I Learn to Get Along with Cake

The Gum Paste Cake.  The cake that made me turn the corner.  Gum Paste is another sugar dough that is made with a ton of 10x (powdered sugar), egg whites and tylose ( a drying/hardening agent) with shortening kneaded in.  It is used to make flowers and other decorations.  It can be colored and formed into various shapes and then dries quite hard.  We made gumpaste flowers for about 3 days - roses, daisies, calla lilies, small supporting flowers, buds and leaves.  They take awhile to make, put together, dry and shade with petal dust, so it is a lengthy process.  Making flowers is so much fun.  It can seem tedious, but I really enjoyed it.  This was the first stacked cake we made, so I thought it was a pretty big deal!  I was a bit nervous putting all the dowels in, but it worked out pretty good.

Each tier was layered with buttercream and covered with white fondant.  Here is a photo of my flowers not put together and the partially finished cake.  About 1/3 of the cake was covered with a royal icing Cornelli lace pattern that was edged with these tiny royal icing filigrees.  The disc on top is pastillage and is the base for an abtract pastillage cake topper.  We were able to choose our own color scheme and flower design.  The seams between the tiers and base were covered with royal icing bead work.  This is my flower arrangement put together.

I also covered the remaining 2/3 of the bottom tier with bead and extension work.  Extension work is this series of crazy thin royal icing "strings" stretched between two points.  We made curved pastillage pieces to secure the strings to.  Talk about carpel tunnel.  Very tedious, very fun.  All this detail work is right up my alley.  I was very happy with the finished product, especially because this was the first major cake.  I am glad that I no longer see cake as the enemy and am happy to have a new found passion in my world of pastry.

Coming up:  Sculpted Cake, Speed Drills, Haunted Houses and The Wedding Cake!  I hope I survive it all to bake another day.  Until then, ciao!

-The Queen of Tarts-

Cake...The Enemy?

So, 6 weeks of cake seems pretty daunting.  As previously discussed, cake is generally not my friend.  I can't cut straight to save my life - I'm pretty sure I failed cutting in kindergarten.  I always end up having to "fix" my layers it is frustrating.  I was not looking forward to cake.  At all.  I started out with a pit in my stomach.  The first few cakes lived up to my expectations.  I still got A's on them, but only with a lot of blood, sweat and tears.  It is always so difficult to look past the flaws.
The very first cake was a group project and we made a traditional Croquembouche ("crunch in the mouth").  It is quite a production.  The base is made of nougatine which is caramelized sugar with sliced almonds that is rolled out and formed into the shapes needed.  The dents de loupe (teeth of the wolf) are also made from nougatine and were supposed to scare people away from eating the cream puffs before they were served.  We made about a million cream puffs filled with vanilla pastry cream and glued them together in a cone shape on the elaborate base with caramel.  The final product is decorated with royal icing bead and string work as well as Magyfleurs.  Magyfleurs is the name for the colored sugar decoration as well as the tools used to make them.
It was fun but I probably will never make this again unless I have to


The second cake wasn't too bad - just a simple chiffon and buttercream birthday cake.  We had to use at least 2 kinds of flowers, vines, buds, tendrils, basket weave masking and shell border with Happy Birthday (Name) written on top.  I wanted a very simple French green and white cake.  It turned out ok - at least my layers were good.  We piped a practice top onto a wrapped cake board to talk about placement, etc...with Chef Earl and it, of course, turned out better than the real thing.  Oh well.  Not loving cake at this point.

Next we made a cake that no one likes or understands.  The poured fondant cake.  It is made with a very plain white cake filled and masked with sickeningly sweet apricot jam and covered with a thin layer of marzipan.  Talk about sugar overload.  To top it all off, fondant is poured all over the cake to glaze it.  We decorated with 3 marzipan roses and leaves, torched marzipan designs to mask the sides, a tempered chocolate double pass border and Happy Anniversary. I was pleased with my roses, side designs and my double pass border but my Happy Anniversary was a little wonky.

My least favorite cake, which many of my classmates loved, was the Cocoa Painting cake.  I did enjoy making the devil's food cake but the cocoa painting was just not my forte.  The cake was devil's food cake filled and masked with chocolate ganache - pretty tasty.  It was covered in chocolate fondant with crimped edges and a fondant swag around the sides.  We had to pick a theme for the cake and paint, with cocoa powder colored cocoa butter (say that 5 times fast) on a pastillage (sugar dough) plaque that we made.  We had to used various shades of brown and scrape off some to have shades of white as well.  Really not loving cake.  The plaque and stand are made of pastillage.
Yes, that is Darth Vader and those are light sabers on the cake.  I never claimed to be an artist.  Obviously The Force was not with me.  I think he kind of looks like Lego Darth.

