Sixtieth Birthday Party

My pops turned 60 earlier this month. We threw him a big surprise party. And even with all the cooking and preparation we did, he (shockingly) was surprised! We really went all out too; it's quite something that we still managed to surprise him.

Baked Lemon Tart with Really Easy Tart Crust~With Recipe

I prefer a lemon curd tart to a baked lemon tart, but every once in a while I like to mix things up. This recipe seemed worth trying. The filling was very lemon-y with a surprisingly creamy texture for a baked tart--sort of like lemon curd but lighter and a bit tangier.

Fourth of July Berry Tart

This is just a simple tart. I made a nice crust (not my best work but I was busy with exams), filled it with a nice whipped cream and mascarpone mixture, and topped it with fresh berries. Delicious, easy, fresh, and (with the strawberries and blueberries) very patriotic.

Chocolate and Pear Tart

My friend, Katy, had me over for dinner ages ago and made me this delicious chocolate pear tart from Martha Stewart. Turns out I have the recipe and, since it is gluten free, I figured I'd make it for the cousins. As when Katy made it, it was a hit!

Olive Oil Fig Cake

I love olive oil cakes. Besides the fact that I can fool myself into thinking they are healthy because olive oil, rather than butter, is the main fat in the cake, I also really enjoy the taste. I've been considering making one of the olive oil cakes from school for a while, but just hadn't gotten around to it. Then I saw this recipe in my new Martha Stewart Cakes cookbook and I just had to make it.

Savory Onion Tart, the remake

Remember this? I first made this in culinary school and loved it so much I made it at home a couple times. One of those times happened to be for Sophie. That may have been a mistake. Ever since, she's been asking (nagging...begging...) me to make it again. If you don't remember it, basically it's a flakey, tender, buttery tart crust topped with sauteed onions, heirloom tomatoes, walnuts, and stilton.

Grapefruit Tart

I love fruit curd. I usually make lemon curd tarts, but I decided to do something different and went for grapefruit. I couldn't find gelatin at the local shop and I didn't have any at home so I used a couple extra egg yolks but it didn't make it thicken quite as much as I would have liked. It would have been a fine consistency for individual tarts, but it got a little messy when we were slicing the large one. Ah well, it tasted amazing. The grapefruit has a bit less tang than a lemon curd but it was a bit more bitter...in a good way.

I made the crust out of shortbread dough, which was sweet and balanced out the bitterness of the grapefruit. To decorate, I just topped it with a bit of whipped cream around the edge and some homemade crystallized grapefruit zest. Delicious and elegant!

Mince Pies

Aren't they pretty?

I'm sure I've mentioned that I have a cousin who can't eat gluten. Well I happened to spending Christmas with him and his family (they are my family too, obviously) in London. Apparently the non-celiac part of the family loves mince pies and can never find decent gluten free ones, so my cousin never eats them. They were making dinner, so I promised to bring desserts (including mince pies). I made a traditional apple filling, which is simple enough (and already gluten-free.) The problem was the crust. I wanted to try a shortening based pie crust, but I couldn't find crisco, so that plan went out the window. My next idea was my favorite crust, pâte brisée. Unfortunately I cannot find my favorite gluten free flour here in the UK, so I'm experimenting with other brands while I visit. The brand I happened to be trying is heavy in potato flour and my pâte brisée tasted like potato. Yuck. Third time was the charm, happily. My pâte sucrée didn't come out perfectly but it was good and not strongly potato-y. Plus the filling was the real star. (Get it, star? Because I made little stars on top... Okay, bad joke, I know.)

Anyway, everyone seemed to like them. The whole family thought they yummy even compared to mince pies with gluten in them--and coming from Brits, that's high praise!

Thanksgiving

As you may have noticed from past years, we are very into Thanksgiving. This year was no exception. In fact we really went above and beyond the usual because we invited our English family for their first Thanksgiving. It was really lovely!

