Final Exam, the Showpiece and the Food

My Final Exam Showpiece

These last five classes have been the most intense classes of the course, but they were worth it! I am really happy with my showpiece and the food I presented. By the way, I know I mentioned earlier that class theme was "my imagination" and my showpiece theme was "Pure Imagination"--I was planning on a sort-of homage to Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.  As I started making the piece, I quickly realized that this is less Willy Wonka and more woodland--so I'm going with that!

My showpiece before I put the food on.

One of the most nerve wracking parts of the final exam is transporting the showpiece; we have to carry it down a relatively long hallway. Luckily we don't have to put the food on until we've put the showpieces where they will be judged, so we don't have to worry about it moving or falling--we just have to worry about the showpiece itself. I made my piece relatively small and decently light, so it wasn't hard for me to carry. I glued everything down with either isomalt or chocolate, so I didn't have to worry about things sliding/falling/rolling off.

My lemon curd barquettes floating down a chocolate river.

I am very happy with my lemon curd barquettes/tartlets. They came out perfectly, if I do say so myself! Everything from the tart shells to the smooth finish of the lemon curd to the fresh blueberries on top. The chocolate river (which is hard to see in this photo) came out pretty darn well as well.

My peanut butter nougat on my stand.

I love how the nougat looks and how it tastes, unfortunately the texture is slightly grainy. Also as much as I like how they look, the chocolate covering, while perfectly tempered, was not quite as perfect on the bottom edges as I would have liked. At least they were very evenly sized and coated.

My cakes, waiting to be put on the showpiece.

My cakes survived being stored--the icing didn't get smushed at all! I just piled some fresh berries on, attached my sugarpaste flowers and stuck in some sprigs of rosemary (I wanted thyme, but rosemary came instead.) As you can see I tried two different types of basket weave. The method I used on the bigger cake is slightly less refined, but much easier than the intricate two tip basket weave method I used on the small cake.

A close up of a sugarpaste flower on top of my cake.

My sugarpaste flowers weren't my finest sugarpaste work, but I do really like them. Plus I think they help tie the cake into the whole showpiece.

My nougat on their stand and more sugarpaste flowers.

As you can see, the flowers act as a sort of tie-in as they are all over the piece. I really like my candy and cake stands (even if this one is ever so slightly slanted...oops!) They give height to the piece and integrate the food well.

As you can see, I made meringue mushrooms. I used the technique we learned in class of piping vacherin meringue stems and caps, sticking the pointy end of the stem into a hole carved into the underside of the cap, and dusting with cocoa powder. However I added another element to take it to the next level. I dipped the under side of the caps in tempered dark chocolate, let it harden, and then dipped them into tempered white chocolate. At that point I let the white chocolate set until just about the cutting point (ever so slightly before it, actually) and scored it with a tooth pick so that lines of dark chocolate emanating from a central point showed through--like the gills on the underside of a mushroom cap. You could barely see this detail once I attached the mushrooms to the showpiece, but it was there and demonstrated an attention to detail that I think was pretty impressive.

My pastillage candy canes.

I am really happy with my pastillage candy canes. They came out just how I wanted them to! I also really liked my chocolate spheres. I've never attempted to make chocolate spheres before. They aren't easy. You have to make half spheres, which is rather like making a bonbon shell except instead of filling them, you unmold them hollow and stick them together with tempered chocolate. I painted them with more tempered chocolate so that you couldn't see the line where they were glued together or any smudges from where I was holding the two halves when I stuck them together. After all that work they looked pretty much perfect. Unfortunately, they ended up slightly hidden on my showpiece, but you can see one sticking out from behind the candy canes in the photo above.

Nine months of classes, five days of intense work, and it all
comes down to what the judge thinks of showpiece number 21.

Stay tuned to hear about the judging!