Stay tuned for Speed Drills and and new relationship with cake.

Until then, ciao.
QoT

Long Story Short

Chocolate Ganache Cake
I like the design on the chocolate decor

Coconut Parfait

So, our week long final in plated desserts was pretty nuts.  We had to produce everything needed to plate up 4 different desserts, all at the same time.  A hot dessert, a cold dessert, sorbet and ice cream, etc...just like we were serving a table of 4.  We had 3 days to prep, 45 minutes to organize and 12 minutes to plate all 4 desserts.  It was intense and fun and I did very well!  I wasn't exactly super excited about how all of my plates looked, but everything was made correctly and with the proper technique.  Considering the timing, it was a-ok.  Chef said I should be proud, so I am.  The photo above is the menu I wrote and created for the final.  The items were chosen for us (we all made the same 4 things) but we had to write and create a decorative menu.  I like mine!

White Wine Poached Pear

Chocolate Mousse Drum
This plate we all kinds of wrong because
my tuile broke at the last second.  Too
many chocolate cigarettes - I still got a
really good grade.  :-)

All in all it was a very fun class and quite a learning experience.  I still don't think I want to work in a restaurant, but I really enjoyed making these desserts.

Next, on to cakes.  Yippee, um, not so much.  Until then, Ciao!
-QoT-

Plated Desserts Continued...

So, my favorite plate-up of the class was Seasonal Fruit Soup.  I chose Vanilla Parfait with Watermelon-Mint Soup, Sous Vide Honeydew, Poached Cantaloupe, Pickled Watermelon Rind, Candied Mint, Pistachio Tuile, Mint Syrup, Candied Pistachios and Cantaloupe-Honeydew Sorbet.  We had to make perfect knife cuts with all of our fruit so each piece of honeydew was exactly the same and a totally different shape than the cantaloupe and watermelon rind.  It was fun and delicious.  We presented our plates without the soup, then poured the chilled soup "table side" for Chef.  All the flavors came together to form the perfect, refreshing bite.  YUM!

The holiday dessert plate up was fun as well.  Half of the class made fancy s'mores with homemade graham crackers and homemade mint marshmallows.  They were really elegant.  I chose the Thanksgiving Tart Duet - I can't resist making a tart you know!  A Pumpkin Tartlet topped with Toasted Meringue and Candied Pumpkin Seeds and a Pecan Tartlet topped with a bit of Powdered Sugar, Cinnamon Chantilly and Candied Pecans was served with Bourbon Caramel, Creme Fraiche Ice Cream and Honey Tuile.  They are so cute and tasty!  This was our last regular class plate-up.  Our crazy pants 4 day final was all that was left in this class and it was intense.  I need to take a break and eat a fresh-from-the oven chocolate chip cookie before I can continue.

Until then, ciao!
-QoT-

I'm Just Going to Finish Up Plated Desserts...

So, once again, I am so behind that I am going to give you a quick-ish run down of my plated desserts class, which was actually Advanced Pastry Techniques - plated desserts.  I really enjoyed the class and while I never thought I would want to work in a restaurant, I enjoyed the design element of the plates.

The next plate up was phyllo desserts.  I made a Pink Peppercorn Caramelized Napoleon with Pistachio Phyllo layered with Caramelized Pineapple and Vanilla Diplomat Creme, Pineapple Sorbet, Candied Pistachios, Pineapple Gelee and Honey Tuile.  I really liked how this plate turned out.  Unfortunately, I took the photo from the server side, rather than the customer side, so this is the back!  It was tasty.

Next we made puff pastry desserts - not my favorite plate up.  It was kind of boring and puff pastry takes FOREVER to make and bake. Very labor intensive, so don't ask me to make it for you any time soon.  I made an Apricot Fruit Band (apricot tart) with Puff Pastry, Frangipane, Sliced Apricots, Creme Anglaise, Apricot Sauce, Candied Almonds and Almond-Vanilla Ice Cream.  The Ice Cream was good.

