Strawberry Fields Forever

Finally the reveal of the finished product....

My poor butterfly lost part of his little wing...normally I would just make another one, but when it is 8:00pm and you have been at school since noon...dinner seems much more important. 

This cake felt like I was carrying the equivalent of 3 bricks. 

I knew this was the type of cake I wanted to do for a long time...actually I have been imagining what my theme would be since last May when I officially decided to continue with culinary school and put of the 'real world' for another year. With Spring wafting through the air in London this past week, strawberries, butterflies, and flowers seems to be the only appropriate expression of happiness we all felt to see and feel a little sunshine.

This is a fruit cake through and through. Admittedly I did end up trying a bit of the fruit cake that has been soaking in rum for the past 2 months....well I will just leave the taste to your imagination. My flatmates said it tasted like Christmas and they ate it right up. People say that at some point cultures do eventually collide and apparently they collide over fruit cake.

I am now officially a Superior Patisserie student and I couldn't be happier. Stay tuned everyone, because Monday starts pulled sugar and a few new classmates. I have a feeling these past few months have been a mere 'amuse bouche' to what I am about to sink my teeth into.

Food for Thought

If "summer afternoon" are the two most beautiful words in the English language according to Henry James,  then surely he would agree that the two worst words in the English language are "exam week". Apologies for delays on updating my blog these past few weeks.

"the cosmic mystic of the souffle" -Chef

To anyone who has attempted to make a souffle ever in their life, then the above quote should most definitely resonate with you. I know it resonates with me, because you see the cosmic souffle and I have a history together. Last December I threw a dinner party and made a blue cheese souffle. A few days before the party I decided to practice just in case...I made two souffles that night...two for lunch the next day...and two more for dinner that night. They either fell flat, or came out perfect and then fell in 2 seconds, not enough cheese, the list goes on. Finally on the night of the dinner party I was just crossing my fingers that it would turn out and taste good, especially since I was taking a bit of a gamble on sneaking in the 'blue cheese factor' with my friends. I guess the souffle has a bit of a sense of humor or may be felt the magic of having so many people I love in one room, but it turned out perfect and everyone loved it. My 6 hour lecture and practical on sweet souffles went great. We learned how to make Souffle Chaud, Pudding souffle, and Crepes Souffle, needless to say they were amazing. Since we could not take them home with us for obvious reasons we all just stood around our huge marble slab table top in the practical kitchen with spoon in hand and ate all of what we had made that day.

At school we call it the $4000.00 exam....the dreaded practical exam at the end of term that determines whether we pass our class or not. First we take a written theory exam where we must know everything form last term and our current term, things from recipes to the densities of sugar to the chemical bonds that form during tempering chocolate. Once that is over we all frantically start memorizing our recipes for our practical exam. Let me walk you though this exam....first we line up outside of our practical kitchen, then as we walk into the kitchen and draw a recipe out of hat and we have 15 minutes to write down the recipe, a detailed method of production, and a sketch of the end result. Then we all must leave the kitchen and walk into the kitchen in 5 minute intervals. We have EXACTLY 2 1/2 hours, if you go over time you automatically fail. If you fail the practical class your fail the entire class and you must take the class and pay for it again. No pressure right?! The cake that everyone was dreading pulling was the Sabrina cake....guess who picked the Sabrina...yup that is the cake I got. To be honest during class it took us a really long time, but in the final it was not that bad. There were naturally things wrong with my cake, I mean how can there not be with that kind of pressure, but over all I finished with plenty of time to spare. It was a bit of an empowering moment. Our results don't come out until Wednesday, I am fairly confident that it is a cruel joke to have us all worried for a week. Beside the fact that my chocolate top looked like a car ran over it and my chocolate piping was definitely too thick, I was really proud of the rest of the cake. Fingers crossed everyone!

