Week 11 Sponges

After two weeks of holiday, I was excited to finally get back to the kitchen and learn. This week we made four types of sponges. We learnt a few ways of making sponges and I am not too sure what the difference is as to the end result because we only got to eat  two of the four that we made. The other two had to be frozen for later use. 

Sponge, also known as Génoise in French is different to cake, as it is lighter and airier than a cake. The name Sponge says it all, it is like a sponge.

First one we made was Vanilla Sponge where the whole eggs were whisked with the sugar till pale and frothy before folding in the flour. The end result looks good, it rose up beautifully. Not sure about the taste because this is one that we had to keep for later use. 

Vanilla Sponge

 Next one we made swiss roll. For this sponge, we used cake emulsifier in the recipe. Emulsifier is an ingredient that is used in a lot of commercial bakery because it helps make the sponge to be airier, smoother in texture, softer with finer crumbs and it extends the shelf life too. It is also cost efficient because it requires lesser eggs in the recipe. It is an all in method, where all the ingredients can go into the mixer at once, except the melted which is added in last. 

Our swiss roll turned out ok, the texture of the cake was soft like all the store bought cakes. I was just not too happy with the cracks and I think I put in too much strawberry jam in it. It was too sweet for me. I will have to make this again at home to get it right. 

Swiss Roll

The third one that we made was a Chocolate Gateau with strawberries and créme chantilly. Gateau is a French word which means layered cake. In German it will be called Torte. So in our patisserie course, not only do we learn how to bake, we learn French and German as well. 

Anyway, this Chocolate Sponge is made with a method where the egg white is whisked with the sugar and then the yolks are added in. Then the dry ingredients are folded in. 
After the sponge is baked, it was cooled completely and divided into 3 layers and  whipped cream was spread on each layer. We were suppose to use strawberries in each layer but there wasn't enough strawberries so our trainer found some canned cherries for us instead.  We were only given three strawberries to decorate the gateau. 

Chocolate & Strawberry Gateau

 The fun part was the chocolate decoration. I remember how much fun I had when we did chocolate filigree in Stage One. This time, we get to do chocolate shavings, chocolate cigars, ruffles and whatever designs you can think of. When our trainer did the demo , it looks simple and easy. It was actually harder than it looks. The temperature of the chocolate has to be right to get the chocolate to curl. Ours was either too soft or too hard. So in the end we only managed to get some shavings and some odd shaped curls. If only we had more time that day, I would love to try it a few more times. 

"Piece of cake"

If you look close enough, you will notice that there are only cherries on the bottom layer. There wasn't enough cherries for the top layer. 

The last sponge that we did was an Almond Coffee Génoise. This one was where the egg whites and egg yolks were whisked separately before folding in the flour. We actually did this cake twice because the first one didn't rise properly, most likely because we didn't whisk it long enough. The second one that we did came out beautiful but unfortunately I forgot to take a photo of it. This one we don't get to eat either. So I don't know how it tastes like yet. 

This week was a crazy week, I was not too happy that the management of the school decided to combine two classes together. It was way too crowded in there, it was actually more like a zoo than a kitchen. Hopefully next week will be better.