The fifth plate up was the finger slicing incident that ended with me in the ER.  I had to make up this plate after class one day the following week.  It was a selection of apple or pear trios.  I made the Brown Butter Maple Roasted Pear with a Mini Vanilla Cheesecake, Cran-Raspberry Compote and Coulis, Cran-Raspberry Sorbet and the dreaded Pear Chip.  To make the pear chip, we take whole pears and slice them with the mandolin.  While slicing my pear, I also sliced the outside tip of my left pinky right off.  It. Was. Awesome. Not.  I was going to just push through, but we couldn't get it to stop bleeding.  I had a lovely time at the ER.  It was too wide for stitches, so they put this weird second-skin foam on it.  I also had the privilege of receiving a tetanus shot.  Yay for me.  I made it back to class, but not with enough time to finish my plate.  It is a little hard to tell from the photo, but the color on this plate was nice with the sauce and the sorbet.  It was delicious.

The caramel plate was next and man was it tricky for everyone.  No matter what dessert you had, there were about a million caramel components on each plate.  This means cooking a lot of sugar to caramel stage quite a few times.  I, of course, chose the Caramel Peanut Tart.  A Chocolate Sable Tart Shell filled with chewy Caramel Peanut Filling, Topped with Chocolate Ganache and Peanut Cream on the side is served with Fiddle Faddle in a Caramel Basket, Rum Caramel Sauce, Candied Peanuts and Caramel Ice Cream.  I also made a Caramel Coated Candied Peanut that you can kind of see at the back right of the plate.  It was like a little wispy flag.  The caramel decor for this plate was crazy!  I can't believe I didn't take pictures of all the pieces I made.
Those are Chef Michelle's hands in the background.  She is a total rockstar.

I'm about halfway through with posting everything, so I'm going to take a break.  To Be Continued Very Soon...

-QoT-

I Know, I Am So Fired...

So, you have all probably given up on me now.  I obviously did not get any writing accomplished during my staycation.  It's crazy how much there is to do with an additional 6-ish hours every day!  I caught up on some much needed sleep too.

I think that, though I liked them, I am going to skip the last 2 classes for now and talk about my current class that is INSANE but super fun!  Just after summer break/Fourth of July, I started my first advanced pastry class.  Instead of 3 weeks, the advanced classes are 6 weeks.  This one is Advanced Patisserie Techniques, aka - Plated Desserts.  We are spending 6 very intense weeks learning how to make a 4 star restaurant dessert from start to finish - meaning it could be served to a paying customer.  Rather than a test every Friday, we have 8 major plated dessert tests, a sauce test, one written test, a High Tea service, random homework and reports and one CRAZY PANTS final exam that I am already stressing about.

The first plated dessert was Custards.  I made Orange Pot de Creme with candied pistachios, candied orange zest, berries in coulis, orange dust and pistachio tuile.

We have about 3 hours to make and plate everything, which I know, seems like a long time but scaling, organizing, making, cooling, baking, straining, cleaning and all that jazz takes a lot more time than you think!  This one went very well for me and I like the clean, simple lines of the finished product.  We just thought this one was hectic - the tests have gotten progressively more difficult indeed.


The second test was the Chocolate Plate.  I made a Chocolate-Raspberry Mousse Drum with a flourless chocolate cake base and a tempered chocolate band, dark chocolate sorbet, chocolate sauce, chocolate filagree and fresh raspberries.  I wish I had taken a better picture, as my plate really was pretty.

We have also been learning how to quenelle, which I am guessing will be fun-ish once I get the hang of it a little better.  I just need to find my groove.

That is all for now.  Stay tuned for the phyllo plate up and the pear-apple trio when I sliced my fingertip off!  Let's just hope I survive to bake another day.
Until then, ciao!

-QoT-

So Much to Say, So Little Time...

Smokin' the Chocolate

Well friends, I have done it again.  I am now six weeks behind in keeping you posted on what I'm up to at school.  I have completed two different classes that I really enjoyed and just have not managed to write a single word.  I guess that perhaps some of what I loved about these classes was the gentle rise in difficulty and intensity, which has lessened my time and energy to write.  Luckily for you (and me), I start my summer staycation today and will have 6+ extra hours each day next week.  YAY!!  Everyone in my class is seriously ready for this break.

Mango Bavarian with Raspberry Glacage and tart Blueberry Coulis

Here is a little bit of what you have to look forward to from International Patisserie, Custards, Fillings & Creams and Introduction to European Cakes and Assembly Techniques.

