Paint By Numbers EXTREME CHOCOLATE EDITION

Those three little words 'I love you' some will argue are the best and scariest combination of words in the English language.  But in my sugar crystal world "chocolate show piece" are the best and scariest combination of words in the English language...and the French language now that I think about it. It's no wonder why chocolate is so strongly associated with love, if it gets too hot the substance changes, if it cools down too fast you have to do damage control, both are delicious, and you must treat both with care and passion to get the best shine.

On Tuesday we were told to choose a theme for our chocolate show piece and that it should be a cartoon character. Although I am a little ashamed to admit that I spent 3 hours scouring children's books in Waterstone on Wednesday afternoon to gain some inspiration for my theme, I had a toss up between Horton from Horton Hears A Who and Ratatoullie the Disney character. At the end of the day the deciding factor for me was that the lines for piping where much more visible in the Ratatoullie picture I chose.

I was so geared up for my class on Friday, I had even practiced making my paper piping bags so that I would not have another chocolate spillage tragedy. I also had some new additions to my knife kit...paint brushes and a wall paper scraper.  Finally Friday morning came and I started to temper my white chocolate for the base of my show piece, which had Ratatoullie piped on it (not an easy thing to do backwards, and hand painted carrots. I did a little tester to make sure it dried nice and glossy, it did, so I used it. Everything was moving along, I piped out my design in dark chocolate, which took about and hour. At this point I had to rush to paint my piece with the colored cocoa butter, so some of the colors didn't turn out exactly the way I wanted. We also only had one set of the cocoa butter colors, so we all 10 of us had to share. With the chef shouting at us that we needed to add our white chocolate backing onto our pieces, I was rushing to temper another batch of white chocolate. Chef just handed me a batch and said "this chocolate is tempered, just use this," so I used that white chocolate. Come to find out that chocolate was not tempered and he marked me down for it! Even though he was the one who handed the bowl of chocolate to me! Uh so frustrated. To top off the morning my white chocolate base cracked and would not come out of its mold, so I had to present my piece with no base. Overall though this project was really fun and felt challenging. It was so nice to get away from cakes for a little while and do something much more technical and detailed. Although I am sure my marks for the day were not at all high, I hope that chef appreciated the fact that I chose a more difficult design and that my piping was actually really good considering the detail.

Fridays minor victories: 1. piping was finally thin enough! 2. my paper piping bags did not explode!....At the end of the day these two victories made the failures of the day all worth it.

Now those three little words aren't so scary any more...I guess in both chocolate and love the best thing to do is to just dive in with sweet caution, tempered care, and colorful passion.

Healthy Eating 101

Left to Right: white chocolate and raspberry, dark chocolate with milk chocolate and orange filling,  dark chocolate with milk chocolate and rum filling, dark chocolate with caramel filling, milk chocolate with slivered almonds and pistachios

It's Fashion Week in London and the entire city is even more chic than normal. Of course I walked down Oxford Street today in my chef jacket covered in 3 different types of chocolate and had a lingering odor of a few different alcoholic flavorings, resulting from a couple unfortunate spillage incidents on my apron and tea towels. While Longchamp is designing the most trendy of Londoners this week, I am making a 'fashion statement' in the pastry world. Today was chocolate truffle day!

I came home with a entire box of these little guys. The first thing I did was start giving them away. The unfortunate thing about truffles is that they are indeed the perfect size to pop in your mouth and ganache with rum and caramel hardly qualifies for a healthy eating life-style.

Quote of the Day: "no such thing as calories, just pleasure" -Chef

I do believe, I do believe in edible "Fairy Dust"

The most exciting part about this cake was making all the chocolate decorations using tempered chocolate and metallic edible dust...which I keep calling fairy dust on accident. I imagine this is what Tinker Bell throws on people and using the edible magical dust's proper term is just not as much fun. 

The cake has many components starting with a pistachio sponge cake, white chocolate and vanilla bean mousse, strawberry jelly (sounds gross but is really good), all covered with white chocolate glacage and dark chocolate design on top. 

One of my classmates accidentally dropped his cake just before grading this morning, we all felt so bad for him. It has definitely happened to each one of us at one point or another. For me that moment was when I knocked over my plate of Crepes au Citron last year...not only did I ruin my crepes, but I shattered a plate. It is one of those moments where you would have thought someone had died. All the chefs gasp and then there is just a silent almost mourning moment before everyone springs into action to help recover the fallen. It's what I imagine our brave men and women in the military feel when something out of the ordinary happens...obviously a damaged cake is on a very different level of emergency in comparison. Only in a ultra-foodie school would there be a mourning moment for slightly damaged goods. 

It's never as simple as that...

The chocolate decoration pears are my favorite part of what we made today.

