Week 36 Meringue Poached Pear

Ah... End of work experience at Westin and back to school. This week back in school is a little difficult for me. My partner decided to stop at Certificate III which means she is done with the course. She is not coming back to school. It was so different without her.

 Instead of finding a new partner, I decided to do rest of the term by myself. This is also because most in the class already have their usual partners that they work with. 

This week we made Meringue Poached Pear and Chocolate Orange Crême Brûleé. Together with these, we had to make spun sugar, chocolate filigree and tuile biscuits as garnishes. 

I had thought of plating up the meringue on a rectangular base rather than a round case. So I baked some round cases and 2 rectangular bases.

Meringue

The chocolate orange creme brulee was rather interesting. It had orange segments inside the ramekin and on top of the chocolate custard, it had a foamy créme de cacao sabayon poured on right before serving. I don't know why it is called a brûleé when there was no burning of any sugar on the top. The taste was quite nice because it wasn't too sweet. 

Chocolate & Orange Crême Brûleé

I made some templates for the tuile biscuits with a thick paper. I made some leaves, bees , shapes, forks and spoons. It was fun shaping the biscuit when it came out from the oven. I placed the biscuits on a rolling pin that was sprayed with oil to make sure it doesn't stick. It gave it a nice curl when it cools down. 

Tuile biscuits

My spun sugar was not good. I was disappointed that it was not as good as the last time I made it. Anyway I made some balls and some just a ring. Then I made some chocolate shapes, I wanted to make a cylinder shape chocolate with horizontal lines but I can't seem to join the ends and keep it in place. In the end, I made a tear drop shape case. 

Both the dessert didn't look like how I imagined or how I planned it to be. First I couldn't get the small rectangular plate and then suddenly I was given a huge square plate to plate up a small crême brûleé. So since nothing came out how I wanted it to, I had to quickly see how I can plate it up with what I had. 

I placed the spun sugar ring on the ramekin with a tuile biscuit sitting inside it. Had the chocolate tear drop case at the other corner filled with fresh fruits. Then I wanted to have a light dust of cocoa powder on one corner but because the sieve had too big holes, the cocoa just came out looking messy. So I placed a small fork shape tuile biscuit on top of it. 
Sigh... not happy with the presentation of this dessert. 

Chocolate & Orange Crême Brûleé 

For the meringue poached pear, I initially wanted to plate up with the rectangular meringue and top it with the sliced poached pear. But the chantilly cream was too soft to hold the pear and the pear was too slippery to sit on the cream. So I ended up using the round case and filled it with chantilly cream and placed the pear on it. It looked dull and plain because everything was white and yellowy. I tried to inject some colour in by placing some strawberries and orange segments on the side and had some chantilly cream and tuile biscuits as part of the decoration. Hoping that it will make it less ugly. 

Meringue Poached Pear

Overall it was not a good day for me. I didn't like both the desserts that I made. I think I was a little nervous when I saw how fast everyone was and I only had myself to do all the work.  I wonder how I am going to go through the rest of the term working by myself. I miss working with my partner. Hopefully next week I will be more organised and work better alone.