We made the usual turkey with all the trimmings, including mom's incredible stuffing, cranberry sauce (the jelly kind that holds the shape of the can, of course--is there any other?), and gravy. We. Also had two kinds of potatoes: mashed potatoes with a hint of sour cream and sweet potato and yam casserole with mini marshmallows. We also had Brussels sprouts and green beans with lardons and homemade buttermilk biscuits.

For dessert I made, as per usual, a trifle. This year, since my kitchen aid is on the fritz (long story) I decided not to go with my usual pound cake recipe and instead modified the lemon loaf cake we made at the FCI to be a vanilla loaf cake. It wasn't as dense and delicious as a pound cake, but it was pretty darn good (and it was for the inside of a trifle, so it actually may have been better a little lighter.) I layered the cake with my usual chocolate mousse, a vanilla whipped cream/crème fraiche mixture, and sliced strawberries. Delicious!

One of my cousins can't eat gluten, so I also made individual gluten free trifles with gluten free, lemon cornmeal loaf cake, the whipped cream/ crème fraiche mixture, and fresh blueberries. The chocolate mousse was gluten free, but it didn't seem to work with the lemon cornmeal loaf. I didn't taste the whole thing, but the elements were good and it was a hit. By the way, I made the individual portions in martini glasses--a cute trick to make a trifle (gluten free or not) a bit more elegant.

I also made apple tart with a gluten free, walnut shortbread crust and pumpkin seed toffee brittle. The tart came out wonderfully. The toffee came out delicious, but not quite right. I think I mixed it a bit too much so it started to cool and turn opaque before I poured it out. It was absolutely incredible taste wise, so I didn't really mind that it looked slightly wrong.

Overall, all the food was a great success, the night was a ton of fun, and I think we may just have a new family tradition!

Sweet Constructions

All the competitors, the guest judges,
and the chefs who helped the team and organized the event
(photo credit to ?)

Quite a while ago the FCI held a pastry showpiece competition. Teams of four had to create a multi-media showpiece and petit four/bonbon, all the proposals were judged and our teams advanced to the finals. For the finals each team created the showpiece and 24 pieces of their petit four. I was on one of the teams!

Our showpiece!

My team, Team Composition, created a cello out of chocolate, held up on a piece of pastillage painted to look like composition paper, perched on a poured sugar base, with pulled sugar roses. Our petit four was a very delicate lemon curd tart with blueberries.

Our petits fours (photo credit?)

Our competition was a team made up of our classmates, a team from a Level 2 class, and a team of just graduated students. All of the teams made beautiful showpieces and delicious petits fours.

We came in second (according to one of the judges, a very close second) to our classmates. If we were going to lose, I'm glad it was to them!

The winning showpiece: congrats Erin, Emma, Rozette, and Dayana!

Anyway, now that you know what happened let me tell you a bit about our showpiece. With help from Chef Michael we designed a 3-D, hollow body cello--I will take credit for the many drafts of to scale sketches and the eventual diagrams and templates.

The sketch we submitted.
As you can see we made some changes to the design,
but the fundamentals remained the same.

The body is made of chocolate sprayed with chocolate spray to give it some texture (impressive work, Sam). The stylized neck and end pin are made of unsweetened chocolate that was rubbed with a bit of oil to give it shine. The strings are made of spaghetti brushed with gold luster dust. It is supported by a beautifully thin pastillage stand and embellished with pastillage music notes (great job, Kedby). The base is made of 3 graduated poured sugar tear drops died with just a tiny drop of green to give it the appearance of glass. The roses are expertly pulled sugar (beautiful, Caitlyn). The petits fours were made by yours truly and were delicious if I do say so myself. In the end the judges thought we should have made a bonbon--we almost did but decided to show off different skills since we figured the showpiece demonstrated our chocolate work well enough. Ah well, you never know what judges will think. Even though we did lose, I'm really proud of our showpiece and petit four. We did great work under significant restraints. And it's a bit of a blessing in disguise because the prize is to make a giant version, which seems like a bit more work than prize. Regardless, I competed in probably my only pastry competition ever (I can't imagine when I'd do another one) and am proud of the result--I think that's a win!

