Chef's Masterpiece

Pictured above is the reproduction of the dessert that our chef instructor made for the national pastry championship. It consists of a Banana Pudding Cake, served warm, with a yogurt banana sorbet, a pecan dentelle, on top of the cake underneath the sorbet, and a chicory sauce. The dessert is finished off with a circular tuille cookie that is very fun to shape!

Hazelnuts

Poire Belle Helene is a classical dessert, which consists of a poached pear, chocolate sauce and vanilla ice-cream. Pictured above is our twist on the classic dessert. We infused cinnamon into the pear by having real cinnamon on the poaching liquid, and made a cinnamon chocolate sauce. The ice-cream we served it with was hazelnut. We used real cinnamon which is the bark off of the cinnamon tree. The cinnamon sticks that are commonly found used, are not the real thing!

Huckleberry Financier

Huckleberries grow wild in the Pacific Northwest, and are usually harvested during late summer and at higher elevations during the fall season. They are a small blue/red berry that resembles a blueberry, and has a comparable flavor. We folded huckleberries into the financier dough. Financiers are a small cake that is usually served at the end of a dessert on a mignardise platter. Financiers are made by first browning butter; butter is browned by slowly melting the butter and allowing the milk solids to brown. These milk solids caramelize and add flavor to the butter. Financiers also have almond flour, and are lightened by a meringue. These financiers were like a kicked up version of a blueberry/huckleberry muffin. We served this financier with a quenelle of mascarpone, a warm fruit salad, a tuille cookie and huckleberry sauce!

Deep Fried Desserts

Deep fried desserts are served a la minute, which means that they are served directly after they are cooked. This involves organization between the pastry kitchen and the servers, as the dish needs to go directly out to the kitchen. The dessert pictured below is Zepploe doughnuts served with a cherry soda. Zeppole doughnuts are Italian and have ricotta cheese in the dough. They are rolled in powdered sugar immediately after they come out of the oven. A unique fact about doughnuts is that they naturally turn when being deep fried. Usually you have to flip a doughnut over to allow it to cook on both sides. The doughnuts are served with cherry soda, which we made! It consists of cherry puree mixed with a simple syrup and diluted with sparkling water just before it is served! We served this dessert with a cherry sauce and brandied cherries. Brandied cherries are soaked in so much brandy that they contain the following on the label “only for professional use.”
The other deep fried dessert that we made was Cannolis. Cannolis are not normally served as a dessert. They are usually found in a bakery and are fried and rolled up and then stuffed with a ricotta filling. To make the cannoli more exciting we cut out circles of the cannoli dough and deep fried them. When they came out of the fryer we did not roll them up but kept them flat. We then sandwiched two together with the ricotta filling, dusted the top with powdered sugar and served it with raspberry sauce and lemon sorbet.

Creamy Concoctions - Custards

English Trifle is a tradition around my house at Christmas time, pictured below is a variation of English Trifle as a plated dessert. The variation of English Trifle that we made was Strawberry Trifle. We layered currant jam on the bottom of the jar with chiffon cake, fresh strawberries and vanilla pudding. The trifle was chilled and then topped with sweetened whipped cream. The main aspect of English Trifle is that the layers of cake are soaked in Sherry…and I do mean soaked!

Pot de Crème was the other custard that we made, and literally translated from French this dessert is called pots of cream. These custards have been flavored with the same spices, but in different methods. The pot de crème on the right has had cinnamon, allspice and cloves infused by steeping them with the cream. The pot de crème on the left was infused by cooking the spices in the sugar that we had caramelized. The pot de crème that was infused via the caramelized sugar had a “pumpkin pie” flavor, while the milk infused pot de crème had a lighter flavor. The two pot de crèmes were served side by side in order for the guest to compare their flavors.

If you are looking for something healthy on a dessert menu, I would recommend the dessert pictured below, which is a citrus panna cotta. Panna cotta is made with milk and thickened with gelatin and not eggs. Panna cotta has a similar consistency as an egg custard but without the calories. We also garnished our desserts with tuile cookies that we piped in a thin strip and then wrapped around a chopstick to make a curly cookie!

Plated Desserts

Our new block is Restaurant and Production Plated Desserts. Today we made an Earl Grey Bavarian Cream. The crème anglaise sauce that was used in the bavarian cream was flavored with Earl Grey Tea by infusing the milk with the tea. We infused the milk by bringing it up to a boil with the tea and allowing the tea to steep in the milk for 20 minutes. I learned that it is actually better to steep the tea in cold milk overnight, as it prevents any bitter flavors in the tea from coming out. Bavarian cream is made by folding whipped cream into the crème anglaise and setting it with gelatin. Crème anglaise is a milk and egg sauce, it could be described as a very thin pudding. It is usually used to make ice creams. We also made chocolate cups (that we poured the baravian cream in) by dipping blown up balloons in tempered chocolate. The dessert was finished off with a quenelle of whipped cream on top of the bavarian cream with a fresh raspberry and raspberry sauce on the plate.The other dessert that we made was the traditional chocolate mousse that we flavored with Chambord. Chocolate mousse is twice lightened, which means it is lightened with eggs and then with whipped cream. The chocolate mousse was served in a cosmopolitan glass, and topped with a fresh blackberry and a quenelle of whipped cream. You will note in both desserts have a very thin cookie that is shaped like a spoon. Tuille cookies are made by spreading the batter very thin over a stencil and baking them in the oven, when they come out they can be bent or molded into certain shapes.
As you will note each dessert had a quenelle of whipped cream. Quenelles are made by rolling a spoon through the cream, and shaping a football/egg shape out of the whipped cream! It may sound easy…but it requires skill!

Midterm Practical Madness

In order to graduate every student must pass the midterm practical. The test consisted of four separate exams, and I did not know what exam I would be doing until the exam started. I had to make Apple Tart Tatin (pictured below), which turned our very well.I also made Linzer Cookies (pictured below), they turned out well except that some of my cookies were a bit taller than others. When I put my initial batch of cookies in the oven the parchment paper blew up and squished some of my cookies. I had to make more cookie tops (luckily I had kept extra dough), and they were not the same thickness as the first batch.
The final product that I made was a Chocolate Hazelnut Cake. The cake turned out well although the emulsion of the ganache icing broke, which means it was slightly grainy.
This exam was a fun test of my skills learned thus far!

Large Showpiece...

The large sugar showpiece started out with great intentions although it failed in execution. My partner and I had initially planned to have a heart standing upright on our base. The heart had a heart cut out in the middle, which made the piece of sugar less stable. When assembling the piece, the large heart cracked! This led to the decision that we would have a random piece with our pulled sugar flowers, and voila our sugar showpiece was born!

Sugar Spheres.

Pictured above is an abstract sugar showpiece that I created with blown sugar spheres. Blown sugar is made by pumping air into a hot “molten” piece of sugar. The sugar is manipulated while the air is being pumped into the sugar. When you are holding the sugar it starts to cool down, therefore to direct the air you cool certain parts of the sugar with your hands. The blown sugar can also be slowly pulled into different shapes, for example, swans, a variety of fruits, and figurines. The only shape that I mastered was the sphere. Placed behind the spheres in my showpiece is a pink and purple ribbon. Ribbons are made by cutting strips of colored sugar, placing them together, and pulling the pieces of sugar. They are very difficult to make!