Blow Fish...

My last week of sugar work ended with a few bangs...both figuratively and literally. Monday we got to make our "under the sea" sugar piece. The basic structure of it had to be our final exam design. Fortunately for me we were allowed to change the colors, because otherwise my fish would be swimming in a piece inspired by fire. Our chef showed us how to make a dolphin and little mussels, along with a multitude of other sea life. 

As I started to blow-up my sugar fish, I just could not get the size right. They were either more like the size of a whale or looked like a puffer fish blown up. My chef mockingly told me that I had an "army of fish"...to which I responded, "well they need to protect themselves from your dolphin!". After I said it, I just thought, 'please laugh please laugh', being disrespectful definitely does not bode well in the kitchen. Thankfully he did laugh and it made the day much more fun. Everything rolled how it should and I felt really happy with the piece when it was finished. 

Off to pastiallge...

Pastiallge is a mixture of powdered sugar and lemon juice. You work the mixture into a thick dough and you must use it right away. Once dried the texture is like porcelain...and it also shatters like porcelain. Feeling less than inspired the day we had to make all of our pieces, I just started cutting out shapes and it actually turned out pretty whimsical. I figured if worse came to worse I would just say it was "abstract" and call it a day. My favorite part about this experience was using the air brush gun. I really can't even describe how happy that little painting tool made me.  It is strangely empowering. 

The pressure was on for my final sugar piece practice. I had to time myself and be finished within 1 hour and 15 minutes...well I finished in 1 hour and 13 minutes.  The only caveat is that since it was SO hot all the pieces on my sculptures started tilting. My chef came over and said "you can do better, start over". Uhhhhhhhh!!!!! I was so mad! I have felt so confident in sugar up until this point and having to redo my piece on the last time I get to practice before my final exam is a little unnerving. 

My High Tea event is up next...who knows what could happen during all of that chaos. 

"It goes clack-clack chef"

The south of France, just saying those words makes you sigh into a state of instant relaxation.  When I got off the train in Grasse scents of orange blossom and fresh sweet basil waft about in the cool Mediterranean breeze and just for a moment everything felt, or should I say smelt, angelic.  It is understandable why this area has bespoke perfumeries and markets that would make even the pickiest eater go a little weak in the knees. After a weekend of eating fabulous pastries and fresh strawberries that give new definition to the color red, I was…well frankly, I was exhausted, but the kitchen shows no mercy for sleepiness.  Starbucks in hand I went into class Monday morning to start to learn blown sugar.

Our task for the morning was to make a blown sugar pear and a blown sugar apple.  The process starts by pulling the sugar to get the gloss you want and then you literally put a ball of the hot sugar on one end of a copper pipe and blow it up. Oh did I mention that it must be the perfect consistency, warm (not hot), constantly moving, without seams or air-pockets, and the shaping must happen as you are blowing the moving sugar?...oh yeah and when it gets too cold…BOOM! Shards of sharp sugar fly everywhere.  In our kitchen there would be dead silence for about 1 minute and then I would hear “BOOM! Ahhh! Uhhh (the sounds of utter disappointment)” and then the hammering off of the remaining sugar on the copper pipe going into the trash.  In fact I myself jumped the first 5 times my sugar apples exploded on me. Mine was the first one to explode to which my chef responded with “it goes clack-clack chef when it gets too cold”.  Once I got my first attempts shaken off of me and calmed my coffee jitters, everything went fine. With out a doubt this has been the most challenging task for me so far in superior.  After my first successful apple, and by successful I mean it didn’t explode, my friend Nicole and I just looked at each other and started laughing. We decided that it was a VERY rustic looking apple that possibly had been mauled by a bear. My chef said “oh well done chef you finished one…iz like one of zose crappy organic apples that you sell for 7 pounds in zee stores”.  We all had a good laugh about that comment. Even so, I still look at pictures and think, ‘wow I just can’t believe that is sugar’. Food has a way of enticing us and touching senses in a way nothing else can.

Can you tell which one is "organic"?

 For the afternoon it was onto my sugar piece…”clack-clack” became the phrase of my afternoon. You will notice that there is a reason why there is only half of an orange slice coming out the side of my yellow teardrop and that two of my shelves look like a dark army green color. First I ran out of sugar, because I made my teardrop too big and so was my base. Then my orange slice crumbled on one side and my sugar burned. My chef kept saying, “if you are not happy with any of your pieces, then just for today start again and do it right”.  I knew he was talking to me, but I just didn’t want to redo the entire thing, so I just didn’t make eye contact. He came over to me and said “chef I know you can make these pieces well,  I saw your pieces last week…go boil some more sugar and make them again”.  I begrudgingly went to go clean another pot to boil my sugar again. Although I was annoyed that I had to remake some of my pieces, I did end up getting to play a little bit more with some color…silver lining.