Another picture of our showpiece

Graduation, con't

Sheets and sheets of food...and this was nowhere near all of it.

Oops, I almost forgot to tell you about the food at graduation. Well, actually it's the food we baked for our final exam. I think it is slightly cheeky of them to make us cater our own graduation--we actually have to come in early to heat up and plate all the food. That said, it makes sense, we made a ton of food for our final and it was excellent! All our chocolates (peanut butter nougat and assorted bonbons), our viennoiserie (croissants, danish, and brioche rolls), petits fours (palmiers, macarons, bourbon pecan cookies, and pate de fruits), tarts (linzer tarts and jalousies), and cakes (genoise, lemon chiffon, and chocolate). Unfortunately the lemon curd tartlets and everything made with choux got too soggy in the refrigerator over the weekend.

You see that whole cake behind the tray?
That's my cake!

We had so much food that my cake ended up being used as decoration. On one hand, bummer I wanted to eat it; on the other, very cool that it was nice enough to be decorative!

Final Exam, the Judging

The judging room.

As I mentioned before, the final exam is judged by guest judges. We had five judges come in. Each judge get randomly assigned 4-5 students--they don't know our names until after they judge us. Once they are done evaluating our food and our showpieces, we meet them and they tell us what they think.

My judge was Zac Young! 

I was the fifth person in my group to get judged and the wait to be called in was the longest 20 minutes of my life. Finally, they called me in. My judge was Zac Young--a former contestant on Top Chef Just Desserts and one of the hosts of Unique Sweets (it's on the Cooking Channel, check it out.) I was really happy to have Zac Young judging me because I really do enjoy watching him on Unique Sweets, because he seems nice on the show, and because I'm considering a career in food writing/food media.

My plate for the judge:
 (clockwise from top) a mini lemon chiffon cake, a cherry danish,
a piece of peanut butter nougat, and a lemon curd barquette.

First, he judged my plate. The plate had one of each of the four things we had to make. He said my danish was delicious and baked perfectly. Apparently many people underbake their viennoiserie--I however am "not afraid of the oven." He said my lemon curd barquette was excellent--both the curd and the shell. I'm very happy he liked the shell because I spent a decent amount of time getting them perfectly even; something that is especially difficult when they are so petit. My nougat, unfortunately, was grainy. I knew he would say that, though, so I was prepared for it. He did say that the even shape of the pieces and the smoothness of the coating made it look like they had been made by machine! He only had one complaint about the cake--he wasn't sure what was going on with the rosemary. I explained that it was supposed to match the woodland look of the piece and that it was supposed to be thyme. He got the woodsy-ness of the green herb but was still hesitant to agree with it on a cake. At which point I explained that I like the flavor of thyme with lemon--I would have infused the lemon curd filling with thyme if I'd been allowed to change flavors.

My showpiece: I know I've posted this picture already,
but I want you to have the visual while you read about the judging.

Next he moved to my showpiece. He really liked the overall look. He complimented my use of different materials. I was worried he wouldn't like the lack of sugar work, but he actually liked that I'd had the foresight not to use a material that would be so affected by the weather (summer in NYC is humid and humidity ruins sugar). His one criticism was that my piece could have used more height. I completely agree; it was a bit diminutive. Still, he said my work was clean and well executed and that the height thing is an aesthetic issue not a technique issue and he is judging on technique rather than aesthetic. He also did point out that my basketweave on the small cake was cleaner and nicer than the basketweave on the large cake--I knew that. I used an easier, quicker technique to do the large cake because, well, it was large and the intricate method was already driving me nuts from having done the small cake.

