Week 8 (Superior Patisserie)

Week 8 was the start of our sugar module. The module is spread across two weeks and in this first week we started with poured sugar centrepieces and pulled sugar roses.

Monday morning we were in early for a demo, the chef showed us how to get the sugar ready for pouring. It needs to be heated, with water and glucose, up to 161°C. He showed us a number of techniques to get different textures. Examples being; coral, with the sugar poured into a jug filled with ice, bubble sugar, with the sugar being poured over alcohol paper, and various moulded and textured pieces. The chef built two structures, to give us ideas and both looked really nice. We were then given around 30 minutes to come up with our own designs before getting into the kitchen.

Once in the kitchen I got my station set up with the silicone noodles, moulds and tin foil etc. ready for pouring, while the sugar dissolved. My sugar seemed to take an age to come to temperature, however we eventually got there (after a panic with my thermometer, it wouldn’t switch on at all, even after a battery change…apart from at the end of the lesson, when it wasn’t needed and suddenly came back to life – typical!). I’d washed down the sides of the pan, however I don’t think I did it enough. I poured my first few pieces and they came out really well, then it started to go down hill. I think some crystallised sugar on the edges got into the solution, and I swirled the pan too much as I added the colour so the crystallisation reaction started. The pieces started getting worse and the sugar, that should have remained clear, had gone cloudy. It got to the point I could no longer use it, however there were still two technical elements I wanted to do, alas I couldn’t. I cut my losses and started assembling, luckily it came together ok, but looked barer than I planned it too. I explained to the chef what happened whilst getting marked, and although he said I was missing a couple of elements the overall design was good, I’d got good height but the colouring was a bit bland and it needed more elements to give it depth. Useful feedback for next time…if there is a next time I do a poured sugar centre piece!! Luckily it shattered when I got down to the changing rooms, I was happy because that meant I didn’t have to be careful taking it home. On the downside I couldn’t launch it down the garden and watch contently as it hit the ground and burst into an explosion of sugary diamonds.  Still, after all the trouble it gave me I was glad to see it in thousands of shards on the floor (the cleaners probably weren’t, sorry! I cleaned up as much as I could!)

Tuesday morning was another demo, it was pulled sugar this time. It was the same sugar method for the poured decorations however this mixture had tartaric acid in. The chef then folded the molten mass and worked with it, eventually pulling the sugar and creating a sugar rose, leaves and a ribbon. The chef also showed us blown sugar. Air was pumped into the molten sugar and moulded. He made a blown sugar ball and also started making a blown sugar dolphin, unfortunately as he was sticking the fins on it shattered into a thousand pieces in his hands! It was heart breaking to watch, but also made me a bit more apprehensive about the rose, after my disappointment with the sculpture the day before. It’s a really tough one, I want to do more with the sugar and play with it and see what I can create, but it looks so fiddly and delicate that I think I’d be driven insane, get disheartened and get mad every time something breaks!

After this we had a lecture on careers, it was good to hear how a couple of the chefs started out. We also had a guest speaker, Cyrus Todiwala (I didn’t recognise the name but I recognised the face!), he’s done some TV work but is known for the Spice Café restaurant he owns. He’s had a hugely varied and interesting career and stressed the importance of passion and drive. He gave a really good talk and was great to listen to. After this we were ushered into the next classroom for the careers ‘event’. To call it an event was a bit of a stretch, it was a few tables set up with various people from the industry there. I had a couple of issues with it. Yes there was variety in terms of hotels, restaurants, private catering, however that was it. I don’t want to work in these types of establishments, so I had a quick scan of the room and left. Perhaps I should have spent time mingling and asking questions, however I was disappointed they didn’t have chocolatiers, cake decorators or people that had set up their own businesses. On one hand you could argue they had variety, on the other however you could also argue they’d failed to cater to anyone that didn’t want to forge a career in the hotel and restaurant setting. I’ve already got a couple of chocolate shops in mind to write too and ask if they’ll take me for some work experience, if that goes well I’ll get back in touch with the chefs at the school and ask what they suggest regarding potential paths to follow in the world of chocolate, in that respect the school is great. They continue to support you even when you’ve graduated.

