Pate a Bric Day

Asian Pear Sping Rolls

The third plated desserts unit is organized interestingly, each day we use a different dough or technique in a variety of different ways. Today was pate a bric day. Pate a bric is sort of a cross between fillo dough and a crepe. It's slightly salty and a bit thick (still quite thin, don't get me wrong), so I prefer fillo and I don't think anything we've done with pate a bric can't be done with fillo. In fact, you work with it the same way you work with fillo, you have to keep it covered so it doesn't dry up and you coat it with melted butter (typically clarified butter) before you do anything with it.

We made two things today: Asian pear spring rolls and mango purses. The former were definitely my favorite. The sauteed spring rolls filled with slices of Asian pear were excellent on their own. Served with raspberry swirl ice cream and raspberry gastric--a sauce made with raspberry vinegar and butter. We used caramel decorations to mimic chopsticks.

The mango purses were good. We served them with a sake sabayon and sorbet. The purses were fine, but what was really good was the sabayon and the sorbet.

Mango Purse

Sugar Showpiece

The class divided in half and made two sugar theme parks. I ended up a quasi team leader for my half's showpiece so we used my Coney Island theme. I made a ferris wheel, the boardwalk (poured sugar embedded with cinnamon sticks), and a bunch of small balloons for the food stands--although we ended up only using one or two of them. I also helped a bit, really just a bit, with the base and the sand.

I think it ended up really cool looking! My favorite part has to be the Nathan's stand, with the base and boardwalk together as a close second.

Chef Jacques Torres Demos Viennoiserie

Yesterday I went to Chef Jacques Torres' demo on viennoiserie. I was curious to see what Mr. Chocolate would do. Obviously he is a brilliant pastry chef who made a name for himself before he opened his chocolate shop, but still a viennoiserie demo? Chef Jacques explained that other than chocolate, the first few units we study in the pastry program (tarts, bread/viennoiserie, etc) are his favorite things to make. I guess it makes sense when you think about it, there is something incredibly satisfying and surprisingly relaxing about making a croissant or an apple tart. Plus is there anything better than a freshly pain au chocolat?

First things first, he talked about yeast. He likes using fresh yeast. It is sold in bricks and kept cold. As he explained, it should always be crumbly...if it's not, it's too old. For both the croissant and brioche recipes he used, he mixed all the ingredients together, not bothering to make a preferment.

Next, Chef Jacques showed us how to make croissant dough (which can be used to make pain au chocolat and danish, among other things.) The procedure was, more or less, what we learn in class. He did emphasize the importance of a long fermentation--you should always let your croissant dough proof overnight in the fridge, he said multiple times, as it helps develop the flavor and cut the sweetness. This wasn't news to me, but it was nice to have the concept reinforced. What was news was that you can replace about 10-15% of the sugar in a croissant recipe with trimoline, an invert sugar. Apparently this will give it a good flavor and a nicer color when it is baked. I'll have to try this sometime--I'm really curious to see how it works.

Then he showed us the process of turning the dough. His method is to cover 2/3 of the rolled out dough with butter, then fold the dough up in the equivalent of a single/letter turn. Then roll out and make one double turn and then one single turn. That's it. Let proof overnight in the fridge, roll out, cut, bake, eat. Speaking of eating, he served fresh croissants and pains au chocolat. There is nothing better than a pain au chocolat fresh out of the oven--it's light and buttery and the chocolat is still melted. Gosh they were good.

For the bomboloni, he made a "light" brioche dough. Since the dough would be fried in oil, he explained, you don't need so much fat, so he cut down on the eggs and butter (but still added plenty). He showed us when to add the cold (but slightly softened) butter--once the gluten in the dough is developed enough that it pulls away from the sides of the mixing bowl and forms a ball. It takes a while for the butter to become fully incorporated into the dough, so you should add it cold to ensure it doesn't melt from the friction of the dough rubbing against the bowl--you should also use a sturdy mixer or you could end up burning out the motor (as Chef Jacques almost did).