Overall, he had good input and completely fair critiques. He was kind and constructive. I'm happy with my showpiece, I'm happy with my food, and I'm happy with the judging. It was a good last class. I'm going to miss school, but at least I ended on a high note!

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!

Final Exam, Day 4

I know I skipped days two and three, but I didn't have too much to say. I still don't actually, but I feel bad neglecting my blog for so long. I didn't take photos after the first day because, well honestly, I forgot. So sorry, there won't be anything fun to look at until I finish my showpiece on Friday.

Even though things haven't gone exactly to plan, everything has gone pretty well and I'm happy with how much I have to do next class. I've baked and assembled my cakes--I've even done the basket weave decoration on them. All I have to do is pray that they don't get smushed before next class--I packed them incredibly carefully in my own plastic cake carrier, which I then wrapped in plastic wrap. Assuming they survive Thursday, I will just have to top them with some berries and my sugarpaste flowers (which I made today). My nougat is finished. I cut them and dipped them in tempered chocolate; they look delicious. I had more than enough lemon curd left over from filling the cake to use next class for the tarts. Speaking of tarts, my tart shells are made. Happily everyone is making different things and working with different schedules, so there is never any fighting over ovens and my cakes and tart shells baked off perfectly. My danish are shaped, they just need to be filled, baked, and glazed--all of which must be done the last day.

As for my showpiece, I've made the meringue mushroom tops and stems, I just have to put them together. All my pastillage is sanded and (thank goodness) nothing I needed broke. I even got my cake and candy stands "glued" together. My chocolate river, which I poured onto the base last class, looks great and completely covers two of the three cracks I got in my pastillage base. The pastillage base, unfortunately, took forever to dry (I made it the first class) because of the humidity, so it cracked a bit and warped more than a bit. Like I said, two of the three cracks are hidden and I know I can cover the third with decorations. The plywood base I bought and covered in white wrapping paper fits under my pastillage base perfectly and looks really clean.

I'm worried about getting everything done on time--we only have a few hours before the judging starts. At least I know the final products will taste good and--as long as no one jostles my cakes--I know that everything will look good as well.

Final Exam, Day 1

My pastillage candy canes

The first hour and a half of the first day of the final exam is devoted to the written exam. After that we start our practical exam. I made my peanut butter nougat so that it can dry out enough that I can cut it and cover it. I also rolled out my pastillage base and decorations--there are a lot! I really don't like working with pastillage, but I'm steering clear of sugar because I'm worried it'll crystalize given the humidity and rain in the forecast. I'm a bit annoyed with my nougat, it's ever so slightly grainy--it tastes great though so I guess I'll have to be okay with it.

Today actually went pretty well. I had an extra half hour because I finished the written section early, so I had time to make the pate sucree for my tartlets (I'd been planing to do it next class.)

I think today was a pretty good start to the final exam and I hope the rest of the exam goes this well.

My peanut butter nougat 

Review Day

Traditional Croissants

Today we had our final exam review day. We pulled out all our dough and baked a number of different items that may show up on our final exams. We made danish, croissants, pain au chocolate, brioche a tete (well actually just the dough and the chef demoed making the rolls), and a tarte bourdaloue. Happily, these are some of my favorite things we've made the whole course, so I'm very happy we got to make them again.

Front row: pinwheels with cream cheese filling;
back row: packages with raspberry jam and almond filling.

I had some fun practicing making different shaped danish with different fillings. I personally liked the cream cheese filling and cinnamon streusel topping. Shape-wise I like the little packages (and I finally got them to look right) but I think the pinwheels are my favorite--they look nice and are very easy to make.

First row: ham and cheese;
second and third rows: almond;
fourth and fifth rows: plain.

We also got to play around with flavors for our croissants. I made plain, ham and cheese, and almond. Traditionally plain croissants are curved, giving them their crescent shape, while filled croissants are not. I was going to put slivered almonds on top of the almond ones after I egg washed them before I put them in the oven, but unfortunately I forgot, so they just had the almond filling.