Wednesday was the pulled sugar rose practical, I was a tad apprehensive given the last sugar lesson, however this lesson went MUCH better! I got the sugar on, coloured it yellow and added the three drops of acid when it hit 137°C, then cooked it all the way up to 163°C. After that we had to pour it out onto a mat, put the gloves on (I triple gloved and the sugar was still hot!) and started moving it around so it became a little more solid. Once solid enough we had to pull it and fold it on itself to get air into it and make it satiny and shiny. Despite having three pairs of gloves on it was bloody hot! It must have been around 140°C, however you slowly get used to working with it. The sugar was kept under the heat lamps to maintain it in a workable condition. Then the pulling began, we made each of the petals and then held them over the end of a naked flame to just melt the edges so they could be stuck together as they were pulled. They were extremely delicate and I cracked and shattered a couple to begin with! My first attempt at the rose was abandoned because I was getting my eye in and wanted to do a better job, turned out to be the right decision! I was really really pleased with the way the rose turned out, the chef was very complimentary as well. I explained how relieved I was this sugar lesson had gone well because of the crystallisation issue in the lesson before and the chef was extremely helpful in explaining different issues that could have caused it. He’d also been really helpful in the lesson showing me how to pull the outer petals larger, I was so glad to have the chef we had, rather than the one in the previous lesson (the same one I had the issue with in the tea party lesson!). I was really glad this lesson went well because I didn’t want to dislike sugar work altogether, and after today, I’m excited to play with it a bit more!

The poured sugar centrepiece, looking back on it I'm actually really proud of it for a first attempt! I was desperate to do more on it though....maybe there will be a next time - I'm not a quitter!

Two angles of the rose, I'm extremely proud of this!! 

Week 7 (Superior Patisserie)

This week was a short week, however it included the mock exam! The end of term is coming far too quickly now.

Monday was dedicated to one whole module. We had a demo at 8am and then two back-to-back kitchen sessions making what we’d just seen. This was the modern tart module, not just your traditional (but still amazing) tart like a Bakewell or treacle tart, this had about six or seven different technical components and was a kind of skills test. The chef showed us two different flavours to recap on a number of the techniques, then it was into the kitchen.

We had a variety of different recipes and everybody had to pick a number and that number corresponded to the combination of flavours your have to make. All tarts had to include the following layers:

Sweet pastry base,

Soft layer (such as apple compote or jam),

Crisp layer (this was generally a tempered chocolate layer with additions such as freeze dried fruit or feuilantine wafers),

Sponge layer (daquiose, piped sponge or success),

Fruit mousse, which was glazed with a coloured white chocolate glaze ,

The tart was then decorated with fresh fruit and pulled sugar decorations.

 

I picked number 11 (at random), so my tart was made up of the following flavours:

Sweet pastry base,

Raspberry jam layer (no it wasn’t from a jar!),

Dark chocolate orange crunch,

Cocoa piped sponge,

Guava mousse,

Coloured white chocolate glaze, with fresh fruit and pulled sugar work.

My biggest headaches were the sugar work (that’s next weeks module, so I’m not overly worried about that), and the white chocolate glaze. Everyone had trouble getting it on smoothly though. Too warm and it ran off and showed the mousse underneath, too cool and you had uneven patches and giant drips down the side. I had to glaze it twice because I put it on too warm initially. The fruit managed to hide the odd drip I had! The sweet pastry also dipped a little in the corners – my fault for trying a square tart, everyone that tried the square shape had the same problem though. Overall however, I was very pleased with it and the chef gave me some good comments too. We had to complete everything by 5pm, the group were on a serious mission though, and we all finished by 3:30pm!

