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!!
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