My Favorite Holiday

I love Halloween! It's my favorite holiday. You get to dress up in silly costumes and eat sweets without feeling stupid or guilty (respectively). Because Halloween fell mid-week, I got to celebrate it twice! Once with my friend Katy and her flatmates--it was a Halloween party crossed with a birthday party for Katy's flatmate Lucy. The invitation said come in fancy dress (that's British for come in costume) or come dressed as Lucy. So I decided to try out a costume I've been wanted to do for a few years: Lucille Ball. I found a close to perfect Lucy dress at a charity shop near me. The pearls and pumps were mine already. The real effort was getting my wavy red hair curly and pinned up (I think I used over 30 bobby pins!) The party was good fun even if I don't think any of the Brits there knew "I Love Lucy."

Is it Still Slimming if it's a Little Black Cake?

Putting the final touches on the cake

I went to this demo before I started my wedding cake project. I wanted to pick up as many tips and tricks as possible for making a wedding cake. I did pick up some general tricks on how to cover cake layers in fondant and how to stack them. I learned four specific tips I'd like to pass on:

1. Don't try to dye fondant black yourself. Buy pre-colored fondant. It'll save you a lot of work and keep you from dying your hands black.
2. Don't buy circle cutters for making dots, just use pastry tips of varying sizes. We did this in class to an extent, but I didn't realize just how versatile they could be until I saw the drastically different sizes Chef Ron was able to make with them. (I admit I didn't use this trick at school, I never needed dots, but I've used it since.)
3. To make even lines use a straight pin to tack ribbon of the appropriate width to the cake. That way you can line up your decorations by using the straight edge of the ribbon. For scallops, cut a circle of parchment to fit the circumference of the cake, fold it up into an accordion stack and cut a semi circle out of the top (it's just like making paper chains of hearts or little kids holding hands). Unfold it and tack it on. Then use it as a guide just like the ribbon.
4. Everything looks good in black, even wedding cakes. (Okay, that's not so much a tip as an observation. I hadn't expected a black wedding cake to be wedding-y, but with the simple white decorations and the single pop of color from the sugar paste flower this one really was.)

The ribbon and parchment paper guides in use

Chef Ron not only showed us how to decorate the cake, but also how to properly cut and serve it--in slices rather than wedges as you would slice a cake at home. The cake, if I remember correctly, was alternating layers of chocolate and white cake with alternating layers of buttercream flavored with strawberry jam and peanut butter. It was delicious!

Chef Jacques Pepin Bones a Chicken a.k.a. Why I Studied Pastry

Chef Jacques Pepin:
It's hard to see, but between those two women's heads
is a pound of butter with a butter rose perched on top. 

Remember in Julie and Julia, when Julie is freaking out that she's going to have to bone a duck? I've always sympathized with that. I like to know where my food comes from and I'm not terribly squeamish about the fact that meat was once part of a living, breathing animal. That said, I really don't want to pull a chicken's flesh off its rib cage like "chicken pajamas," as Jacques Pepin described it. 

Boning a chicken--or potentially doing
something else with meat, I was in the back row
and I can't quite make out exactly what he'd
doing in this photo.

I will admit, I was very impressed with Jacques Pepin's skill at boning the chicken. He was so quick--less than two minutes while explaining what he was doing--and made it look so easy; though judging by the incredulous laughter of the culinary students in the audience when he said that it isn't very hard at all and the applause when he finished, I'm guessing it's not nearly as simple as Chef Jacques made it look. 

There was, of course, more to the demo than how to bone a chicken. Chef Jacques was discussing the basics--everything from how to hold a knife to what types of pans you should have in your kitchen, from how to pick asparagus to how to make a flower out of a block of butter (okay, I suppose that last one isn't a basic, but it was amazing!)

He talked a lot about produce, including how to break down an artichoke to get to the hearts. He suggested peeling the broccoli stems to get to the more tender inside and then eat it raw. Interesting fact about asparagus, you should look for the fat stalks with tight buds (the leaf like things at the top of the stalk). I always thought the thin ones were the way to go--a very common mistake, apparently--but the thick ones are apparently more flavorful. If they are too fibrous, you can peel the bottoms of them a little.