This Bavarian was SUPER fun to make.  I really enjoyed making the striped pate decor.

Framboise Cake

Sad to say that the Framboise Cake looks better than it tasted, to me.  The jam at school is much to sweet for me!  I needed some tart!

Hopefully the staycation goes well and we all live to bake another day.  Until then, ciao!  -The QoT-

Mother's Day Macarons

I really love making French macarons.  Really.  I do.  To some that may sound weird, but I love the method and how precise it can be.  It is rather relaxing to macaroner, to come up with flavors and colors.  I love the idea of this fluffy little bite of almond and any flavor you would like.  I made macarons for Mother's day because they were such a hit at Easter.  I made a giant tray of the cookies and French buttercream in four flavors the day before.  Here are the little cookies ready to be filled and sandwiched:

The creamy white-ish ones were soo delicious.  They were going to be filled with coffee French buttercream, so I put some coffee extract in the cookies as well.  YUM.
Here they are all filled and ready to be eaten:

Strawberry, Apricot, Coconut and Coffee.  Tasty and Delicious.

In the spirit of baking, manfriend - who CANNOT cook to save his life (he actually tried to make fried rice once) has become obsessed with making pancakes.  After watching one million episodes of Man vs. Food, he decided that's what he wanted to make.  So, I stocked the refrigerator with buttermilk and showed him what to do.  I think he made pancakes every day for about 2 weeks.  It has slowed down some, but I don't really know what he does in the kitchen while I am at school for 6 hours every day.  The buttermilk sure does go fast...

whisking mancake batter

I am currently doing lab experiments in the kitchen coming up with a Salted Caramel Mousse to fill a cake I am creating for class.  Keep your fingers crossed!  Hopefully it will be yummy and I will survive and live to bake another day.  I will keep you posted.  Until then, ciao!

-The Queen of Tarts-

Lost Photos

So, I was looking through my email and found the photos of the Tarte Tatin and the Mille Feuille.

 The Tarte Tatin has a puff pastry crust topped with apples and caramel.  It is made upside down in a skillet and was a bit tricky to get out, but we managed!  It is delicious and pretty simple to make - if you buy the puff pastry.  ;-)
The Mille Feuille is three layers of puff pastry, filled with two layers of pastry cream, topped with fondant.  Very sweet and kind of difficult to eat.  I took the Oreo approach and pulled the layers apart.

Coming soon:  International Patisserie, Custards, Fillings and Creams.  My favorite class and chef so far!  You will want to eat anything you see!

Let me know if you are interested in recipes or technique for any of the items you see.  I am always happy to share.  May I live to bake another day.  Until then, ciao!!

-The Queen of Tarts-

Slacker...Only Regarding the Blog

So, as you, my one reader, may have noticed...it has been awhile.  I'm not sure if I have just been so busy going to school and running FancyPantsPet, or if the end of April + the beginning of May were just not my favorite weeks.  Maybe I just did too much celebrating around my birthday.  Who knows.  In light of my neglect, the three weeks spent in Viennoiserie and Laminated Doughs are going to be communicated primarily in photos.  You will have to just make do without my witty comments.

We did have some good news at the beginning of the block - we are now down to 10 students.  I don't have to say who is not longer with us, just that we are all happy to be a class of 10.
Viennoiserie and Laminated doughs encompass all things puff pastry, danish, croissant, phyllo, strudel, brioche and various breakfast pastries baked and fried.  It was an interesting class, not my favorite.  It was also a kind of weird and difficult 3 weeks.

I learned that there is a reason a good, all butter croissant can be so expensive and why many places do not make their own puff pastry.  I also remembered why I have never made puff pastry at home.  Talk about time consuming.  I don't really have the counter space for it either. I should have taken photos of the process involved with some of these products as the rolling and stacking and rolling and folding and rolling and folding...you get the idea...is quite extensive.

Chaussons aux Pommes

Pithivier

Week one was all puff pastry.  Classic puff pastry, reverse puff pastry and blitz puff pastry.  They are all made with basically the same ingredients, just put together in different ways and used for different purposes.  For the most part, they are interchangeable for look and feel.  As one might imagine, blitz puff pastry is the quickest and easiest to make, it just does not puff quite as high.  With these 3 types of puff pastry we made Chaussons aux Pommes (apple turnovers), Pithivier (2 rounds of puff pastry filled with frangipane), Tarte Tatin (puff pastry topped with sauteed apples and caramel), Mille Feuille (Napoleons - small rectangles of puff pastry layered with pastry cream and topped with fondant).  Somehow, there are either no photos of the Tarte Tatin and the Mille Feuille or I did something with them.  That was a difficult day, so maybe I didn't take photos.

