Pastry week 2

This week, we made the infamous Baba Au Rhum Vieux  - it's essentially a brioche recipe baked very very dry, and soaked in syrup and rum till it puffs up so much and so wobbly!  The one in the grey background was my baba (I used a lot of rum in mine!).  Using (more or less) the same brioche recipe, we made the Alsatian Kugelhopf, and a sorta puff pastry tart.  In Italy, you will have the Panettone.

And more creative tarts!  omg, I've never seen a diamond shape mini-tart before.  It's lemon mousse with an apricot jelly centre, sprayed with pink chocolate and resting on a crunchy pistachio tart base.

The ones we made in class, Eskimchococassis, (quite a mouthful, and when you bite into one, it's quite a mouthful too, lol), are made to ressemble an ice cream stick resting on crunchy choc tart bases sandwiched with choc mousse.  The "ice cream" - eskimo - are made from freezing a blackcurrant (cassis) jelly centre in a tube filled with delicious! choc mousse, dipped into dark choc glaze, and ends dipped into either almonds or pistachio.  

Magnum, anyone?  Eva Longoria, this might be your strongest temptation yet!

Continuation:  The end of the week saw 2 more variations of creative tarts. One was coconut mousse tart with pineapple topping, the one we made in the end.

Another came as a rectangular block of pistachio mousse on a Bretonne shortbread, you might ask what is so 'tart' about this, shouldn't it be a mousse cake?  No, because like a classic tart, you have a crunchy base, and pastry cream (or its variations) has been used.  You can see a cross section of the apricot jelly 'buttons'.

Cuisine Week 2

I have a break on (most) Wednesdays this term.  Take the opportunity to upload more regularly. 

Dessert:  Baked bananas in its skin, with red fruits sauce and banana sorbert.

Starter:  Foie gras flan with morel sauce and herb salad.

Main:  Hake fish wrapped in parma ham and grilled baby eggplants, side of olives and fava beans with turned carrots/celeriac root/zucchini, sauce fresh tomato and olive oil with herbs.  You will see 2 platings here, the one with a more yellow background (landscape) is the chef's demo, the (portrait) one with dots of sauce is my dish served to the chef.  

Continuation:  We looked at a creamy pumpkin soup with truffles and smoked duck breasts; main:  pot-au-feu of monkfish in a herb butter sauce.  The photo with the snowpeas radiating outwards on a dish is chef's, mine was a centralised plating with 2 'discs' of chopped herbs at opposite corners.  Dessert:  Liquorice flavoured panna cotta with some crunchy sugar studded choux allumettes! 

First of Pastry (Superieur)

We started classes mid-week, as such, we only had 1 lesson so far, and thus few photos.  It seems we always start the term with 'travelling' cakes - sort of pound cakes that you can bring along, as opposed to mousses and cream which looks pretty, and will never survive out of the house.  

The first, a chestnut cake, and on the right, a carrot cake topped with mini panna cotta whose centre is filled with apricot jelly - looks like a mini fried egg, yeah - cute.  For practical, we made some tube cakes, filled with strawberry mousse with a coating of banana compote inside; next are florentins (sticky almond cookies) half covered with choc.  Simple, to start us off.... it will soon be a lot of heat (for sugarworks), and stress (chocolate showpiece) and the finale of our very own creation of a cake!

First of Cuisine (Superieur)

In Superior Cuisine, we open up our horizon to take in international influences and modern restaurant menus, while keeping a very central French core.  A good example was on Thursday, we made some Tandoori spiced fish, but the sauce-making and side dishes are very French.  Parmesan cheese from Italy are grated to make crisps to go with asparagus.  The next starter dish, however, is typically French - frog's legs in herb sauce and garlic puree.  The main we made yesterday was a double chop of lamb, with truffle coating, green beans wrapped in bacon, and artichoke crisps.

The desserts are Blancmanger with kiwi coulis, and red fruits melba with chibouste (personally, I think the chef made too much chibouste).  

If you think that the mains are more complicated in Superior, you are right.  There are a lot more steps to get to the final product, and this is the term when we work in teams of 3 or 4.  

We distribute the work process.  E.g. instead of 3 person fileting 3 fishes, 1 person will filet 3 fishes, while the other one starts with the vegetables (quantity for 3 persons), and the other starts with the side dishes (also for 3 persons).  The actual cooking is done by that person, but however, you should just watch out (in case he makes some mistakes, and correct him gently).  Once all the products are done, the actual plating is done individually, according to your creativity.  The result is, the cooking and taste will prob be similiar for the 3, but what shines out will be your presentation.

I should remember to take photos of my plating next, before I rush off to present to chef!  But you know what a rush of adrenaline it is as the clock inches towards service time!

Results for Intermediate!

This just in!!

I got 2nd for Intermediate Cuisine and 4th for Intermediate Pastry!!  I'm very happy!

On the whole, our averages were quite close, but the overall class average for both disciplines moved down.  That means we all didn't do as well as in Basic.  My averages were a point or two lower than last terms' as well.  However, I guess I manage to scrape past a few other contesters to try to remain in the Top 5!  I don't know how it will be for Superior, but I'm excited to find out!

Right now, my friends and I are gonna kick back some beer bottles!