Week 10 Exam

This 10 weeks went by so quickly. That's it for our Stage 1 in Patissierie. For the last week, we had a practical exam where we had to serve a few guests whom we invited. 

We were given the menu on Wednesday and had to work out a workflow together with our partner. We had to plan everything so that on Friday the sequence goes smoothly and make sure the customers get their food on time.

It was a 6 course lunch. Yea.. who can finsih a 6 course lunch right? well, the portions were rather small but my guest said she was stuffed till late evening. Ha Ha.... 

Menu for our guests.

The table was all set and waiting for the guests. I am not sure who did the table arrangements because we were all busy in the kitchen that morning. 

Tomato, Feta Cheese and Fried Tofu Bruschetta on Focaccia.

The first dish , tomato, feta cheese and fried tofu bruschetta tossed in olive oil and basil, served with focaccia. It was a rather simple dish to make. Tomatoes and feta cheese were cut into small pieces. Tofu was cut and fried. We pre-prepared them and only tossed it together when it was time to serve. 

Bruschetta in the making.

The focaccia was toasted on the pan before serving. But unfortunately our focaccia lost its crisp because our dish was ready and waiting for other's before it was served to the guest. The guest commented that the focaccia was a little soft. 

Pumpkin Soup

Second dish up was pumpkin soup. The soup was served in a tiny little espresso cup. To make that little cup of soup, we had to first make one big pot of chicken stock. Then boil pumpkin, celery, leek, onions, bacons and herbs. After simmering for a while, the soup was  pureed and sieved through and reheated again before serving. It was topped with a little cream as garnish. This pumpkin soup is not a vegetarian meal, as you would have guessed by now. It has bacon and chicken stock in it. 

Our guest enjoyed the pumpkin soup, she commented that she normally doesn't like pumpkin soup but this one she really enjoyed!

V

Vol-au-vent filled with Chicken Stroganoff

This is the one that I was most worried about. I made the vol-au-vent case and my partner made the chicken stroganoff. Why was I worried? Well, the puff pastry was a little tricky to make. Puff pastry takes a long time to make because it needs to rest in the fridge for 30 minutes after each fold and we need to do 3 folds for this puff. If I don't get it right, I wont have time to make another dough. 

Vol-au-vent case

 The worst thing is that we were only allowed to make one serve and the portion is just enough for one vol-au-vent. There is no second chance to get it right if you burnt it in the oven.There was a slight hiccups during the baking process because someone opened our oven but luckily our puff rose and was still presentable in the end.

Lamb & Prawn brochette with homemade tomato chutney in a filo basket.

This dish is made up of 2 parts, one part which takes a long time to make and another part which was quick and easy. The quick part was preparing the skewers. The prawns were seasoned and threaded on the skewer. The lamb was seasoned and threaded on the skewer alternated with capsicum, onion, zucchini and mushroom. Both were pan fried right before serving. The timing of this was important to make sure that the dish was served hot. Our guest was very happy with the prawns and lamb skewers. She said it was cooked perfectly and was served hot. 

Filo basket 

The slow part of preparing this dish were the filo basket and the tomato chutney. The filo dough had to be kneaded and left to rest for more than an hour. Then it was stretched to window pane thin and then cut into squares and layered on an upside down dariole mould to bake. My partner did a great job with the filo basket. The first one she did was  little brown on the edge and she wasn't too happy with it. So she made another one which turned out so pretty and golden. It was rather difficult to get it out from the mould though. 

I forgot to take a photo of the tomato chutney, it too took a long time to make. It was in the oven for 1 1/2 hours. The tomato chutney was filled into the filo basket.  I think our guest said the tomato chutney was delicious. 

Rum Baba and Custard tart Dessert.

The last 2 dishes were served together. I was very happy with the result of the custard tart. The colour of the case was golden and the texture was crumbly. We actually managed to get 2 tarts from the recipe. My teammate and I shared one of it. It was very nice. The créme patissiere filling was prepared by my teammate. I think it was so good. Silky smooth and not too sweet. 

Rum Baba

 The rum baba which was made of savarin paste that we did before except that this has currants that has been soaked in rum. Then it is soaked in sugar syrup and glazed with apricot jam and served with strawberry and créme chantilly.  I think we did well on this one too. 

My messy workstation.

Overall, I was very happy with the day. I think my teammate and I really work well together.
It was a rather stressful day but it was great fun. I was so into my work that I didn't even feel hungry the whole day or maybe because I was tasting some of the food that we made. haha. 

Cleaning up took so long. I think we used every single utensil that was in the kitchen. The piles of dishes were horrendous! But everyone helped out and teamwork made it a little easier. 

At the end of the day, our trainer showed us what our guest commented on our dishes. It was mostly good comments. I thanked our trainer and said good bye because we wont have him for the next stage. 

