CHOCOLATE!!!

Immediately following our mid-term exam, we began the highly anticipated series on CHOCOLATE! There isn't anything in the pastry kitchen that excites me more. Chocolate is luxurious and oh so comforting. There is a certain degree of giddiness that occurs inside every time I eat chocolate that is really delicious.

I knew I met my soul mate when I discovered that my husband liked chocolate more than I did! He is the ultimate chocolate monster and has a dessert imagination that goes beyond what I could ever conjure up. I'm amazed at times how he can put the gooiest desserts together when I think that there is little left in the pantry.

I wanted to keep an open mind during the course of both culinary and pastry to discover if there is anything that I'm not aware of that would really interest me and ultimately direct me in sorting out where to go next with this career change. Even though I love cooking and have enjoyed baking pastries and breads, nothing has grabbed me the way chocolate does. It summons that exhilaration that I used to feel when I ran my on-the-side, home-based chocolate business years ago.

There is a portion in one of Steve Pavlina's blogs that talks about discovering and making the best contribution you can. "Once you do discover your purpose, the next step is to summon the courage to act on it.  For some people this is an easy transition, but for others it’s the most difficult step of all.  Don’t let the challenge discourage you.  If you have a big purpose, then your task is to grow into it.  If it takes years, it takes years. "

Sometimes I feel that it is taking me years to figure out what my best contribution can be and perhaps I will wind up creating and supplying beautiful chocolates once again. In the meantime, I need to grow into it, develop my skills, and take things one step at a time. I put a lot of pressure on myself to figure things out NOW and make things happen NOW. I have always been that way. As I become clearer on which direction that I want to go, I also need to be patient. The timing will happen as it is supposed to.

This picture was taken in Barcelona, Spain, at the Valor Chocolate Shop. I was sicker than a dog at the time but would not leave Spain without drowning myself in chocolate. They served a bowl of melted chocolate and the gooiest chocolate cake ever. Marcelo and I devored it and even though my stomach hated me, I was in heaven.

Tagged as: [ barcelona chocolate nwcav pastry spain travel valor ]

Pastry Mid-Term at NWCAV

Yesterday morning we wrote our mid-term exam, which was followed by a little over 2 hours in the afternoon to prep for the practical part. By the end of the day today, we each had to present the following items that we had previously learned in the curriculum: 1) a poppy seed cake sliced into 3 even layers which were glazed with nappage (apricot glaze), and sliced into 10 even pieces; 2) a baguette;       3) croissants; and 4) checkerboard cookies. Aside from doing these recipes once in class, repeating them at home was where the practice would come in.

The key thing to this exam was how well the team worked to get each of our individual projects done. So many things have to be considered when you only have 2 ovens to work with. There was a third oven but it was only used to bake off cookies if we couldn't squeeze them into the 2 good ovens. The functions in that third oven aren't as good as the others so to try and bake breads and cakes in there would not have been a good idea. We split into 2 teams of 6 and worked out a time-line on how to get things done. We literally had to start building our doughs together so that we would all be at the same stage before proofing our products. If someone was too slow or too speedy, proofing would be affected and they would either block or hold everyone up on going into the oven to finish things off. Communication was the most important factor.

I found it less stressful than the culinary mid-term. The pace of pastry is somewhat different. Even though you can be moving quickly and multi-tasking all day long, there are certain things that just take time and that you have to wait for. Proofing can't be rushed and neither can baking. Other items need to rest or be chilled before you can work with them. That's why it is so important to have an excellent game plan and to be on the same page with other people in the kitchen. If you aren't part of the team, you could put the entire production at risk. Here is a picture of some of the finished products.

Tagged as: [ baking exams nwcav pastry ]

Salon du Chocolat Competition, Vancouver

This past Saturday, I assisted Monique, a student from our school, who was brave enough to enter the 2nd Annual Salon du Chocolat competition here in Vancouver. It was held at the Art Institute of Vancouver (Dubrulle Culinary Arts). It was fun to see how the participants put Michel Cluizel's fine chocolate to work. There were three categories in the competition: bon bons, showpieces, and plated desserts.
 

I helped Monique put the final touches on her plated dessert which consisted of three components: 1) figs baked into a Financier cookie; 2) a Linzer cookie with blackcurrant sorbet, candied lime zest and hibiscus flower; and 3) a chocolate mousse cake that had a layer of chocolate sponge and a cube of hibiscus jelly inside, topped with a beautiful chocolate glaze. The outside was decorated with long chocolate rectangles and gold leaf in the middle.

Out of 22 contestants, congratulations to Monique for winning Silver for her dessert! It looked lovely and, most importantly, tasted delicious. Two other students from our school submitted a plated dessert and 3 chocolate bon bons. They did a great job as well. Kudos to you guys for all of the hard work on top of the school load!

Click here for more pictures from the competition. Perhaps I'll be courageous enough to be a contestant next year...
 