Tuesday was another 8am start, however today was the mock exam! We had a second chance to practice our entremets for the final exam. I made a couple of small changes from the entremets module, and that was to use an orange caramel glaze instead of a jelly one. I also ditched the stencil and used a scraper to make orange lines (the horrid bright red didn’t make a reappearance either!). It came out ok, I need to make a few more changes before the exam though. I really really like the flavour of the poppy seed tuile, however I think it’s taking up too much time to get done, I had to sacrifice the dark tempered chocolate decoration for it in the mock. I also need to look at increasing the chocolate mousse recipe, having previously halved it because of wastage, because I didn’t have enough in the exam. I got one dessert perfectly levelled off, the entremets mostly filled and the final dessert was a hollow sponge and meringue cup! I saw the funny side, better it happen in the mock than the actual exam! It was really annoying though, because I was going well up to that point.  I was quite happy with the chocolate piping on the plate – finally! And the crème anglais came out really well. I really wanted everything to go right today, however most of the elements are there, it’s like I’m on the home stretch of the marathon and just need to run the remaining .2 of a mile to get across the line. A few more tweaks here and there and I think I’ll be ready.

And that was it for the week. A short week sadly!

The final tart, they said they wanted bright colour in the glaze, so they got bright colour in the glaze! 

The inside of the tart, I wasn't sure about how all the different flavours would work at first, but it tasted great. 

The entremets, I think I'm going to change the tuile, really not happy with how it looks here. The glaze it MUCH better than the last time though!

I have to admit to winging the design a bit, I wasn't 100% settled on one, but this one I quite like. It's simple but effective, and holds the creme anglais in place. 

Week 6 (Superior Patisserie)

This week was our tea party event.

Monday was an early start, and we went straight into the kitchens armed with our group’s recipes and time plans. We got a good start and kept on plan well.  A couple of mistakes were made, our mousse set too much before spreading it, so had to be reheated a little so we could spread it over the sponge, and I managed to split some ganache – not my finest moment! It wasn’t helpful that we had a chef that hadn’t really done the tea party event before so wasn’t sure what was going on at some points. Some of the recipes are way out as well, some you need to scale up, others leave you with ridiculous amounts of leftovers. Keeping up with that wasn’t easy, but we got there. At one point the chef really irritated me. I’d been working hard all morning, we hadn’t had a break, I literally stopped for no more than 20 seconds to swig some water, because I was getting a headache, the chef saw and told me I needed to start picking up the pace and delivering now. One of my teammates heard this and looked at me completely surprised and disgusted at what he’d said! My mouth just said “yes chef” to keep the peace, my head however was screaming “oh just p*ss off you utterly useless twat”, I felt exhausted and annoyed, there’s nothing wrong with me having a drink in class and I knew I’d been working hard keeping the sub-team on track AND delivering, so I’m not apologising for thinking that!

It was a really busy couple of sessions, and despite a couple of setbacks we still managed to get ahead of the time plan, so got ourselves in a good place ready for the next day. This wasn’t the end of the day though, we had to drop our knife kits off in our lockers and run back up to one of the classrooms for the wine lecture. This lesson was mostly about sweet wines, although I think the lecturer got the sense we were all really tired and not really feeling the lesson so he started to rattle through it quickly (thankfully!).  I can’t tell you what he talked about in the first 15 minutes of the lesson, I was too distracted going through the tea party paperwork and updating the time plan to make sure we were clear on what needed doing the next day so we could hit the ground running. We tried four wines and paired each against some apple tart (which looked about 3 days old and tasted horribly bland!), lemon curd, custard (which tasted suspiciously like Ambrosia – for which I have no complaints!), chocolate and crystallised ginger. I went through the motions and only really liked one of the wines, the others were ok, I wasn’t really feeling the lesson at all after such a busy morning. So I can now firmly say the least enjoyable lessons of the whole course have been the wine lectures!