To fry them, form them into tight balls and let them proof. Then drop them into a pot of 160* oil and cook until they are golden on both sides. Take them out of the oil and roll them in granulated sugar then fill them. Apparently any filling is acceptable, Chef Jurgen (who happened to be sitting in on the demo) suggested apricot jam--his favorite. Chef Jacques scoffed (jokingly, I should add) saying that apricot jam is cheap and in France they use raspberry jam. His favorite filling is pastry cream--what he was using in the demo--apparently because when you throw a pastry cream filled bomboloni at someone it will stick to them better than a jam filled one would. Good reasoning, I think!

Filling the bomboloni

Regardless of the relative merits of fillings and how they function in food fights, the pastry cream filled fresh bomboloni he served were incredible. (A shout out to whoever was in the kitchen assisting him, you all did a great job making a ton of them.)

Chef Jacques, interestingly, will not use pastry cream powder for his pastry cream, opting instead for cornstarch. He pointed out that no one really knows what is in pastry cream powder--Chefs Jurgen and Rudy tried to object but it was futile, Chef Jacques was right, they didn't really know exactly what was in it. Honestly, I couldn't taste a difference in the pastry cream, except to note that it was exceptionally smooth--partly because he enriched it with a bit of butter once it cooled slightly.

Overall an excellent demo; I learned a lot and thoroughly enjoyed myself. I can't wait to try out some of the tricks he showed us at home...and then eat the results!

Chef's Sugar Work

I'm not that good at sugar work, partially because I've had very little practice and partially because it really hurts my hands. Since my work isn't that impressive, I thought I'd take this opportunity to show how amazing good sugar work can be. The chef demoed a few different techniques:

Satin-izing pulled sugar (the green stem)
Traditional roses (the pink one)
Briar roses (the white one)

Casting poured sugar in ice (the clear one)
Casting poured sugar in regular granulated sugar (the 'frosted' one)

Blown sugar (the swan's body) and more pulled sugar (the wings)
I think this is so amazingly cute!

Blown Sugar

This is not easy, but it's really cool! You start with satinized sugar like you use for pulling sugar, but instead of pulling it, you shape it into a ball with an indent in it. Then put it on the end of the pump--which is basically a blood pressure pump with narrow, copper piping instead of a blood pressure cuff on it--and, just like blowing glass, pump it until the sugar is the shape you want. The hot spots get thinner and therefore larger air pockets under them and, conversely, the cold spots remain thicker and flatter, so if you are really good at it, like our chef, you can make some pretty impressive things. I made a sort of golden apple/pear (and a pulled sugar rosebud); the chef made an amazing bird sculpture.

Pulled Sugar

Pulling sugar is not easy. It basically involves handling sugar (with an acid added to keep it from crystalizing) or isomalt that is over 100*C, pulling and folding it to "satinize" it, and pulling it into appealing shapes. The biggest problem with this is you have to grip the sugar firmly and often for many seconds. When you hold something hot, your instinct is to touch it lightly and drop it as quickly as possible; you can't do that with pulled sugar, so you end up with sore, blistered fingers. Plus, the sugar really does offer up a lot of resistance when you pull it, which makes your hands ache, even hurt, after a while--or perhaps that's just me, because the joints in my hands and wrists seem to be aching a lot lately.

I really don't like pulling sugar, I find it too painful (not the blisters, though that's not fun) but the pain I get in my hands from it. It's unfortunate, really, because I think pulled sugar is beautiful and it's the type of fine detail work I usually love doing.

We used the pulled sugar work to decorate our owls. In my case, I made leaves for the branch the owl stands on and a little flower for her ear. So pretty! I also made a "fantasy flower"--a flower that does not attempt to replicate a real flower--which I really did like the look of.