My final grade for my Intermediate term is the celebration cake. So anyone remember that fruit cake I made 2 months ago...well now its time to decorate it! I made all of my elements out of gum paste and then painted them with edible colored dust. My design is a wood bucket with wild strawberries inside with a yellow butterfly perched on one of the wood slats. I had the design in my head and I was ready to go shop for supplies with my friend Nicole. That afternoon when I got home all my flatmates were showing off all of their new lovely 'high-street purchases' they had made that day and I was showing off my new baby rolling pin and boarder cutters.

After going to Jane Asher, a cake decorating store here in London, my knife kit has grown exponentially and my bank account has shrunken exponentially. Butterfly cutters, have to have them. Sugar flower sculpting tools....essential, tiny rolling pin and small cutting board...I mean I would not be able to call myself a pastry chef without them. The edible glitter was definitely when my purchase got a little out of control and a shop-o-holic intervention was needed.

after working on these for almost 10 hours I still have a few more finishing touches to make them look natural ...this is the point where I could see my cake start to take shape


A very wise literature teacher of mine once told me to never put a title onto a paper or essay until after you have written it in it's entirety. Only then can you properly give a name to the piece. I am taking the same approach to this cake. So for now it is just called "Fruit Cake No-Name" and is celebrating heaven only knows what, but you can never rush the creative process right?!

Chicken Noodle Soup Topped with a Tuile Cookie Spiral

I have 12 of the molten chocolate cakes or Fondant au Chocolat with a ginger orange syrup in my freezer right now. I was so excited to learn how to make those. 

Good morning monday...

"[the apples in hot caramel] tends to burn your fingers [as you pull them out of the caramel with your fingers one by one] 'ohh lala you zee its hot even for me' but then it will gradually drop to 100 degrees (212 degrees F) so you will be fine" -Chef

"we start sugar work next week, so it will be good to have some good blisters started on your fingers" 

-Chef

....oh good...cant wait!

Just a few quotes to get the week started off right. Now even though I do have several burn blisters from pulling all of those little apple (6 apples in total) slices out of  searing hot caramel, I have to admit, it was worth it. Normally on a menu I would go straight for the chocolate dessert, but this apple tartin will make you rethink your dessert choice of the evening and asking for 'a la mode' would just be an insult. 

When a person takes the time to hand place all the 1-2mm thick apple slices in the tartin tin you know that this is more than just food, it is edible art that can actually touch more than just your taste buds. I have been thinking a lot this week about personal touches. Even the imperfections are more beautiful when you know that someone has taken the time to try to make something special.  This week we focused on plating our desserts as well. It seems like an easy enough task to decorate a plate with a little tempered chocolate, caramel drops, and raspberry coulis...but when those 3 dots of sauce on your plate have all been made from scratch just to make the plate and dessert more beautiful visual and in taste, somehow it seems like more than just 3 dots of sauce. Those three dots are drenched in substance and become personal in a strange way. I have been lucky enough to be reminded of those personal connections made through food by my friend Jasmine and my roommate Ann. I have been dog-sick all week, but have still had to attend class...3 hour practicals in an extremely hot or extremely cold kitchen while sick...oh yeah now thats a challenge. Ann, my roommate, made me a home remedy with pears and left me a sweet note! My good friend Jasmine made me homemade chicken noodle soup. Its times like these when you realize that food is so much more than a meal. 

Delices aux Fruits Exotiques...or in English the Exotic Fruit Mousse. This dessert actually was one of the more relaxed practicals we have had so far. I know it is hard to believe considering all that is on the plate, but the assembly is basically something we could all do in our sleep at this stage. I decorated mine with a piped tuile halo, fruit, passion fruit coulis, raspberry coulis, mandarin caramel, and tempered chocolate twists. I re-plated my dessert about 3 times, because I just could not decide on my design...and my piping bag broke...twice. My piping bag disasters must be a bit of a joke now, because I was mocked several times today. Even though I did not get as much hight as I wanted with my chocolate twists, it was a great feeling leaving the kitchen today after getting to use some creative plating. 

PS: I am pretty sure this dessert is a product of the 80's...mainly because of the neon green pattern we put on the outside of the sponge cake....it was done against my will. 

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.