Trouble with Sabrina & Charlotte

Last week I promised to be better with my camera. The week before I swore to practise and improve my piping. Have I dont either of these things? Seemingly not. This weeks class followed the same pattern as the last two, learning one of our potential exam dishes and one other cake.

The exam dish this week was the Sabrina cake. This cake is taken from 1954 film, Sabrina, whereby a girl heads of to learn to bake in Paris, falling in love in the process. She also, apparently, has a particular penchant for strawberries. The cake therefore is a rolled sponge, filled with a strawberry mousse. It is topped with chocolate covered marzipan, piping, pistachios etc etc. This cake is apparently the one students dread the most for the exam, but strangely score highest on. Because the base of the cake is a spiral of sponge and mousse, when it is cut into it has lovely, (hopefully) even stripes running through it. Although I had, again, forgotten my camera in class, fortunately I had my phone to snap the chefs offering

The demo of this was okay. I was pleased to of tempured my chocolate on my first attempt. Heat to 45˚C, cool to 27˚C, warm to 31˚C by touch and hope it sets with a shine. However, I was not pleased when I swiftly ruined my beautifully tempered chocolate by holding my knife at the wrong angle when marking it and leaving a bit of a mess behind. Alas, C'est la vie. Other than that I'd say my efforts were average, passable for the exam, but not high scoring.

Next up was the return of the Charlotte. Some of you may remember from last term that I kind of fell for Charlotte so I was pleased to have her back in my life. This time we were making a chestnut (Marron) mousse encased in a sweet ladyfinger sponge. The idea is to pipe the sponge so that it holds its shape and  gives the outside of the cake a bit of class. The decoration for this cake is a marzipan scroll piped with "Marron" (not Moron/morron/momman). The cake is finished with a white chocolate border

I'm sure you'll be surprised to hear that it was the piping that the main problem of this Charlotte. Shockingly piping on the wibbly wobbly scroll was pretty much impossible and at the end of class we had many interesting versions of "Marron" across the class. I swiftly avoided the moron trap, instead piping something that the chef interpretted as a cry for my mother "Maman". Seeing this, he advised me to keep my border as simple as possible, I did and it turned out better.

Despite this, I do still have a soft spot for Charlotte, I might even ask her to spend Valentines with me.

A lovely lady named Charlotte

This week our efforts have been focused around the pleasently named Charlotte cake. This is a cake lined with sponge or bread and then filled, hot or cold with a custard/cream/mousse/puree. The sponge lining in this case is classed as a biscuit because it is cooked spread out flat rather than as a cake. So, for the first time since writing, this week, I quite literally have been whisking it for a biscuit. Who knew the day would come? Other highlight this week have been having a chance to play with all kinds of new things, namely gelatin, but also more chocolate work, using cake rings and glazing. This week I've decided to throw it all into one blog so prepare yourselves to see a whole lot of Charlotte.

On Thursday we were introduced to charlottes number 1 and 2, these consisted of a piped biscuit lining and base, constructed into a cake in a ring and filled with bavarian creams. As any good basic patisserie student will tell you, a bavarian cream is a custard set with gelatin and lightened with whipped cream. The end result is basically a dairy based mousse. In demo the bavarian creams used were chocolate and passion fruit. These were put together in appropriate sponge cases and decorated accordingly and, as expected, beautifully.

Bavarian chocolate charlotte

Passion fruit

Having been introduced, it was time to take things a step further and make a Charlotte. Here is a quick break down of class. Make a chocolate genoise sponge mix, do not over fold. Pipe mixture into firstly a long strip of fingers and secondly a spiral circle. Bake. Make a chocolate custard, add in gelatin and more chocolate whilst hot, leave to cool. Whip up some cream and fold into cooled, setting, custard. Take cooked sponge and line firstly the sides and secondly the base of a cake ring. Fill with mousse and level. Chill in fridge. Make chocolate decorations and put it all together. The only slight problem I had in class was I forgot to weigh down my baking sheet in the oven resulting in it folding in on itself  and half of my sponge being unusable. Fortuately there was enough sponge about to salvage the situation. Making the chocolate decorations was the definate highlight. Good, messy, fun and I was pleased with the resulting flower. 