Ok I thought the Opera cake was delicious?! The Opera cake does not even hold a candle to the chocolate cake with caramel pears. My mouth is watering just thinking about it. Delicious as it was I did have a few hiccups along the way to this mouthwatering fantasy this morning. I had to make my caramel twice, because I did not include my cream slow enough. On my frantic second round the caramel looked amazing, but I was thinking it may have been a little dark. I asked my chef "does this look better?" he responded with "no, chef I am asking you, does it look better?". Ummm okay, "uhhh yes?!"...with a head-nod of approval from my chef I moved onto making the most luscious chocolate mousse you have ever had in your life. My partner and I are rolling and doing great...then the dreaded P-I-P-I-N-G BAG comes along to bite me. When we are piping something delicate and fine, such as a white chocolate boarder in this case, we have to make baby piping bags out of baking paper. Let me tell you it is harder than it sounds. Up until now I would say that my piping bags made out of baking paper were not perfect, but they worked for me...well not today. I made 7 piping bags today and all of them busted. I had to use my partners piping bag after my white chocolate one busted while I was piping my boarder so close to my cake I almost had a potential over-reaction moment right there in the pastry kitchen. Lucky for me I have resources and my friend Jasmine is going to give ma a little tutorial on proper piping bag form. Sound ridiculous? It probably is, but when you have a chef strongly urging you in a yelling manner to finish your cake, having a sturdy piping bag is not only helpful it is like a life boat on the Titanic.
At the end of it all I received and almost perfect score..."too bad your piping bag messed you up on your piping" chef said to me "I would have given you a perfect score otherwise".  I thought to myself, 'yeah, yeah, what else is new...'my piping isn't perfect', come-on chef its time for a new headline'.

Anatomy: you can now see how long it takes to assemble these cakes, notice the outer rim of cake, the base, the center layer...nothing is as simple as just baking a cake around this place. 

'Bond Street is closed'

My bus stop is closed...awesome way to start off my morning of being soux chef for my class. We rotate being soux chef in my class every week. On soux chef-ing mornings we have to get to class early and get all of our ingredients from the production kitchen in the basement. My bus stop was closed for 'repairs' this morning and I was dropped off at another bus stop quite a way away. I finally got off the bus at 7:30...which is when I needed to be in the kitchen. I ran all the way to school with my blackberry in one hand to check the time and cake box in the other, all the while acting like a marathon runner making sure that I could get to the finish line by 7:42 am. I later realized that I had run down Oxford street in my chef whites and uggs for about 5 blocks, that must have given one of the suits a laugh this morning on their way to work. Frazzled and out of breath I got changed, grabbed all the ingredients from the kitchen, and made it upstairs by 8:00am.

I sadly missed my demonstration class on Tuesday due to looking at my schedule wrong and I showed up for my 12:00 class that actually was at 8:00. If we miss the demonstration class we are not allowed to get credit for our practical session, basically as it is like we are not even present at all. Keep in mind that I am only allowed to miss 4 sessions...only one more left, needless to say I will be strictly checking my schedule until the end of the term. My chef gave me several little lectures this morning, even thought I felt I deserved an award for showing up to a class I get no credit to attend and I am at least the 4th person in my class who has shown up for the wrong class due to the fact that our schedule is crazy and changes every week...Monday 8:00-12:00, Tuesday 8:00-3:00, Wednesday 6:00, Thursday 8:00-11:00, Friday 4:00-8:00. On top of all of that, I had even gotten notes from other people in my class and had rewritten them in my own words on my recipe, come-on chef cut me a break! Thank you for letting me rant!

Today we made a Chestnut Cake (Gateau Marron) with marzipan decoration. Honestly the only real thing I messed up this morning is that I did not let my gelatin dissolve completely in my chestnut puree before I added it to the cream. As a result, my chestnut mousse had a few small lumps...which of course I was lectured on as well. By this point I just didn't really care. My final comments of the day "your piping looks nice" I mean can I get an 'amen!' up in here! Finally!!! "Its a shame you are not getting credit for today, because I would have given you a really high mark"...classic. The cake looks beautiful and even though today was not my favorite day thus far, I am glad I went to class. If nothing else to taste a candied chestnut. Oh the things we foodies go through to try something new.

What did I learn today?
1. Bad days are inevitable, but good days are more frequent.
2. A teacher with a critical eye challenges you, makes you search for the good in yourself, and find pride in your small failures and little victories.
3. Always leave 5 minutes early when taking public transportation.

This is the cake that never ends, yes it goes on and on my friends...

I have always been told that it is always best to be ambidextrous when a chef. After looking in the mirror this morning, now I know why. My right arm, the one that does all the whisking, is quite toned; however, my left arm, which usually is just the 'holding the bowl' arm, is getting quite neglected. Today's practical did not help my situation at all. We had to whisk up a double recipe of our sponge cake...9 eggs and about 3-4 cups of sugar until 4x its volume...if anyone is wondering that is 20min of 'vigorous whisking' according to my chef. With all of us seriously feeling like our arms where about to fall off after 10 minutes, our chef gave use the oh so appreciated pep-talk, 'all you chef-ies need to be whisking more vigorously! its not that hard, I could do this all day, come on!!', we all responded to this comment with groans. About half way through the practical my arm started having spasms...I was not the only one. I just had to power through and get this cake finished.

