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!

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.