Thanks to my guests who took the time to participate in our summative food tasting. Hope you enjoyed the food as much as I did preparing them. By the way, my guests were Pei and Kendall. That is how I know that they were stuffed until late evening! Ha Ha. 

Week 9 Sacher Torte

Finally, we are baking cakes. Today's menu is Sacher Torte, Raspberry Mousse Gateau and Shortbread.
Sacher Torte is a type of chocolate cake that was invented by Jewish Austrian Franz Sacher in 1832 for Prince Wenzel von Metternich in Vienna Austria. Franz Sacher was a 16 year old apprentice who was put in charged of creating a special dessert for a few important guests of the Prince because the head chef was ill. The cake delighted the guests but it didn't get famous until a long time after that. That's a little history of the cake for you. 

Anyway, I am not sure how much the recipe has changed since 1832 but this is how ours turned out. 

The cake had breadcrumbs in it which made it a little interesting in texture as well as taste. The chocolate flavour wasn't very strong though.

Just out from the oven.

A piece presented to the trainer for tasting.  

The cake was cut in half and a layer of redcurrant jelly was poured over it and then stacked back together. I think the original version had apricot jam. Then it is covered with chocolate ganache. 

We made 2 whole cakes for the Sacher Torte so my teammate and I each took one whole cake home. 

Close up of the cake.

 Can you see the bottom half of the cake looks denser? Well, that's because it soaked up the redcurrant jelly. The rough texture is the breadcrumbs. The silky smooth chocolate ganache is to die for and then the lovely filigree shapes were just so much fun to make. 

Some of the filigree shapes that I was playing with.

 The Raspberry Mousse Gateau was made up of a few components. The base layer is a sweet shortcrust pastry. Then there is the chocolate sponge cake which is sandwiched with raspberry mousse and the top layer is créme chantilly. 

Sweet shortcrust disc base.

This is the bottom layer of the cake. I have never seen a cake that has a shortcrust pastry as the bottom layer before. So it was quite interesting. I am happy with the sweet shortcrust pastry. It tuned out golden and the texture was crumbly when you bite into it.

Chocolate sponge cake.

 This is the first time I am making sponge cake. I am quite happy with the result. The cake rose up beautifully. It was airy and light. The cake was left to cool completely before I cut the cake into 3 equal discs. This was probably the most stressful part of the whole day. With some help from my teammate, I did it! The middle piece was a little thin though. 

Cut into 3 pieces.

Assembling the cake.

My raspberry mousse was a little soft, I think it was because I was meddling with it too much when I tried to spread the mousse onto the cake.

Managed to stack it all up.

Decorating the cake was the fun part. I piped the créme chantilly and then decorated with raspberries and chocolate filigree. The raspberries were not fresh ones, we got frozen berries. That's why you can see the raspberries bleeding onto the créme chantilly.

Topped with creme chantilly and raspberries.

Raspberry Mousse Gateau

 I am so happy with the chocolate filigree shapes. I wrote my name and my teammate's name but mine broke when we tried to lift it up, so ended up with only Susy's name on the cake. I did a maple leaf too. Does it look like a maple leaf to you?

Traditional Shortbread.

The shortbread tasted pretty good. Light and crumbly in texture. Pretty simple and easy to make. I will probably try baking this at home soon and have it dipped in chocolate. 

Overall a great day. Next week will be our exam week. Need to hit the books and prepare myself. After that it will be school holidays. Wow! These 9 weeks went by so quickly. The last couple of weeks had been great fun. Good trainer, good teammate and interesting menu. 

Week 8 Ice Cream

Who doesn't love ice cream? I am not your friend if you don't love ice cream... haha.

This blog is full of first trials. This week is my first time making ice cream. I was so excited! Even though the flavour that we had to make wasn't my favourite, it didn't matter, it was still ice cream. We made poppy seed & honey ice cream. 

I first heated the cream, milk and poppy seed in the pot. In a separate bowl, I mixed in the honey and egg yolks. Once the milk was boiling, I poured the milk mixture into the egg mixture and whisked it to combine. Then it went back on the heat to cook until it thickened.

Then it was cooled and refrigerated. 

The magic starts when the mixture is poured into the ice cream machine where the cream is churned in a cold container and then it turns into ice cream. It was so simple. It makes me want to get one of those fancy ice cream machine!! Then I can have homemade ice cream with the good ingredients. Imagine how much I can save in the long run from not having to buy ice cream from the store! haha.  Anyway, then the ice cream goes into the freezer until ready to serve.

Poppy seed & honey ice cream just out from the machine.

 Strudel dough is basically flour, water, salt and oil. Hmm... which is exactly the same ingredients for when we make "mian fen gao"(面粉糕) which is like a doughy noodle cooked in soup. But strudel is more troublesome to make. For the strudel dough, we put the ingredients in the stand mixer and mix it with a hook attachment for about 20minutes until the dough is stretchy. That is when the gluten is activated. Then the dough is left to rest for an hour. 

