 7

Onion Tart. It was nice to do something savory. Looks like barf, tastes good. Caramelized onions, blue cheese, walnuts, and tomatoes on pate brisee. Basically a pizza a la francais.

Fig Newtons. Gotta love the newtons. Great source of FIBAH! These were great, especially because we cooked the figs down with a little bourbon. Wasn't a huge fan of the dough though, I like a flakier cream cheese dough more. And I like the cookies a little bit smaller. Overall though, great flavor and texture.

My new friends Omar and Rachel feeling good after a long hard class:

Day 8

Spritzkakor cookies. Cool name, not very exciting cookie. Relatively basic butter cookie with light lemon flavoring, piped in rosettes (my hand hurt) and then with pecan, chocolate, or raspberry filling. Had a slightly dry, crumbly texture. Certainly better than the supermarket variety.

Clafoutis aux Cerises. Basically a cherry custard tart. Similar in style to the Tart Alsacienne only WAY BETTER. Matter fact, this tart was BOMB. One of the best ones yet! The cherries provided a really nice tartness, and the custard part was really nice and smooth. And it didn't look gross!

Day 9

Lemon Tartlets. Overall, this was an excellent endeavor. Let me break it down for you. Flaky, pate brisee crust. Lemon curd (perfectly made, I may add) set with gelatin. Candied lemon peel. Swiss meringue, gently torched. I loved making them, and I loved eating them. We learned a lot by making these - all about meringues and curds! I will have some fond memories of torching the top and smelling toasted marshmallow.

French Nut Tart. I've never eaten anything like this before. Pate sucree, thin layer of jam, toasted almonds, and then almond cream beaten with almond and hazelnut flours, with incorporated whipped egg whites. The top layer puffed up a bit, so it was almost like a thin cake in a tart. I was surprised at how good it was actually. Note sophisticated top design skills. Its called making a paper snowflake template. I DIDNT GO TO ART SCHOOL FOR NOTHING BITCHES!