Tuesday seemed to whizz by once we got into the kitchen, luckily we had a different chef, which helped massively (he’s great at being encouraging and keeping spirits up, as well as being approachable and helpful, he’s also a thoroughly nice chap!) because in the first hour of the lesson everything seemed to unravel from the day before. The raspberry glacage hadn’t been cooked enough (which irritated me a bit because the chef the day before had checked it and said it was ok) so hadn’t set on top of the galaxie. We had to scrape it off and boil the leftovers down in 4 pans however two ended up overcooked! Also I’d made some tempered chocolate decorations on a transfer sheet the day before and when they were unmoulded it was discovered I’d applied the chocolate on the wrong side and they’d come off the sheet completely blank! I was horrified, as I’d done it to help another group out while doing our decorations (which came out ok!). Alas, we got over the issues and everything started coming together nicely. Each dish got portioned and decorated, and the eclairs were painstakingly fondant iced. The chef showed me one dipped but I was quicker running an éclair through a slow stream of it falling from the spatula, so opted for that method. Some sub-groups finished before others, so we all helped each other out at the end of the lesson to make sure everything got done, it was really nice to be part of such a great team. Everything was assembled on the trolleys (there was SO much!) and taken upstairs. Another sub-team leader and I stayed behind to cook the scones, so they were fresh. The rooms were set up very quickly once we’d assembled with Group A, and we were each given our jobs. I was on the tea station, back of house, for the first part of the event. It was very busy with the rush of pots and cups of 4 different types of tea to make! After that I was front of house serving one of the tables, it had died down a bit by this point though, so I got to go and see my parents and sister quickly. After that we had to have our five items marked by the chef. He was happy with all of them, and the group were very complimentary of my leadership skills, which was very nice to hear. I was extremely proud of how our sub-group did, each of them really worked hard and did a fantastic job, it was a privilege to work with them. We managed to break a record for getting cleaned up as well, it stood at 6:02pm, however we were cleared up and assembled for the debrief at 5:48pm – groups A & B at their best!!

I was really tired before the tea party event, however once it started I felt awake and ready to go. We had a very special guest at the event; Mich Turner, a famous lady in the cake world, she made William and Kate’s wedding cake! Everyone I spoke to said how much they enjoyed everything and it was nice to see all of our hard work being appreciated. I was on such a high after the event, and having my family there enjoying it meant the world to me. There were two full trolleys left of food at the end so I took two boxes full home – I didn’t eat it all, I took it into the office!

Wednesday morning we had the mid-term review. I had a good chat with the chef and got my mark breakdown, which is averaging out at 77%! I’m very happy with that. Superior term has been a big step up and I’ve never been quite sure whether I’ve been hitting the mark or not. Just need to keep up the pace and pass the final exam now!

My sisters pictures from the event! This was when I was out on the floor, serving my designated table (table 2!)

Group A's efforts. There were around 40-50 of each item on the tray. 

Group B's (my group) efforts! My sub-team made the four dishes in the far left column; Marble cake, Galaxie, Parisien, Pistachio eclair and the fruit scone! Again, around 40-50 of each item on the tray was made!

The buffet table/display. We had to make larger items for the display, all of which looked really nice once they were assembled. A great team effort!

The room set up and ready to go, all we needed was the guests! And yes, we did have to set the tables and arrange the cutlery etc., on top of having already made all the patisserie items! 

Week 5 (Superior Patisserie)

How did we get to week 5 already, its going far too quickly! This week was the Entremets module. I spent the whole weekend gathering recipes and designing how I wanted it to look. Most of the recipes were drawn on dishes we’d made before and one I had to research a bit, the cremeux insert. We’ve only ever done a caramel one at school, however I wanted a cinnamon one, without the caramel, so had to adapt the recipe - it's got two chances, it'll either work or it won't! There was a lot of work to do, a time plan to fill in and loads of other things!

Monday morning was an early start, I have to admit to getting a bit tired of the early starts, they’re slowly becoming more difficult! The first lesson was a demo on the entremets and different techniques. It was useful to see, however it sent my carefully planned timings to cock! I had some things in the wrong order, so had to scribble notes down to try and give myself a fighting chance.

Straight after the demo we were in to another double kitchen session. After a debrief from the Head Pastry Chef we got started. I was conscious I’d chosen a time consuming dish (stupidly!) for the base of my entremets so had to kick off the lesson multitasking. I got a Swiss meringue on the go first, then while it was on the machine I made a crème anglais for the cremeux insert. The cremeux had the gelatine added and then the butter and then it went into the blast chiller to set fully. That’s when I said a little prayer that I’d reworked the recipe properly! The Swiss meringue was topped with chopped almonds and then baked for a good hour and a half in a low oven. In the meantime I made the stencil paste for the sponge and the almond joconde sponge. I had a bit of a mare on the sponge, I was supposed to separate some of the whites from the egg for a meringue (the aeration in the sponge), however I got flustered and forgot! Luckily I noticed the mistake before I started making it! The sponge actually came out really nice. I applied some white chocolate to the meringue to try and keep it crisp inside the entremets, I tempered the chocolate but it took ages to set, so in the end the fridge helped for 5 minutes. The base and the sponge were assembled in the ring and then I demoulded the cremeux, it came out really well so I was happy with the recipe. Then it was on to the mousse. It started well, made a nice chocolate crème anglais and got the cream whipped etc., however I forgot to bring the chocolate anglais to setting point before adding the cream. It took way longer than expected to set the mousse and change it from a sloppy mess to something that would hold when piped into the entremets…it also needed to support the oversized cremeux! It eventually got there and I got the top levelled off and everything into the fridge to set.

