This week was really interesting, the practical lessons seem to be getting tougher in terms of what we're expected to produce, but equally easier at the same time. The techniques are taught fairly repetitively as well, so there's always more than one chance to make and practice something. I was practicing the exam dishes last weekend and realised, after my timing disaster in the eclairs practical, that pastry cream can be made very quickly. So hopefully from now on, there will be no more standing around for 20-30 minutes waiting for it to thicken, because I've now got it cracked in 10! It's getting faster and more confident with things like that that I think are really helping make the practicals seem easier, in one respect, because you can have elements ready and give yourself more time to assemble and present.
On wednesday afternoon we had the usual lecture. This week it was on fruit and fruit identification. The theory side went into all kinds of fruit, from the everyday to the exotic. The fruit identification bit was really interesting, we had pictures of fruit I've never seen before and had to put names against them all. A few names that stick in my mind are;
- Durian, the worlds smelliest fruit, descriptions of odour ranged from sewage to rotting flesh - delightful! Tastes like custard though...apparently, we didn't have one to try,
- Kiwano (aka jelly melon), we did have one of these to try and they're yellow and horned on the outside, but inside they have little green jelly sacks with a pip in the middle. It tasted ok, but it took a good bit of chewing to actually get the little jelly sacks to pop in your mouth, even then they still didn't relent properly and it was a case of resorting to just swallowing it and hoping for the best! (no ill effects thus far, at the time of writing, I'm happy to report!)
- Rambutans, they're like spiky lychees, didn't try one but they looked quite nice.
- Dragonfruit, they always look really nice - bright pink flesh with little bits of green on the tips of their soft spiky bits, then cut across the middle they're almost white with little black pips, which is the bit you eat. I've tasted it before and not been keen, today wasn't an exception to that, its starts out with the promise of being nice, but then gets a weird after taste which gets more and more unpleasant. I'm sure in their native country they'd taste nice though!
- Snake fruit (Salak), we didn't have one of these to try but it looked like a pear covered in snake skin.
- Star fruit, these looked nice but the one in class didn't taste of much.
There were many others that I can't recall of the top of my head (but need to revise ready for the written exam!). There were a few familiar ones as well, which all tasted nice! Young rhubarb, gooseberry (finally got a sweet one to eat raw!) and blood orange (one of my absolute favourites).
Thursday was a really long day, in for 8am for a demo on black forest gateau, which we recreated in the practical, and a strawberry gateau. Both looked really nice in the end, I shouldn't really be surprised given how much experience the teaching chefs have, but they really have a great skill in making something look superb. The cakes were genoise sponges (not more whisking, please!), chocolate in the case of the black forest gateau, cut into 4 slices and soaked in kirsch flavoured imbibage, filled with chantilly cream and a cherry compote. It was then masked with more chantilly cream and decorated with chocolate. This was our first real lesson playing with chocolate decoration - it was quite fun, it was difficult to work properly with though, we'll do it more in Intermediate luckily. The strawberry gateau was much the same, but with a plain genoise sponge, grand mariner flavoured imbibage, chantilly cream, fresh strawberries and decorated with a bit more chocolate and a few chopped pistachios.
The practical was at 6:30pm, so after a visit from my sister and a trip to Borough Market, we managed to fill the 8 hours between classes (and our bellies in the market!) and then made our way into the kitchen. I must have done something truly wicked in a former life, not only was today a day where I'd have been awake 20 hours before being able to get into bed, this practical required no less than 2 vigorous whisking sessions. Firstly to make a genoise sponge, then secondly to make the chantilly cream. My arms were buggered after finishing the cream! The genoise came out well and I think all the whisking helped because it got a really good rise on the cake, I made the imbibage quickly and preped our workstations for the chocolate work while my partner made the cherry compote. We then had to smooth some already tempered chocolate over a transfer sheet, let it set until touch dry and then cut whatever shapes we wanted to decorate the cake with. Then it was set aside to rest in the fridge.
The sponge, one single sponge cake, had to have the top trimmed off, and then it had to be sliced into no less than 4 slices, of which we were only going to use the best 3. It was at this point I was really glad the cake had a good rise! The slices seemed to come out fairly even. Once the cream was whipped, and more shells and rosettes piped for chef to check, it was time to assemble the cake. It was assembled in the cake ring and everything was layered up, and the cream piped in to keep it even. The top then had to be masked and our serrated knives dragged across the top in a nice pattern, then it was time to de-ring the cake. It looked really nice when it came out, but the sides then had to be masked with more cream and the chocolate decoration applied to the outside. 8 more rosettes were piped on top and then 8 cherries placed on top of them. Aside from a little issue with a couple of bits of chocolate breaking I was really happy with the final result!