Poured Sugar

Today we started the sugar unit. This class wasn't too hard. Basically you cook really clean sugar, water, and glucose until it hits 158*C (very hot). Then you color it and pour it into rubber or metal molds, let it harden, and unmold. Use clear melted isomalt (beet sugar) to glue pieces together and you get a simple to make sculpture of, in this case, an owl! Isn't she cute?!

Night of Desserts

As part of the pastry program every class hosts a Night of Desserts. We invite friends and family for two shifts of dessert service. We create our own menu and each team of two makes one dish. My partner and I were assigned the chocolate dish and came up with a chocolate and Guinness pastilla with creme fraiche ice cream. It was incredible!

A pastilla is a savory Moroccan dish made with chicken in a flaky dough (I believe it's a relative to fillo dough) flavored with cocoa, cinnamon, and sugar. I've only had a proper one once, when I lived in the UK, because they--like good Moroccan food in general--are difficult to find in the States.

What we did was make it a proper dessert. First things first, we got rid of the chicken and upped the chocolate content. Instead of using cinnamon we decided to get a rich, deep, nearly spicy flavor from Guinness. So we baked a batch of plain old, fudgy, chocolate brownies and cut them into squares. We topped them with a Guinness and dark chocolate ganache and wrapped them in layers of buttered fillo dough. We kept them in the fridge until we were ready to use them the following class when we baked them until the fillo was golden.

We served them with chocolate Guinness sauce that we made by thinning down the ganache with extra heavy cream and creme fraiche ice cream held in place on a pile of brownie crumbs. We also used freshly made raspberry coulis, fresh raspberries, and a tiny basil leaf for color. Yum!

It was delicious and we got rave reviews!

Sabayon Gratin

This was nice. Basically it is fresh sabayon poured over fruit--in this case grapefruit--and bruleed with a torch. It's simple but impressive. I wasn't a fan of the flavor combination we did here, but I like the idea of a sabayon gratin and I think I'll have to try it at home.

Sabayon with Toasted Pannetone

This wasn't my favorite dessert (I'm not a pannetone fan and marsala isn't my favorite), but it was quite pleasant. It is marsala wine sabayon, lightened with whipped cream, layered with toasted pannetone. We served this very simply, just with some fresh fruit, which I think was a lovely choice.

Tiramisu

Tiramisu means pick me up. Apparently this name came from the days when women cafes during the day. It was considered uncouth for a woman to drink in public (while men, of course, could) so they would order this cake spiked with marsala wine and coffee--quite a pick me up.

We served our tiramisu--made with lady fingers soaked in an espresso syrup between layers of zabaglione (aka sabayon) made with marsala wine and lightened with whipped cream--with a healthy dusting of cocoa powder, coffee creme anglaise, chocolate sauce, a tuile, and coffee granita served in a chocolate bowl. Each element was delicious alone and even better together. And how cute is the little tuile spoon sticking out of the granita?!

Exotic Fruit Soup

I wasn't a fan of this. The problem is, everything was flavored with ginger--which I almost never like--lemongrass--which I really only like in Thai cooking--mango--which I'm not a fan of, but will eat--and pineapple--ditto. So you can see why I wouldn't like a ginger and lemongrass soup, with pineapple and mango lightly cooked and infused with ginger, lemongrass ice cream, and a sesame seed wafer cookie. On the plus side, the sesame seed wafer cookie was delicious.  I can see how, if you liked the flavors, this would be good. The textures were lovely together and, while I didn't like them, the flavors work together nicely.

Panna Cotta

I'm not a fan of panna cotta; it's too jiggly. But considering that, this did taste nice. It is made with buttermilk, sugar (in the mixture and as caramel on top), heavy cream, and gelatin, so really it can't taste too bad, even if the texture is too wiggly for my liking. This was topped with mango compote and reisling granita, which was incredible!

By the way, a granita is a frozen dessert similar to a snocone. It's made by freezing a not-too-sugary typically alcohol based liquid solid and then scraping it to create flakes of icy goodness.