After a 15 minute break I went back into the kitchen and started the chocolate and tuile decoration. I tempered both white and dark chocolate – why make it easy for myself and just do one!  I made some white chocolate spirals and a dark chocolate dragonfly and butterfly. Rather than use the stencil paste I’d already made I stupidly decided to make the poppy seed tuiles, these were caramel based and involved cooking glucose and sugar to 170°C, then adding the poppy seeds and a little butter to keep it a bit pliable to work with. That bit went fine, the part I did less well was the rolling out and cutting. This stuff is boiling hot and it’s really difficult to work with (why the hell did I decided to do this!), by the time I’d peeled it off the mat and cut it, it wasn’t as thin as I’d hoped to get it, plus I failed miserably at cutting the holes out of the middle. The one plus point was that I managed to shape it as desired though!

It was a long day, however after the initial disappointment that my original plans were more a triumph of optimism over reality, I had some thoughts on how to improve and tweak the recipe and got excited about the entremets again. I was excited for the next day to see how it turned out and tasted together.

Tuesday was a luxury, an 11:30 start and only one lesson! Our Entremets had set in the fridge overnight, we just needed to glaze them and then arrange the tuile and chocolate decorations on top. My glaze was mandarin and orange flavoured, it took a while to get to setting point but came together ok. I didn’t apply it very well though, it was a bit patchy, I’ve done much better! I wasn’t happy with the tuiles from the day before either, they were far too thick. So I spread the remains on a tray and re-melted them, the chef helped me get it thinner and then I shaped them. They came out much better, so I might still use them in the final dish.

We got more feedback from the chef than usual, she went into a lot of detail on what looked/tasted good and what needed to be done better. In my case, it didn’t look balanced enough, the decoration was good but the stencil was too red, it didn’t fit with the theme, the colour of the glaze didn’t look good against the dark mousse either. For my final exam she suggested I change it for an orange caramel glaze – best get practicing! The cremeux insert was too thick, and a little grainy, the butter wasn’t quite blended in at the right temperature. The cocoa powder needed to be cooked out of the mousse a bit as well, and the white chocolate on the Swiss meringue was a little too thick. Its all really useful information and things I can work on to tweak and refine the recipe to make it better. The good thing is the elements worked and the flavours went together really well. Just cosmetic and technical elements to be improved. For a first attempt at an entremets completely of my design I’m really happy with the results (on reflection, I wasn’t in class though because it didn’t look good with the colours and glaze etc.!).

Wednesday afternoon we had the lecture for the student tea party. An overall team leader is chosen from the group, to coordinate everything. Sub-team leaders were also picked to oversee teams of 3-4 people, who were each in charge of 4-5 dishes to create for the tea party event next week. I was chosen as a sub-team leader! There’s four of us in the team and we have to make 5 dishes; Parisien, Galaxie, Pistachio eclairs, marble cake and sultana scones. We had to provide the chef with a time plan for the tea party lessons, an equipment list and a list of all ingredients we need, with amounts. It was a lot to pull together in just two days, especially given I was working during the day as well! However we pulled together as a team and got it done. There is a lot to do next week and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t nervous! But I’m sure we’ll come together as a team and do a good job – fingers crossed!

The finished entremets, whilst I was happy with most of the elements it's plain to see it doesn't quite work out and balance overall. Something I'll be looking to improve over the coming weeks leading up to the final exam. 

The cross section. The cremeux was too thick and caused much hilarity when it was cut open!!