Equipment use: scale, bowls, spoons, knives, mixer, comb, pots, stovetop and oven.
Full class this week. We got more work done on the Rubies Torte. This is a pretty big torte. Today we cut the chocolate cake, made the raspberry ganache and layered those with the frozen raspberry insert. That torte is STILL not done. But we made the Eros Torte. That was really interesting. Jaconde, dacquise, caramel nut filling, almond genoise, simple syrup, poached pears and caramel mousse. All in one torte!! Strangely enough, the sweetest part of all of it was the poached pears. Even with all of those elements, this was simple to prepare. Equipment use: scale, bowls, spoons, knives, mixer, comb, pots, stovetop and oven.
0 Comments
This was a busy week. We actually lost an hour of class time, there was a water problem. We were also down two class members. There are only five of us. So we worked as one group. We made the St. Honore Torte. St. Honore is the patron saint of bakers. That might be the most unique item I have ever made. The bottom layer is puff pastry, the sides and middle are piped pate a choux. That is baked and filled with crème chiboust and top that with whipped cream. To finish the torte, you line the edges with small cream puffs dipped in caramel. Chef Elizabeth made the letters out of extra pate a choux. I wish I could take credit for that! We then made Napoleons. This was a straight forward formula. We also started the Chocolate Mint Mousse cake. This was pretty basic as well.
All of the standard equipment was used: pots, mixer, bowls, scale, oven, stovetop, piping bag/tip, off-set spatula and spoons. This was kind of a slow production week. We started a Rubies Torte, Puff Pastry, Blackberry Glaze, Chocolate Almond Flour Cake and a Raspberry Gelee. I know that seems like a lot, but everything this week was really a case of "hurry up and wait. Puff pastry is not difficult but it takes hours to finish because you mix then roll, fold, wait and repeat. The Gelee, you make then freeze. The cake is quick as well. The interesting part will be next week when we assemble everything. I am not a fan of raspberries, but this might be the most interesting thing we make this year. Lots of textures, tastes and a unique shape.
We used: bowls, scales, mixer, oven, measuring cups, ruler and the cooler. This was the most interesting cake yet! The objective was to make a Lemon Mousse Cake with Blackberry Glaze. I worked on things that I have never seen or even heard of. We made a Pate a Décor (colored cake), Biscuit Jaconde (striped Cake, Dacquoise (crunchy almond and egg white layer) and a Biscuit Vienniois. The base of the Pate a Décor is the Viennios. They are two different colors and a baking comb is used to create the strips. It is haed to describe in words but quite easy to do. This cake also included a frozen Blackberry insert and a Lemon Mousse. We followed the formula, but would up with far less mousse than we needed. We had to male a triple batch!
Again we used all of the standard equipment: stove, mixer, oven, freezer, spoons, bowls and scales. The challenge of this class is that we take two to three weeks sometimes to finish a torte. Some weeks it is set-up that way, other weeks we simply run out of time. This week we finished the opera torte. For some reason we all had trouble with the Coffee Buttercream frosting. It tasted fantastic!!! However, for both teams, the texture was wrong. Hopefully before the quarter is over, we can try it again.
This class is shaping up to be a bit more challenging than I thought! We have made a Sacher Torte, Fresh Fruit Charlotte, Tiramisu and an Opera Torte. As you can see my Sacher Torte skills are not so good-yet. I did enjoy making it. The Charlotte has been the most challenging so far. It has so many steps. We made a ladyfinger sponge, berry compote, lemon cremeux, pastry cream/diplomat cream and a kirschwasser syrup. Also, we used the insert/disk technique. That means we made a disk with the berry compote, diplomat cream and the lemon cremeux and froze them. This is done is order to make the assembly of the Charlotte easier. If this was not done, the berry would bleed into the ladyfinger sponge, and the cremeux and cream would be sloppy. The result would be a very messy Charlotte. The Opera Torte and the Tiramisu are so close. However the Opera Torte has an amazing coffee buttercream! The challenge with this Tiramisu was the chocolate band. I have never tempered chocolate. Everyone else in my class has. But, I did get the chocolate band on the first try!! I am super proud of that!
In this class we are using: stand mixer, scale, oven, pots, measuring cups, bowls, off-set spatulas, cake stands, acetate paper and a calculator. We are scaling every formula. |
AuthorKimberly-baker and food history enthusiast! Archives
March 2015
Categories
All
|