Salmon en Croute

During week one, we were also able to make puff pastry with savory applications.  Lobster Newburg was very tasty along with Salmon en Croute and Brie en Croute.

Lobster Newburg

Baklava

Danish Pinwheel

Danish and Croissant

Week two was filled with Danish dough products and Croissants.  Danish in various shapes with various fillings were fun to make and delicious to eat!  We also made croissant au buerre, pain au chocolate, almond croissant and 3 kinds of savory croissants.  That Thursday we worked with phyllo dough to make Spanikopita and Baklava and made Crepes Suzette, which were delicious but very orang-y for me.

Spanikopita

Crepes Suzette

 Week three was primarily Brioche products along with Hot Cross Buns, Palmiers, Apple Strudel, Doughnuts and Beignets.  We made Nantere, Galette, Saucisson, Pain Perdue, Pain au Raisin, Courrone and Modane with brioche dough.  The strudel was interesting to stretch and I wish I had a photo of that.  We had to stretch that dough with a partner so thin that you could almost see through it.  I ate so many beignets (fried dough) that my gall bladder-less self didn't feel too great the rest of the day.  No fried foods for me for a bit.  The Pain Perdue was DELICIOUS.  I wanted to eat all of it.  The brioche products were interesting and pretty tasty, with all that butter in the dough, of course they were!

Beignet

Courrone

Galette

Nantere

Pain au Raisin

Palmiers

Saucisson

Doughnuts

Modane

Pain Perdue

I did very well in the class and am maintaining my 4.0 while learning a lot!  Thanks for reading, I won't fall so far behind again.  We are on to International Patisserie, Custards, Fillings and Creams, so I will write about that very soon.  Hopefully I will survive to bake another day.  Until then, ciao!

-The Queen of Tarts-

Petit Four Final

This was a very intense week.  Monday was thankfully a holiday.  FancyPantsPet was very busy at the Houston Pet Expo on Saturday, so having an additional 2 days totally saved me!

Petit Four Poster

On Tuesday we turned in a full scale poster representation of what we wanted our Petit Four final tray to look like.  It was actually a fun project to complete and made plating the actual products much easier because I already had a plan.  We also made large macaroons for the Cafe.  As usual, there was a bit of an altercation with the crazy lady in my class.  There are just no words to describe what we deal with in regard to her.  I didn't realize that people actually behaved the way that she does.  It really is as though she is the only person in the class.  Anyway, that is enough about that.

We also created a plan of action and went over what items could be made on what days.  Obviously, you can't make Italian Meringue on Wednesday morning and hope to use pipe it onto tartlets on Friday.  Everyone made their own version of a production list.  I typed out all my recipes in the order I needed to make them with notes and tips.  Being organized certainly made all the difference.  We had 3 days (a total of 11 hours) to make 6 different Petit Fours, 10 of each.  The 10 of each had to be identical in every way.  For these 6 items, we made about 15 separate components.  The true purpose of this exercise was time management and making a plan.  I completed my tasks for each day with no problem and was able to finish on Friday with time to spare, so it really ended up not being too stressful for me.  I really enjoyed the fast pace of having so many tasks to do.  Deadlines always work for me anyway.  I like all the intricate detail that goes into making the Petit Fours as well.

Here is the finished product:

Chef was impressed overall and said that I should be very proud of my work.  She was especially impressed with my Lemon Tartlets, which seems appropriate.  I am the Queen of Tarts, after all.
The few points that were taken off were from small mistakes like shaky hands or inexperience.  While a number of my classmates did not enjoy the experience at all, I really had fun working on this project.  I received a high A on the final as well as for the class.  So, my 4.0 is intact and I am glad for that.

Next week we start Viennoserie and Laminated doughs - puff pastry, danish, croissant, etc...  We even get to work on some savory applications for puff pastry, which is exciting.  We are all looking forward to having food to eat at the end of class again.  All these little desserts didn't do much for us when we are starving at 10:30 am!

I wish everyone a happy Easter and hope that I survive and live to bake another day.
Until then, ciao!

-The Queen of Tarts-