Week 3 was the end of the chocolate module…and it ended in
style! We made an entirely edible chocolate box, completely from white and dark
chocolate.
Monday was an early start, first up was a demo for the
chocolate box. The chef showed us a number of techniques and ways to decorate out
boxes. He made a nice tear drop shaped box, with stripy cigarettes, shards of
chocolate, a stippled and stripped ribbon and tall spirals. It looked lovely,
and an extremely impressive job in just under 3 hours! The only trouble was he
suggested we go into our lesson with stencils already cut so we had every
minute to spare making the pieces for the box, our lessons were back to back
though! We had a break of about 20-30 minutes luckily, which was just enough
time to gather the knife kit etc. and make the stencils. Fortunately we weren’t
assembling it all today, so there was also time in the evening to design it
properly. We had to show a number of techniques and elements to the box though,
so had to make some decorations based on the following;
- 1 top and bottom piece, using a textured sheet,
- 1 rigid strip for the middle of the box,
- 1 overlay piece,
- piped shell work,
- wood graining,
- freestanding piped design,
- free-flow piping on the box,
- stippling,
- and finally stripe work!
The practical lesson went mostly without a hitch, I also
managed to keep both chocolates in temper the whole lesson, which I was
particularly pleased about! The only issues I had were the cigarettes, the dark
chocolate set before the white so they didn’t roll properly at all. I ended up
with shards, jaggedy lines and a big fat cigar at the end of it – needless to
say they weren’t used on the final piece! I also panicked because of the time
running out and my free-flow chocolate piping decorations were shockingly bad.
Again these didn’t make the cut either! Alas, everything was packed away
securely and that was that for the day.
Tuesday was a busy day – 3 lessons back to back! It began
with a demo on an extravagant chocolate Easter egg. It wasn’t just an egg, it
was an egg studded with nuts and spices, sat on a base of half an egg shell and
a bronze luster dusted chocolate bar. Then on top of the egg sat another
chocolate bar, a piped bronze dusted butterfly, a chocolate flower and then
decorated with more spirals and leaves. It’s very hard to do it full justice by
description alone, so here it is in all it’s glory!
I’m seriously inspired by this, and once there’s time to
breathe and play in the kitchen again I’ll certainly be giving something like
this a practice!
We then got into the practical session and it was time to
assemble the boxes. Luckily all the pieces had survived! I quickly tempered
some white chocolate, while the person next to me tempered some dark (we
shared, to save time!). I got the piping done on the overlay and then the
ribbon assembled, it was very delicate work. I also made a new piped butterfly,
with the template I made the night before it worked out MUCH better than the
rushed abysmal effort the day before! Only one mishap in the assembly, I was
lifting the lid up and checking everything fit in place properly, and the
corner promptly snapped off – bugger. The chef was stood a mere meter away from
me, so I checked he wasn’t looking and chuckled to myself when I realised he
wasn’t, turned both pieces over and smothered some white chocolate over the
crack and he was none the wiser when it set. In fact it’s still in one piece
three days later when I write this! Everything else came out ok, the one chore
being the little shell piping we had to pipe EVERY. SINGLE. BLOODY. EDGE. with,
given that I’d done a triangle, there were many. Never let it be said I shy
away from a challenge! I managed to just about finish it in the allotted 4
hours and I really really enjoyed it, I could have happily spent another 4
hours making it! Got some really good comments from the chef too. There were
some aspects I know I need to improve on, but I was so inspired by this class,
it really was great.
That wasn’t the end of Tuesday, we still had another demo to
attend. It was the beginning of the next module – Restaurant Desserts. It
wasn’t the usual demo though, the chef had a presentation ready and we had to
fill in some information in our folders, there was then a group task. We were
spit off into smaller groups and given themes, ours was the ‘Oscars night
party’. We had to design a themed dessert menu around it, along with prices,
ensure it was balanced and then present it to the other groups. It was a really
fun lesson, our groups had some very creative ideas! The chef was very pleased
with everyone’s efforts. The chef also said something at the end of the lesson
that really struck a chord with me, he said we, the 40-50 people sat in front
of him, would be the stars of the future. It’s difficult to describe the
feeling it evoked, however it was one of hope and burning ambition, I’ve
learned so much at the school and now I want to keep learning and developing to
see how far I can truly progress!
Wednesday afternoon was the last lesson of the week. It was
another demo for restaurant desserts, however this one was more centred around
chocolate and tuile biscuit decorations. We were shown a number of different
ones, sesame seed tuiles, poppy seed ones (which were poppy seeds cooked in
sugar – very nice!), brandy snaps and the tuiles we were shown in earlier
terms. The tuiles were shaped and cut in a number of different ways, to give us
ideas for the upcoming module next week, and for our final exams which will
require both elements! It seemed at the start like a very rushed lesson, but I
finally realised what was going on when the chef explained it at the end. Got
some work to do over the weekend to get some stencils and pictures to design
for piping over…as well as work to do on the portfolio!
My finished chocolate box! I'm very proud of this and very happy with how it turned out. It was really nice chocolate too!
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