Rose, rose, I love you......

It's no secret that I love roses, and what better way to appreciate these beauties than to eat them.  Rose flavored mousse with a sandwich of milk choc cream, that is.  You see all the rose petals on it.  The other cake was a Vanilla and White Chocolate mousse with Red fruits base, sprayed with dark choc for contrast.  (Unfortunately, chef also decorated it with some leftover rose petals, but this cake has a dark choc sponge base, you can make it out.)

The following practical, we made small dome cakes of lychee and orange cream, as well as Hazelnut praliné mousse with crispy centre.  (Like my choc deco topping?)  It was such an indulgence to bite into one!

More puffs.......

One of my earliest recollection of French pastry was.... the classic marbled millefeuille!!  Din and Moira had the (good?) fortune to taste it last weekend during they trip over here.  Sorry for the rest of the guys, it should be consumed within a day for better taste!  Another variation is the hazelnut praline type.

Next, chocolate souffle with orange ice-cream, and a type of brioche popular in the south of France in replacement of northern France's King's cake, eaten during Epiphany, which you see here in a golden disc of puff pastry with crème frangipane (almond and pastry cream) -Pithivier.

Pastry week 4 and 5

Back in week 2, we made Genoise sponge, these versatile (dry) sponges hold up creams and fillings very well, and can be turned into a variety of cakes.

By the way, I might have to add that at Basic level, we do all whipping by hand, no machines at all, and making praliné cake (Mascotte au Praliné )or the white cheese mousse cake (Schuss) is torture for your arms. 

 I'm amazed how the petite Thai girls in the class man

age.

Next you see a trio of pot de crèmes - Earl grey, vanilla and caramel, and the tiramisu' turned into plated desserts.  

This week, we started on chocolates.

  We made a chocolate

 mousse cake with chocolate genoise sponge (Mogador) - delicious!  We made artworks made with chocolate drawings and writings used to decorate cakes.

Black forest cakes.

Choux Pastry, Roast Chicken, Omelette

This week in Pastry, we started on Choux Pastry.  The light airy crust that holds the filling together.  "Beard Papa" was the rave all over town in Singapore about 2 yrs ago.

The trick in Choux pastry is that you want to cook the flour, but cool it down to incorporate the eggs.

It's really low in fat... whipped cream is just full of air.... 

I think these swans look evil - they look like the boat-mobil of The Penguin in Batman.

100 baht/bag? Nah... more!

On the other hand, in Cuisine, we finished the week with a roast chicken and jus, with jardiniere de leg

umes.  Not easy carving the artichokes into little saucers to hold the veg!  

The classic French omelette.

To finish up with Choux Pastry, we made Paris-Brest, with praliné cream.

More praliné preparation to come....