The cake de-jour this morning was the Sabrina cake based off the 1950's movie with Audrey Hepburn. The cake is suppose to represent all things frilly, fun, and pink. Well Sabrina, no offense, but this cake was hardly a pink ball of joyous fun to put together. The result of the cake however is beautiful, and makes a rainy day in London just a little bit brighter. Of course the comments of today...your piping is too thick...to all of my followers out there I thought it looked so much better than my past two piping jobs, don't you? That comment aside most of the feedback went well. 

Today we had to temper our own chocolate and we must do it by touch. The chocolate must be warmed up to 45C, then brought down to 27C, then warmed back up to 30C and it must be used straight away to keep the shine. In school we are taught to feel the temperature of the chocolate with our bottom lip, because it is one of the more sensitive areas on the body. 

This cake has a crazy number of components to it and the assembly is the most challenging part. When I was watching the chef put this cake together, I was just thinking 'my gosh how many things can we add to this cake?! It seems never ending!'. 

Sabrina Cake composition: layer pate sucree (pie pastry), strawberry jam,  the sponge cake is rolled like a jelly roll with a layer of strawberry cream in between the layers so that the cake looks like it has horizontal stripes when you cut each slice, cover the entire cake with strawberry cream, 1rolled out layer of marzipan, 2 layers of tempered chocolate, marking of the chocolate, piping, add design to the outer edge, pistachios around the bottom edge, and a strawberry on top...did I mention this is all from scratch?!

After class I got on my regular bus to go home with my wellies, umbrella, 1 tote bag of baking books, 1 shopping bag of chocolate and strawberry stained chef clothes, a heavy cake box, and an umbrella...with it pouring down rain it was hardly a time for acting graceful. I finally got onto the bus and took the first two seats I saw, in a very unlady-like fashion I plopped down on the chair and put all of my extra things in the seat next to me. There were about 10-12 open seats around me...this is an important detail to note for the next bit of my saga. This guy gets on the bus, very arrogantly and then stands right next to me and says "I would like to sit in this seat at the front of the bus"...'what are your freaking kidding me!? Cant you tell that I have a million things and I am carrying a huge cake?', I thought to myself, I proceeded to give him an evil stare. I moved over with 2 bags, a wet umbrella, and a cake on my lap. Then, when I had to get off the bus, I said "excuse me this is my stop" and the (insert choice word here) wouldn't even stand up and get out of my way! I had to try to slide around him. I accidentally hit him with my huge Longchamp tote bag and I have to admit he had it coming! 

To Do List:

1. email my trainer Lauren 

2. laundry

3. do not eat the cake

Mr. Fork meet Mr. Cake, now meet my mouth...

Today I found out that I will not only be graduating with a Diploma in Patisserie and a Certificate in Cuisine, but I will also have received my 'associates degree' according to the United Kingdom. Any one else find it humorous that I am getting my Associates after my Bachelors and before my Masters? Just one of the many surprises this little adventure turned big adventure has lent out to me.

Now, onto more important things, C-A-K-E...

Chocolate, cake, ganache, cake, coffee buttercream, cake, ganache, chocolate, pretty piping. Its true! Heaven on earth does exist and it exists in a cake called the Opera. The Opera cake was invented for a big meeting between the United States and France. Apparently in the early 1900's France needed to borrow some money from the US and the grand dessert for the important dinner (the deal closer in my opinion) was the ever so impressive Opera cake.

Normally I am just not into the sponge cakes we make at school. They are dry and soaked in some kind of alcohol, not my top choice calorie intake item. The Opera cake is luscious and flavorful. I brought it back to my flat and the cake quickly was eaten up by my roommates and their friends. Probably a good thing, because I could have just sat down with that cake, a fork, and a good movie...well, lets just say by the end of the movie, bye bye cake.

My chocolate piping was of course too thick, big shocker. My chef said that I was a little stingy with the buttercream, probably the first time anyone has ever said that to me, but otherwise it looked really nice and I did and excellent job on all the components. I was happy that everything came together, because although the cake assembly sounds simple there are a ton of things that can go wrong with this cake. Our buttercream recipe is a very old traditional buttercream recipe, where you have to whip up egg yolks until a light yellow color, then boil sugar until 118-119 C, then you run that boiling sugar down the side of the kitchen aid bowl, once the bowl comes to room temperature, you start adding in your butter bit by bit. The buttercream has to be at the perfect temperature otherwise the buttercream will split. The ganache is nothing special, chocolate and cream, but if it gets too cold it rips the cake when you spread it, if it is not firm enough then there will not be a nice layer. The cake batter must be perfectly even before baking, so that when you go to stack the cakes it is all perfectly level...that is a very important technical aspect of this cake.

Quote of my practical: "Chef-y, remember that more isn't always better when it comes to the decoration," my head chef said to me after he watched me stair at my chocolate piping on top of the cake with a pondering 'should I add more swirls of chocolate to distract from the few tiny cracks in the top of my cake from cutting the edges off' look for about 5 minutes.

Lesson of the day: Patience is a virtue, but opulence not so much.