The practicals this semester are way different than last semester. Rather than showing up and being given an item to make from memory, we were given certain parameters and get to plan our own menus. For chocolates, we have to make one truffle, one bonbon, and one molded chocolate, incorporating all three types of chocolate (dark, milk, and white) and a fruit and a nut at some point. I decided to make milk chocolate and amaretto truffles rolled in toasted almonds, dark chocolate bonbons with white chocolate raspberry filling, and soft caramels dipped in dark chocolate for my molded chocolate. It's the soft caramel recipe that scares me because I have never tried this specific one, and I have had trouble with other soft caramel recipes at home - I seem to always take them off the heat too soon and they turn to mush. That would be a major problem for my exam because they have to be firm enough to cut in perfect squares and dip in chocolate - part of the grade is based on appearance. But I went through all of the other molded chocolate recipes and just couldn't get excited about any of the others, so here goes nothing!
In Contemporary Cakes, we had to draw a card with the "inspiration" for our cake. About half the class drew classic cookies (chocolate chip, oatmeal raisin, etc) and the other half was candy. I drew Twix, and I'm actually pretty excited with that choice. We have to have a crunchy base, a sponge cake, an insert, and a mousse, and of course a garnish. Since a Twix has three very specific components, it makes it kind of easy to choose what my different layers will be. And I am really excited about my idea for the garnish, I just hope it turns out how I am imagining it in my head!
Anyways, here is a little catch-up of what I made in class since my last post. In Chocolates, it has been more bonbons and molded chocolates, and then last week we started learning taffy and nougat. However, cutting the recipes in fourths like usual made them too small and everyone's taffy and nougat turned out rock hard, so we are going to redo them next week.
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| My first molded chocolates - Orange butter ganache coated in dark chocolate |
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| My "toucan" bonbons - white chocolate with two layers of ganache inside - passion fruit and mango |
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| My pecan and peanut divinity - too dry, but still tasty! |
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| My hard-as-a-rock molasses taffy |
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| Bonbons with Refresh tea infused ganache - didn't think I would like these but they were DELICIOUS! |
In Contemporary Cakes, we have been coming up with our own recipes based on inspirations that Chef assigns us. For the first one, he just gave us two flavors and we had to have a crunch base, a cake, a fruit insert, and two bavarians (mousses). My flavors were passion fruit and coconut, so I made a coconut Japonaise (meringue) for the base, passion fruit bavarian, passion fruit gelee, jaconde (sponge cake) soaked with coconut rum, and coconut bavarian. Then I topped it with more passion fruit gelee and garnished it white chocolate designs and toasted coconut. I was very pleased with the appearance of this cake, but the flavors weren't my favorite. I'm not a huge coconut fan anyways, but both bavarians didn't have much flavor, and the gelee had WAY too much gelatin and was super rubbery.
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| My cake diagram |
The next week was all classic cakes and pies - apple pie, German chocolate cake, lemon meringue pie, etc. We had to take the classic recipe and make it "contemporary." I drew carrot cake and I couldn't have been more excited. One of my favorite classic cakes and I have been stuck on the carrot-cream cheese-lemon combo since our wedding (it was the top tier). My partner and I decided on a graham cracker crust (fancied up with some cinnamon, brown sugar, and walnuts), two layers of carrot cake, a cream cheese mousse, a lemon curd insert, a lemon mousse, and a caramelized jaconde on the outside. We garnished it with lemon curd, candied pecans, and grated carrot shards (ok, Chef made the carrots for us because we didn't have the equipment at school....). I loved the way it looked, especially when he cut it open and we could see all the layers an different colors. I also loved the way it tasted, although the lemon overpowered the cream cheese mousse a little.
In fact, I loved it so much I just can't seem to get off of my carrot cake kick, and I made carrot cake cupcakes filled with lemon curd and iced with cream cheese icing yesterday for Trev's work meeting. I think lemon curd might be my favorite thing I have learned in culinary school so far - it is so easy and sooo yummy!
I also made a berry trifle yesterday for Trev and I for the 4th - angel food cake, strawberries, blueberries, sugar-free vanilla pudding, and whipped cream. It was so easy (I may have used a few shortcuts) and I think it is a perfect summer dessert - light, refreshing, cool, and of course utilizes some of those berries I can't resist buying when they are on sale. To me, the 4th is just not a cake holiday - and I never realized it was to other people until I started working at Publix. I think the only time I really ate cake growing up was at other kids' birthday parties - my mom served fruit in the summer, cookies and pumpkin pie for the holidays, and cheesecake on our birthdays. I still am not a fan of regular birthday cakes (shh, don't tell my boss, but I can't stand our buttercream at work!), and although I have obviously come to love a lot of other kinds of cake, there are just some holidays when I am astounded by the amount of cakes and cupcakes we sell. I feel like a broken record every time a holiday rolls around..."I didn't know this was a cake holiday!"
Alright, I've got two practicals coming up and a test in Cost Control next week, so it's time to get back to the planning and studying! Thanks for reading :)
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