He gave some random tips. Use a non-stick pan to make omelets. You should always clean copper pots with salt and vinegar. Speaking of copper, a copper bowl is the best thing to whip meringues in. And while we are on the topic of meringues, you should always separate eggs by hand--it's much more reliable than trying to use the shell.

A perfectly sliced apple.

For me the most awe-inspiring thing that Chef Jacques showed us was how to slice an apple. I know that after discussing the awestruck culinary students' cheering Jacques Pepin after he boned a chicken this must seem somewhat dull. The thing is, slicing an apple is one of the first things we learn to do in the pastry arts course--we have to slice apples for our apple tarts, the first thing we make. I believe we sliced apples the second class. It wasn't easy. Don't get me wrong it's not like boning a chicken, but when you are new to professional cooking/baking quickly slicing an apple into thin, even slices while avoiding doing the same to your fingers is a challenge. Honestly, after all the apples I've sliced I've gotten better than I was during that class, but I'm not half as fast as Jacques Pepin was. I swear he had the entire apple sliced in under 30 seconds. I can't even imagine the amount of apples he must have sliced to get that good. (I will point out that Jacques Torres joked during one of his demos that you should never lend a pastry chef a knife because they will kill it. Apparently, we pastry chefs are notorious for our bad knife skills. So I guess I shouldn't feel too bad that I can't slice apples as well as this master chef.)

Overall, the demo was not quite as much fun as other demos I've been to, but definitely the most informative one I've seen. Honestly, it could have been dull as a box of rocks and I still would have enjoyed myself--just being in the same room as Chef Jacques Pepin was enough to thrill me! 

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!

Chocolate Showpieces, Jacques Torres, and the Best Class Ever

Me and my class with Chef Jacques Torres

Today I had the best class ever--Jacques Torres taught it. In college, I had many professors who were leaders in their fields and I would sit in the lecture hall or at the seminar table listening intently to what they had to teach the class. This was different than that because, in addition to him teaching us and showing us amazing techniques and tricks that could only come from Mr. Chocolate himself, I got to cook in the same kitchen as Jacques Torres, not just listen to him teach (like I get to do at the demos).

Chef Jacques with the main structure of
the showpiece. The blue thing in front
of the showpiece is one of the silicon
molds that I discuss below.

We have a chocolate showpiece project coming up, so Jacques Torres--or Chef Jacques as we are told to call him--demoed how to make a chocolate showpiece. He talked about finding the focal point, designing a shape that is pleasing to the eye, and the proper proportions of width to hight. He showed us how to mold odd shapes out of chocolate using rubber or cardboard bands (which enables you to make the piece thicker than you could if you were trying to cut it out) and how to use metal rings to mold the circles for the base (again, this makes things thicker than if you just cut out the shape.) That's how he made the main structure of the showpiece.

Chef Jacques making flower petals and the tuile mold used for
curving them. Also you can see the notching in the edges of
curved pieces of chocolate that form the showpiece's structure.

He also showed us how to make abstract flowers (by forming petals with a pairing knife dipped in chocolate and curving them in a tuile mold) and paint chocolate onto textured molds--in this case to make wings for a butterfly and leaf-like decorations for the base. He taught us how to cut fluted edges out of chunks of chocolate and glue everything together. 

The flower.

Finally he showed us a really cool technique to make a kind-of dough out of chocolate that will harden properly (in contrast to modeling chocolate that doesn't harden completely). Basically you put chocolate (regular old pistoles/chunks from a bar of chocolate) into a food processor and blitz until the chocolate becomes a dough--this may require adding a bit of external heat, but don't use too much or it will met as Chef Jacques so helpfully demonstrated. Once it is a stiff dough you can mold it like clay into complex shapes--in this case, the stamen of the flower, antenna for the butterfly and decorative curvy bits to add movement to the top of the showpiece. These decorations, plus a little bit of petal dust on the butterfly, made for a beautiful showpiece. The most amazing thing about it is that Chef Jacques made it from scratch in about 2.5 hours, including gathering equipment! (To give some perspective, we have more than 8 hours to make our showpieces.) I have to say, I this makes me feel somewhat more confident about being able to make my showpiece...not to mention, I have some really great ideas for techniques I want to use. I almost can't wait until I make my showpiece...almost.

The finished showpiece.