Friday we were back in again for another demo, and more chocolate work! Chef made two different cakes - a Charlotte aux Fruits de la Passion (passionfruit charlotte) and a Charlotte aux Chocolat, of which we were to make the latter. Its a biscuit sponge trimmed to line the sides and bottom of a cake ring - piped to give a nice diagonal finish on the outside, filled with a bavarois and topped with decoration. The bavarois is basically a custard with gelatine, either chocolate or passionfruit juice added and then whipped cream folded in as well. The passion fruit one had fruit on top and the chocolate one had an elaborate chocolate decoration on top. I stuck around to try these ones and was extremely glad I did! They were both really light and really delicious. Having said that, Basic Patisserie D (the best group) got caught out as the pigs of the course, while everyone gathered around the cakes to take pictures, a good half of our group gathered around the plates to make sure we got a good taste of what had been made. It worked!
Roll on the evening and the practical came round. I was quite nervous about this one, there was a lot that could go wrong and given it was another late lesson and I was ready for bed instead of a lesson in the kitchen, a lot was bound to go wrong! We started out with the sponge, we had to split the egg yolks and whites and whisk the sugar into the eggs yolks first, then make a french meringue - by hand, more vigorous whisking (seriously, there are a line of kitchen aid mixers on the shelves right above our heads begging to be used, they're sat there looking down on us, taunting us, mocking us, laughing at us! Just let us use them already!!). Shouldn't complain too much though, any remnants of bingo wings should disappear in a couple of weeks at this rate, and I'll have arms like a body builder!. The meringue and egg yolks were folded together and the flour added gently. This was then piped onto a tray and baked quickly. Meanwhile, working in pairs when had to prepare the bavarois. Starting with what's best described as a chocolate custard, gelatine was then added and then cooled over an ice bath and folded in to whipped cream - guess who got to whip said cream! We then had to trim the sponges and apply a heavily rum laced imbibage. It was my partners turn to be heavy handed with the rum this week, she got absolutely no argument from me though! The bavarois was added in the middle and then left to set in the chiller. Then it was on to the chocolate decoration. Earlier in the lesson we had to spread melted chocolate onto the back of a tray and put it into the fridge to set, now it was time to arm ourselves with a scraper and quickly and confidently scrape long strands (which hopefully ravelled up nicely) and shape the and place them on a small cake card. The aim was to create a frilly looking round pyramid. Mine seemed to ravel straight up into a tight cigar shape so I had to quickly unravel it again(I have naturally hot hands, useless for chocolate work!), and frill it up a bit, all while avoiding it melting and breaking - not the easiest job in the world, but one I'll look forward to trying again! To make up for a not so great second layer I put more chocolate on top - I thought it looked ok and jazzed it up a bit...chef on the other hand thought there was a tad too much chocolate and joked that he couldn't see the other students at the other end of the kitchen because it was so tall/big. I fear he might have been a bit delirious from a long day, not quite the full ticket, or just devoid of any sense. How can you possibly have too much chocolate? Thats like saying there's too much sand on a beach, or too much money in your monthly wages - sheer bloody nonsense! Still, got good feedback for it apart from that and was really happy with the end result! Chef was really happy with how everyone did and said it was a good lesson. He'd made some toasted hazelnut fudge during the lesson, to prep for a lecture he was doing the next day, and let us all taste a sample - it was very nice and a treat to end the lesson on. Really enjoyed this lesson.
My Black Forest Gateau! Really happy with how this turned out, aside from a little balls up with the chocolate, didn't quite get it spread properly and it left me with a few broken shards, so a couple were more like mosaics than full triangles - it was my first time doing it properly, it'll come eventually! This tasted really nice, and the cherries come soaked in kirsch, and we put more kirsch in the imbibage, I LOVE Black Forest Gateau so this was a real treat to make and eat.
My chocolate charlotte - you can just about see it under the mountain of chocolate on top! The bavarois in the middle was really really nice. And I was quite happy with the sponge around the outside, I know how to improve that a bit more now though, and make the diagonal lines more defined. This was a chocoholics dream and a dish I fully intend to recreate at some point. Maybe with even more chocolate on the top, ha!
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