White Chocolate Hazelnut Semifreddo

This was delicious, but not quite as nice as the mendiant. That's really only because I prefer milk chocolate to white chocolate. Semifreddo means partly frozen in Italian. Just like the mendiant or the parfait, it's a frozen dessert that isn't frozen solid because of all the air whipped into it, not to mention the fat and sugar. Anyway, we served this with drizzled with dark chocolate (which sets up when it comes in contact with the frozen semifreddo), set on top of a piece of hazelnut cake, sitting on a long curved piece of chocolate, with chocolate sauce, raspberry coulis, raspberry compote, and raspberry cream (raspberry flavored whipped cream) filled with chocolate sauce. It was not easy to make the filled raspberry cream scoops. They were worth it though...raspberry cream with a chocolate surprise inside!

Chocolate Hazelnut Mendiant

This is even better than parfaits! It's easier to make--basically it's frozen creme legere (pastry cream lightened with whipped cream)--and just as delicious. Plus I love chocolate hazelnut flavored anything. I think the presentation is lovely. We drizzled tempered chocolate onto acetate and then wrapped that around the unmolded mendiant (which is sitting on top of a piece of delicious chocolate hazelnut chocolate cake) to create a cage. When the chocolate was fully hardened, we pulled off the acetate. That, unfortunately, was easier said than done and a bunch of the cages ended up somewhat broken. Ah well, those ones still tasted good. We served them with chocolate sauce, clear vanilla sauce, strawberry coulis, fresh strawberries tossed in a bit of vanilla sugar and liqueur, and a hazelnut tuile.

White Chocolate Citrus Parfait

I'm surprised at how much I liked this. I'm not a huge white chocolate fan and I wasn't sure how I felt about it with citrus. I really did enjoy it though. I think parfaits are one of my new favorite desserts to eat (but not to make...they are not terribly enjoyable to make). They are basically a frozen mousse set atop a slice of moist cake, so they are light, almost creamy, cakey (where the cake is), and, obviously, cold, which I always enjoy. We served it with a strawberry salad, strawberry coulis, chocolate sauce, and a lace cookie. I'm not sure I approved of the garnish, I think I'd have preferred leaving off the dark chocolate sauce and lace cookie and adding white chocolate decor (such as a fan or cigarette).

Chocolate Mint Dome

We are doing plated desserts again. The first plated desserts unit wasn't my favorite unit and I'm not convinced that the second one is going to be an improvement, but I do really enjoy the food we make and it's certainly an important learning experience. This was really nice! It is a dome of mint parfait (a frozen dessert made of a frozen mixture of whipped cream and pate a bombe) filled with chocolate parfait and set atop a piece of flourless chocolate cake--it's actually built in a silicon dome mold, so the cake goes on last and, once it's frozen, it's flipped out. We sprayed it with chocolate (that's melted and thinned with extra cocoa butter) to give it some texture. Also on the plate is orange and mint salad, a chocolate cigarette, candied orange peel, chocolate sauce, and shortbread. I'm not sure why we used the shortbread with it as it was rather unnecessary, but it was good.

Chocolate Showpiece, answers

As promised, the stills I painted on my showpiece are:

Strip on the left 

• Mickey Mouse
• "Dial M for Murder" (it's a rotary phone with an "M" instead of one of the numbers)
• A classic 'The End' frame

Strip in the middle

• Charlie Chaplin
• A classic countdown clock from the beginning of a film
• "The Birds" (it's power lines and birds)
• "Nightmare Before Christmas" (it's the main character standing on that curvy cliff with the moon in the background)

Strip on the right

• The Paramount logo
• James Bond (a gun shooting out the numbers '007,' similar to the classic title sequences)

How many did you get? 

Well however many it was, here's your prize: 

I know! Best prize ever, right?! Alright, it's
just another photo of my showpiece from
a different angle...it is good though?