We learnt a new way to cut pain au chocolate, which made the process much quicker but keep them looking lovely as always.

The tarte bourdaloue was excellent as always. We used canned pear halves rather than poached pears which was significantly easier and didn't really impact the final product. I do think the pears shriveled up a bit more than the poached ones when we baked the tarts; the taste was the same though, so I suppose a slight aesthetic difference isn't too big of a deal.

Olive Oil Cakes

Ligurian Lemon Cake

Olive oil cakes are cakes made with olive oil in the batter...shocking, I know. They are incredible! The oil makes them moist but doesn't weigh them down too much. Plus the lovely flavor of the olive oil comes comes through in the cake, in contrast to most cakes where you add vegetable oil so that you won't be able to taste the oil. Now that I've said oil so much it has stopped seeming like a word (at least to me as I'm the one typing it) I'll get on to describing the whole dessert.

My favorite of the two desserts was the ligurian lemon cake with raspberries baked right into the cake and topped with bruleed Swiss meringue (although I could have done without the meringue). We served this with a very clear raspberry sauce, an almond tuile, and incredible honey almond gelato. I think the tuiles were a little out of proportion for the plate, but they did taste good so I don't mind too much.

Beaumes-de-Venise Cake

The other cake we made was not my favorite of the night but one of my favorites of the unit. It was a beaumes-de-venise cake with has grapes baked into it; served on a rectangular cookie made out of linzer tart dough; with an uncooked grape compote (to me that's more of a grape salad, but semantics aside, it was delicious), fromage blanc sherbet, more of the raspberry sauce (I may have left this off), and a cocoa nib caramel tuile. I liked the first dessert more because I loved the combination of tart lemon and sweet raspberry in the delicious, moist, rich but still light cake and the honey almond gelato was to die for. Still though, the grape cake (with a hint of beaumes-de-venise, also know as muscat, wine) and all its accompaniments were excellent. I'd be extremely happy if I got either of these desserts in a restaurant.

Chiboust Day

Today was chiboust day. Chiboust is pastry cream stabilized with gelatin and lightened with Italian meringue. Traditionally it is used as a filling for the Gateau Saint-Honore, but we used it to make individual tartlets. The first was a tart shell filled with a layer or two of sliced strawberries and topped with coconut chiboust. We served this with prune armagnac ice cream, a strip of coconut financier, and coconut foam. Everything was excellent but the coconut foam; we were serving it from one of those metallic whipping cream dispensers (there's a real name for those, but it's not coming to me right now) and the chef accidentally used the soda charger rather than the plain whipping/frothing charger so the foam came out too liquid and somewhat carbonated...oops! 

We also made a chocolate chiboust tart made simple of a rectangle of baked chocolate tart dough with chocolate chiboust piped on top. We served that with a sour cherry compote, chocolate and ancho chili sherbet, a cacao (or cocoa) nib and caramel tuile, and a piped chocolate decoration. Everything was delicious, especially the sherbet, although I'm not sure I liked the cherry compote and the sherbet together. The chocolate decorations were made by taking tempered chocolate and adding enough cocoa powder to it to thicken it to a pipe-able consistency. As the chef explained, basically we are taking couvature chocolate--chocolate with extra cocoa butter added to make it more fluid--and getting rid of the couvature by adding in more cocoa solids. So perhaps if you tempered a Hersey's bar--you can temper any chocolate, by the way--it would have nearly this consistency to start. Once the tempered chocolate is sufficiently thick, it's just a matter of piping it into interesting shapes. We made long rods of chocolate and some squiggly snakes but you could do anything you want. Because they are tempered they set up hard and with a even color and because they have extra cocoa powder they are slightly more bitter than the chocolate you started out with (in this case semi-sweet chocolate). Lovely and delicious!

Chocolate decorations