Now it's time to stretch the dough. Does it look like roti canai? Can you see how thin it is? (Ignore the mess around it though)

Stretching the strudel dough

Then we brushed the surface of the dough with melted butter and sprinkled cake crumbs on it. The apple and cherries were arranged on the pastry and rolled up like a swiss roll. The thick edges of the dough were cut off. Into the oven it goes for almost 45minutes.

Apple and Cherry Filling in Strudel.

It was a little under baked but still looks good right? haha.

Apple & Cherry Strudel fresh from the oven.

Making the créme anglaise was a pain. My first batch curdled because I had the heat too high and the second batch nearly curdled but I took it off the flame just in time. Luckily the trainer said that it was good. 

Apple & Cherry Strudel served with créme anglaise

The ice cream was to be served with pancakes. I didn't know what Flapjacks were when I read the menu. It is actually just pancakes in a different name. So I made some pancakes. I burnt a few before I could get the perfect golden colour. 

Flapjack batter resting. 

Flapjack with ice cream and maple syrup. 

 Look at the pancakes and ice cream. Doesn't it make you want to have some? I ate most of it after the trainer tasted it. He liked it too. 

 Danish pastry. We prepared the dough two weeks back and had it in the freezer and today we get to make some danishes with hazelnut filling and some with poppy seed filling and créme pâtissiére.

We made envelope, windmill and horseshoe shapes.

The layers were good for the danishes but it was so difficult to make the shapes because the dough was getting so soft from the heat in the kitchen. But we managed to get some nice ones. 

The windmill is topped with créme pâtissiére.

 I had a great day, it was a Basically Pastry Day! Everything went well except having to make the créme anglaise twice and throwing out the first few pancakes. I am so glad to have our current trainer. He is friendly and always willing to help. He shows things in detail. When to use the whisk, when to use the wooden spoon. But the sad thing is I don't think we will have him for the next stage. 

Week 7 Focaccia

Bread time! 
Today we learn about yeast. All the recipes for today had yeast and flour as the basic ingredients. What is interesting is that even though all had similar ingredients, the end result for each was so different. By just changing the ratio and also cooking method, it creates something totally different to one another.
Today's menu had Focaccia, Chelsea Buns, Savarin and Brioche. 

That is my focaccia having it's first prove. 

The focaccia has no butter and is a fairly whitish dough but the Chelsea bun dough on the left is so much yellower because there is butter in it. It is so cool to see the dough double in size when it was proving. I was getting worried when my focaccia took much longer than others to rise. I thought I killed the yeast! Luckily it did rise after almost 2 hours. 

Our brioche

I have never seen or heard of Brioche before this. The texture is more like a cake and has strong buttery taste. The dough was more like a paste than a dough. It was rather wet and when proving it, it doesn't only rise, it has blisters in the paste. I too got a blister on my thumb from stirring the butter into the paste. It was so tiring. Luckily we work in pairs, so my teammate and I had to rotate the stirring task. Phew! We now all have popeye biceps.

Our Savarin Aux Fruits

Savarin... once again, I have never heard of this dessert before. It has it's own special savarin moulds which had a hole in the middle. It comes out like a ring and then we pour sugar syrup over it to let it soak it all up. Then fruits and whipped cream are filled in the centre before serving. I tried to carve a rose with the strawberry. Does it look like a rose? Well, it was good practice.

Pouring syrup into the savarin. 

I thought I wouldn't dare eat the Savarin because it must be very sweet. To my surprise, even though we poured sugar syrup over the savarin, it wasn't too sweet. That is because we use light syrup which was more water than sugar really. And because there were whipped cream and fruits to accompany it, what's there not to like about it. 

Our breads at the end of the day, we have focaccia with rosemary, chelsea buns which has raisins, currants and orange peel and the brioche which was plain. 

Focaccia, Chelsea Buns and Brioche.

It was a great week. We have a new trainer and he is just great. He is very organised, explains things clearly, doesn't mind people asking questions, demonstrates and gives tips to make things work better. I think I will learn a lot from him. 

Week 6 Crême Brûlée

The first time I tried creme brûlée was last year in a mall in Kuala Lumpur. It had a layer of burnt sugar on the top where you crack it open by knocking the spoon into it and then there is the silky soft custard inside. It was so delicious! That was when I fell in love with it. 

 On week 6 the menu had Créme Brûlée. I was so excited! I am finally going to get my hands on the blow torch! hahaha..... but the sad thing was the recipe for the egg custard doesn't involve any baking. We had to whisk the egg mixture over bain marie (i.e. over a pot of simmering water). My arm nearly fell off from whisking non stop for what felt like almost forever!! We had to whisk it until it is sabayon stage, which is also known as ribbon stage. This is when you draw a figure 8 with the whisk and the figure 8 can still be seen on the mixture. When the mixture reaches this stage, we pour it into the ramekins and refrigerate for a few hours to set. 