Moving on to the third Charlotte. This was still a cold cake, but filled this time with a mousse. The key difference from the baravian cream is that the base of a mousse isnt dairy based. This week I have discovered I really love mousse. Its not something I would of usually considered much in life before, but I have definately been missing out. The mousse of the moment was a vibrant blackcurrant, topped off with a shiny blackcurrant glaze and here are the examples from demo.

Practical for this cake was really enjoyable. The cake ring near enough ensures a neat finish, there was plenty of time so no rushing about, the blackcurrant meant that everything was super bright and we were in a warm kitchen away from the cold. If I was to be asked again, I'd have a date with Charlotte every saturday afternoon! The main tricky bit was the lining. To get that striped effect you have to construct a kind of jam- sponge tower, slice it up and squeeze it tight round the edge of the ring. The glaze also requires a bit of accuracy with temperature, and of course there was the dreaded piping but I think that is gradually starting to improve. 

On tasting the blackcurrant Charlotte gets my vote. Which lovely lady does it for you?

Sweet Success

Friday was day two off puff pastry. In demo there was a distinct air of nerves around the room with the crucial will they/won't they (rise) question being bandied around. Whilst we sat contemplating our puff pastry futures, chef used her perfectly made example to create a fresh fruit puff pastry tart and a stack of delicous crisp puff pastry biscuits called palmiers. For those of you who havent ever had the joy of trying a palmier the only advice I can give you is - eat one as soon as physically possible. Furthermore, make sure you buy more than one because they are extremely moreish. Palmiers are infact so good that chef didnt dare leave it till the end of class to let us taste them, passing them round in our break.

I think I'm in love.

In comparision to recent behaviour, I'm going to class this as a 'light breakfast'. So light infact that one slice didnt suffice..

Moving swiftly onto practical. Not much of an intro because I'm far to excitable to tell you: it worked! I made a tasty puff pastry from scratch and managed to turn it into one tasty tart and many, many palmiers. Revelling in our shared success there was quite a 'friday feeling' in class and everyone left in high spirits. Even managed to sneak in a cheeky pint before heading home. Even better, I had a big box of palmiers for the journey. Not sure how quickly I will be attempting to re-create the puff pastry recipe, although the combined end results of taste and satisfaction do make it more likely.

Slice, packed and ready to go home.

Delightful

Professional Puff

Today we took what I felt was quite a large step away from amateur baking with the challenge of pâte feuilletée. Don't get me wrong, the recipes we have cooked so far have been delicous but its not often you come across a home chef with puff pastry in their repertoire. Puff pastry is made in 2 parts, the paste and the butter. The butter is folded and rolled into the paste to create a fine layered pastry ,and thus creating the puffed up effect as the butter cooks. Doesnt sound too bad so far. However, in order to achieve optimum 'puff' there must be around about 1000 layers of butter and paste. Thats right - the millenium pastry. In demo today we were taught how to incorporate the butter and 'turn' the pastry to create these layers. Its quite a tricky thing because as the layers get thinner the chances of the butter seaping its way through increase, so it requires a fair amount of tlc, and plently of time to rest and cool between folds. After making  the dough it is left to cool, in our case overnight, before using it. So for the rest of class chef made a puff pastry tart called a jalousie which is a puff pastry lattice filled with almond creme and poached fruit. Taste sensation.