Tagged as: [ chocolate competition vancouver ]

Entremet Project at NWCAV

Yesterday we put the final touches onto each of our entremets that we created. Considering that it is only Day 33 of the program and we have spent roughly 10 days on entremets, the cakes and flavors that each student put together was quite remarkable.

I developed an entremet with the flavors of East India. The first layer of my entremet was a coconut sponge cake followed by a chai tea mousse. Chai is a traditional Indian tea flavored with spices such as cardamom, cinnamon, and cloves. Milk is also added to make it rich and creamy. On top of the Chai mousse, I placed a layer of pistachio sponge cake and finally a layer of white chocolate and ginger mousse. In order to avoid waste, we scaled down each mousse recipe. Smaller recipes are often harder to make and almost all of us wound up with less stable mousses. I had made sponge fingers (lady fingers) that had a spiced-sugar coating, but they actually looked like "man fingers"...they spread a bit too much in the oven and I wasn't fond of their look. I wish I could have used them because I had planned to line the outside of the cake for decoration. On to plan B...

To decorate the cake, I wound up spraying it with white chocolate. You actually use a paint sprayer from the hardware store to do this. Mix equal parts of melted chocolate and cocoa butter and ensure that the mixture is just at room temperature (you would melt the cake if it is any higher and the spray gun would get clogged if it is any cooler). This gives it a velvety sort of look. I also made a flower out of tuiles. Tuiles are very thin little cookies that you use a stencil to spread the batter onto your baking sheet. Once they turn golden brown and immediately after you take them out of the oven, they can be formed into any shape. For color, I filled the center of the flower with some pomegranate seeds and also tried to pipe a little design on the cake with chocolate and glaze. I saw the design on a plated dessert in a pastry book and thought I'd give it a try on the cake but I wasn't completely happy with the way it looked in the end.

Entremet making was a fun but humbling experience. I assume with lots of practice it gets easier. A good pastry chef will always want to fine-tune their projects anyway because there is always room for improvement. It can be a little frustrating though when you have an image in your mind of what you want your project to look like/turn out and it doesn't go that way.

I enjoyed the flavors in my entremet. Each layer was subtle and combined it was quite delicious. I'll definitely make it again and fine-tune the components.

Tagged as: [ chai entremet exams ladyfingers mousse nwcav pastry sponge ]

What are Entremets?

According to Larousse Gastronomique, the word entremet indicates the "sweet course" which is always served after the "cheese course" in France. (Why am I not living there?) Entremet is also used to describe a specific dessert.

During the course of 10 days at NWCAV, we are making a wide variety of sponges, creams, jellies, mousses, syrups, and custards to put entremets together. On Thursday and Friday of this week, we each have to create, prepare, and decorate our own 6" entremet that consists of 2 different sponge layers and 2 different fillings, which we will be graded on.

I have always appreciated the work that goes into this art form. It is now wonderful to learn how these beautiful cakes are put together and the great skill that is required. The number of steps to make one little cake can be incredible! Take, for example, the last cake shown below (Chocolate Mango Entremet). You may not realize it, but this cake has 7 different components to it. The vanilla sponge layer can be a bit tricky to make: the only thing that leavens it in the oven is the air pockets that are created by whipping up the sabayon (warmed eggs and sugar) portion of the recipe as much as possible. You need to be very careful when adding the remaining ingredients to that mixture to not destroy the air pockets that you worked so hard to create. A soaker (flavored simple syrup) is applied to the sponge once it is evenly cut into layers. The outer, more decorative sponge consists of two different sponges baked together: a cigarette paste and a jaconde sponge. A thin layer of the darker sponge (cigarette paste) is spread out onto a silpat and a pattern is sketched out. After it is chilled, a different layer of sponge (jaconde) is spread over top of it and baked. Once the sponge is peeled from the silpat, a flexible layer remains that can be cut and used to line the outside of the cake.

When making mousses, technical skills and temperature control is of the utmost importance to ensure a smooth consistency when you combine all of the recipe's components. The glossy finish on the top of the mousse cake is called a mirror. It is a mixture of sugar, citric acid, and pectin, which is sold commercially to bakers. Ingredients are added to it to give it flavor and color to decorate the tops of the cakes. After each component is made and everything is evenly cut, the mousse cake is put together in stages. Aside from the detail, the texture and taste of each layer has to speak for itself and has to have a reason to be there. Colors need to be thought out, flavor pairings need to be formulated, and a sound structure needs to be built. Care is also taken when unmolding the mousse cake so you don't ruin your finished product!

As you learn to make beautiful desserts, it also makes you aware of what is currently out there and how rare it is that you come across a shop here in North America that is serving gorgeous, fresh, and delicious cakes. It is my hope that people can become more educated on quality desserts and start to demand such and line up for them! They are a superb treat!

Although these are the works of a beginner, they were still sumptuous!

Tagged as: [ cakes dessert entremet mousse nwcav pastry sponge ]