My first créme brûlée. 

 Haha... I know, the plate decoration is too simple. I will get better next time.

We also got to play with Sugar!! We made spun sugar. It was so much fun. We melted the sugar to 165C, just as it was starting to turn brown on the sides. Then we took it off the heat and let it cool lightly. Then we had 2 prongs which were wrapped with aluminium foils and had the chopping board resting on half of it and the other half was hanging over the edge of the work bench. We placed aluminium foils on the floor so that when the sugar drips it will fall on the foil. 

Then we made webs by swinging 2 forks that was dipped in the sugar syrup. It was done very quickly and then gathered to form a ball. Then it sets. It was so beautiful. 

Ah, now it looks a little prettier with the spun sugar.

We also made chocolate mousse. Yes! more whisking. Just keep whisking! The menu for the day should have been "whisk everything dessert". 

Chocolate mousse with brandy snaps.

The brandy snaps were fun to make but a little too sweet for my liking.  The sauces on the plate are caramel sauce and anglaise sauce. Making the caramel sauce was exciting, it was fun to see how the sugar spat when i poured the cream into it. I was a little scared when i poured the cream in but at the same time I felt excited to see the reaction. 

Sticky dates pudding with brown sauce and double cream. 

The sticky date was a little undercooked but it was still edible. But look at the presentation. Isn't it beautiful? Well, that's because the trainer showed us how to cut the strawberry for this one. 

Week 5 Puff Pastry

Week 5 was a heavy load. We had to make puff pastry for chicken stroganoff in vol-au-vent, sweet paste for fruit tartlets, pumpkin soup and bread rolls. 

I was in charge of making the vol-au-vent cases and the sweet pastry. The puff pastry was very interesting to make. There was way too much butter in the recipe and even after reducing the butter there were still too much of it!
I was very careful and patient with the pastry making process. You really need to let the dough rest in the fridge before each folds and don't forget how many folds you have made. This puff pastry had alternating folds of single turns and double turns. 

Well my vol-au-vent cases were slanting to a side because the oven fan was on. Sigh..Next time, I got to make sure I turn the fan off. But I was happy to see all the layers that puffed up. Not too bad for a newbie.

Nice golden colour and crispy layers.

The chicken stroganoff was prepared by my teammate. It was very nice and I have to admit, it is my first time eating chicken stroganoff. I quite like it. 

Shortcrust pastry filled with créme pâtissiere and topped with fruits.

Hmm... I actually tried making this at home before the practical day in class. The ones I made at home were not good. I think I overworked the dough and also it wasn't chilled long enough causing the cases to be hard. So I learnt from my mistakes and did pretty good in class. haha! Just that I wasn't too happy that it was still too thick and the edges were not tidy and smooth. I will have to try this again to get it right.

Yummy fruit tartlets.

Even though it didn't look too good, the texture light and crumbly. In other words, Yummy!!!

Week 4 Profiteroles

Week 4, we made Profiteroles and Éclairs.

Choux pastry is really quite interesting to make. First you boil the water, salt and butter in a pot and once the butter has melted, the flour is poured in all at once and stir with a wooden spoon until it becomes a dough in the pot. Keep stirring for a minute or two to make the dough a little drier. Then let the dough cool slightly before mixing in the eggs one at a time. 

It is quite simple to make but then somehow there are so many ways to get it wrong. 
There are a few things you need to be careful of when making choux paste. The consistency of the dough. When the flour is mixed in, make sure you keep stirring vigorously for a minute or until the mixture forms a smooth, thick mass that comes away from the the side of the pan.

When adding the eggs, add one at a time and beat constantly and make sure it is mixed in well before adding the next egg. It may not need all the eggs, the dough should be glossy and falls in on itself when cut through with a spatula. 

When piping the choux paste, make sure you leave enough space between them for it to rise and not stick together. 

This is the first batch that sank after it came out from the oven. The inside is still not properly cooked. 

One of the most important thing is not to open the oven for the first 20minutes when the choux paste is in the oven or it won't rise properly.
Make sure oven is preheated before putting in the choux paste. Once the choux paste is in, do not open the oven!

This is the second batch which looks much better. The eclairs are filled with créme chantilly and the profiteroles are filled with créme pâtissière.

My first batch of choux didn't rise properly. Well of course we blamed the oven for being too hot.... and also blamed the recipe for having too many eggs. But honestly it could also have been that I took it out too soon, or I left the choux paste out too long before putting it in the oven or the consistency of the dough was not right. 

The second batch looks better! Hmm... the eclairs would have been nicer if we had chocolate ganache topping. Yum!