Tuesday morning was working with pastiallge, which is a mixture of gelatin, lemon juice, and icing sugar. Once you mix it together into dough then you can roll it out and make all sorts of different shapes with it. The dough dries very fast, so you have to work extremely quickly. The result looks like porcelain and has that same texture.  Not feel extremely inspired by looking at Google Images of pastiallge work for two hours the night before, I decided to do an abstract piece with my pastiallge that has a theme of a whimsical sky (moon, sun, stars, clouds all woven together). I think it will really come to life once it is painted.  That afternoon I had to finalize my sugar piece for my final. As you all can see the piece has evolved over the past two weeks, but I feel like I have a great base design for display of my sable petit fours and chocolate truffles for my final exam. On top of that I know I can do it in one hour, which is imperative.

“One cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not dinned well.” –Virginia Woolf

Just call me the Sugar Whisperer...

...we all knew this day was coming, friends, I am writing to you tonight with blistered hands and bandaged fingers. I know that this hardly seems like a pleasant experience, but I am just having the best time with poured and pulled sugar.

Monday morning started my module on sugar. Bright and early (and a little jet-lagged) I dressed out in my full uniform and I headed to my first superior class. I walk into class and met all my new classmates, but there was little time for chit-chat...we hit the ground running!

Our tasks for the day were to make a pulled sugar rose and to make our first sugar sculpture. The pulled sugar rose process is basically where you boil sugar and water to 329 F pour and work the liquid similarly to how you would kneed bread, well except for the fact that it is so freaking hot you almost have to laugh to get through it....or yell profanities. Then the process is similar to how salt water taffy is made; I pull the sugar and fold it, pull, fold, pull, fold, ect. The result is that the sugar gains a silver tone and looks like glass because of the air that has been incorporated. Then the sugar is kept hot under a hot suspended iron. Really the worst part is not touching the hot sugar, but it is having to work under the hot iron...my hands will never look the same again. When the sugar hardens, which is almost instant once you take it of the heat, the sugar turns into a very delicate glass like substance and the result is in a word, stunning! I can just imagine a bunch of these flowers gently cascading down and around the side of a wedding cake. Each one of these little roses would be sold for about $12-14 dollars. Sound outrageous? Well take into consideration that we have to pay for burn cream and antiseptic somehow.

Our sugar sculptures came next. The basic process of this is boiling sugar and water together and pouring it while still hot and then shaping it however you want. The tricky part, besides the heat factor, is that you have one pot of sugar, thus you have to very carefully graduate your colors. I started with yellow, then added a little red to make orange, then onto a deeper red, and finally swirled in some gold luster dust to the last portion of my boiled sugar. Organization for this is absolutely imperative, other wise you will end up with a very unfortunate grey or brown color very early on in your work.

 Tuesday our tasks for the day: sugar sculpture, sugar rose, pulled sugar ribbon in 5 hours. With some tweaking to my original sugar sculpture from day one, I don't like it at all!...however my chefs loved it...SO looks like this is going to be my general design, although there are a few techniques on my show piece that most definitely need practice. On my final exam I will have to display my chocolate truffles and petit fours on the "shelves" I have incorporated into the piece.

Tuesday also brings to all of us a new fear...the sound of crumbling and cracking sugar. While I have been fortunate to not have any of my pieces break, just about every 10-20 minutes you hear a "crack, crash, 'oh *$%!'" and shards of sugar go all over the counter and floor. We pick up the salvageable pieces for our distressed classmate and either try to piece it together or have another go at it.

We moved onto our roses and I do think that the one from today looks more life-like than from day one...minor victory!

Finally it was time for our pulled sugar ribbon. We only had 30 minutes left and Nicole and I started pulling our colored sugar ribbon across the width of the kitchen. Trying to keep the sugar even, shiny and pliable under the tiny heat iron all the while warming up our knife with a blowtorch to cut the huge and very breakable sugar ribbon into smaller strips to form the loops. We all felt like we were on one of those sugar competitions on the Food Network racing against the clock with sugar shards flying all over the place. New respect for sugar artists...mad props, I bow at your feet!