On to practical. As you may of guessed, we were making our own puff pastry, or at least attempting to do so. We were also making our version of the tasty almond treat above but with a bit of a cheat. As our puff pastry wouldnt be ready till the next day, we were given a batch of ready made puff pastry to use. Cheeky. I wasnt on my top form today and had a few small mishaps. My attempt at rolling out the pre-made puff pastry to the desired rectangle resulted in more of an x-marks-the-spot treasure map. Luckily chef saved the day. Im also not 100% confident about my puff pastry but I will get to see the result of that tomorrow when I actually cook with it. Chef assured me it was fine but some of the layers looked a bit dubious to me so fingers crossed! The take-home treat for today turned out to be just that. We poached our pears, whipped up out almond creme and constructed our fine pastry. Done.

The final event of the day was our first one on one tutorial with our mentor chefs. We had to have a chat about where were were doing well/badly, what we wanted to improve etc and most importantly we got our marks for our first batch of practicals! So far I am averaging a 4.1 our of 5 which is a merit. Very happy baker. However, its still very early days and I still have that pesky puff pastry to face tomorrow..

Tarte Aux Pommes

The voyage into pastry continued on Friday with our lesson on pâte sucrée, a sweet pastry crust. So far we have been mothered a bit at school and have had the same chef for all our demos. This lesson marked the end of our newbie era with a new chef for demo and a much faster pace. My notes this week are full of asterisks and arrows, which somehow form a 12 step plan to a sweet crust. Once we had the pastry crust in order, chef taughts us three potential fillings: pastry cream & fresh fruit, almond cream and the classic french apple tart

Feeling fruity

Almond and poached pear

Classic

Once the tarts were finished, presented and photographed, I waited with moderate patience to collect my now standard 3-piece-of-pie breakfast. Nom nom.

Seven hours and a brief nap in Starbucks later, it was time to make a tarte aux pommes. And this is what it consists of: a sweet pastry crust, blinded baked and egg glazed, filled with a layer of apple compote and topped with a decoration of fine sliced apples glazed with butter and sugar. At the start of class chef reminded us that this dish was simple and in his words could be made by a 4 year old, blindfolded, in the dark. No excuses then. Highlights included using the slightly vicious looking slicing device that is a mandoline and a classmate accidentaly snorting a vat of cinnamon. In other chef news, I managed to cut myself for the first time this lesson with my wielding chefs knife resulting in a few rejected blood soaked apples. Tasty. Et voila, before you knew it, we each had our very own apple tart.

Not sure if I can call myself a chef yet, but after this, I'm definately ready to take on the pre-school kids. 

Fruit and Sugar

Today we had our first demonstration and practical lessons. Topics covered: general kitchen equipment (what do I use this knife for chef?), knife skills, sugar in its many forms (from syrup to caramel), basic sugar decoration work and fruit preparation. All of this was neatly brought together by the creation of a fruit salad in an infused sugar syrup with sugar decoration.

First, the demo. This was the first time I'd seen any of the teaching chefs cook, to add to this we were being taught by the head of the department, and, my god, was she good. We watched in awe as Chef Julie casually turned an apple into a swan, just for a bit of decoration, I think there might have even been an "oooh". During the demo I somehow managed to write 4 pages of notes on making a fruit salad and a further 3 about heating sugar ready for the afternoons practical.

So, onto the practical. In the kitchen we had a run through of some more equipment, learnt how to identify the various stages of sugar, made a sugar syrup and tried to replicate the fruit cuts we were shown in the morning. First new skill - if you have a pan of boiling sugar and a bowl of ice, I should now be able to tell you its approximate temperature by touch alone - I know, quite the party trick. The lesson went surprisingly quickly and by the time we'd made out syrups (infused with cinamon, vanilla, orange and lemon, since you asked) and cut our fruit we were running out of time to present our dish.

Unfortunately this means my first dish is brought to you in tupperware, ready to be transported home.

Before you go allowing yourself to be too impressed, here are some of the beauties whipped up by the proffessional.

Perhaps I should get myself down to the market to stock up on fruit and sugar?

To summerise, life is pretty top right now. I left the practical feeling a bit giddy, as though I'd just been on a first date, not cubing a kiwi.

Tomorrow: meringues.