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, Pekka (submitted a plated dessert) and Marcus (submitted 3 chocolate bon bons), 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 ]

Happy Thanksgiving to Canadians!

Tagged as: [ thanksgiving turkey ]

Sourdoughs Need Love and Attention

Chef Marco introduced us to his “pet” sourdough when we started our bread series. His sourdough (like all sourdoughs) needs special care and attention. Sometimes it travels with him on vacation but if he is forced to leave it behind, he has someone look over it, feed and talk to it, and make sure it stays healthy. ;)

When Chef gave all of the students some of his sourdough starter to begin making sourdough loaves, my partner in class and I decided to call our new “pet”, Frankie. Ingredients were added to part of Frankie to bake off some loaves and the rest of him was divided into containers, which we took home with us. We needed to treat him well and make him grow for future Frankie sourdough loaves.  


If sourdoughs aren't babied they will DIE. The natural yeast inside starters needs three things to survive and multiply: food, warmth, and moisture. If you don't provide these things to your sourdough, society (fellow bread-makers) may label you as being abusive.

I remember the first day I brought Frankie home and placed him with care in the refrigerator to slow his growth. I fed him equal parts of flour and water every few days, worrying if I was feeding him too much or too little. I let Frankie out of the fridge every so often and forgot about him one night on the countertop but he was ok. He warmed up and started to multiply more rapidly. Another time when I took Frankie out of the fridge, I thought he didn’t look very bubbly, so I fed him a little onion slice to make his yeast activate. At first, he liked it.

A few days later, Frankie was drowning in a yellowish liquid that didn’t smell the greatest. I was worried about my little baby and thought I’d take him back to school for a check-up. Poor Frankie was dead.

During the course of the feedings, Frankie’s PH level became out of whack. The onion didn’t help things either. I got a little confused. The addition of an onion was for another recipe (a grape sourdough starter). I either underfed him or overfed him or gave him too much water and slowly killed him.

I felt horrible that Frankie had to be washed down the kitchen sink and couldn't bring myself to take a picture of what remained of him. I'm moving forward though. Chef gave me another lot of sourdough to try again. This time I have placed an automatic reminder in my calendar to let my new little friend, Franklin, out of the fridge twice a week and feed him properly with only flour and water. No onions this time.

Tagged as: [ baking bread natural nwcav pastry sourdough starter yeast ]

How to Identify Genetically Modified Foods | GMOs

Further to my post on The Future of Food, you can learn more about genetically modified products in Canada by visiting the Greenpeace Shoppers Guide (for United States information, click here). It is a good place to identify genetically modified foods on the market that you may be buying.

I'm not going to be an automatic fanatic and swear to never buy a product that is listed as a GMO but it's good information. It is sort of like seeing the movie Super Size Me. Will I ever eat at McDonald's again? I haven't since and probably never will but...if it is 3:00a.m. and I get home from an 18-hour flight after traveling for 2 months and my fridge is empty, I might be tempted to visit the all-night drive through. I just think awareness is key.

Another useful shopping tip: all produce in the supermarkets is given a 4-digit PLU code (price look-up code). For example, regular bananas are 4011. Organic products will have a "9" in front of the code (94011) and genetically modified products will have an "8" (84011).

Tagged as: [ genetically gmo modified organic plu tips ]

Some of the Perks While Attending Pastry Class at NWCAV

Tagged as: [ dessert nwcav pastry school ]

How to Make Your Own Butter

Making your own butter is easy. All you need to do is take heavy cream and whip it on high speed until the water separates from the fat. Once it has separated, strain and squeeze out all of the liquid. You will wind up with unsalted butter that you can store in a container in the fridge. I whipped 750ml of cream and it yielded 300 grams of butter. It doesn't take very much time (maybe 15 minutes) but I think it is cheaper than what the stores sell it for. Use organic cream and you will have some terrific stuff!

I was on the phone tonight with my mom, telling her what I had done, and she said that she remembers doing the same thing on the farm but they shook the cream in a jar. We are spoiled nowadays with Kitchen Aids and other gadgets. My sweet grandmother up above must be chuckling  :)

Butter is composed of three things: fat, milk solids, and water. To make clarified butter, which is pure fat, heat butter in a saucepan on low heat. Do not let it brown. As it melts, the milk solids float to the top, the fat lingers in the middle, and the water sinks to the bottom. Skim off the milk solids and pour out the fat through cheesecloth, leaving the water behind. Clarified butter is delicious to cook with and doesn't burn as easily. It has a higher smoke point, as it no longer contains the milk solids. It can be stored for a few months in the refrigerator without going rancid.

A cool tip is that you can even make butter out of cream that has gone off a bit. Just whip it up and discard the liquid as mentioned above. It is the milk solids and moisture that sours, not the fat molecules. You can take it a step further and clarify it. This is another way to salvage something instead of throwing it out.

Tagged as: [ basics butter clarified homemade howto recipes tips ]

The Future of Food

Last week after class, Chef Ian showed the eye-opening movie, The Future of Food. Genetically modified food is an alarming new topic for me and one I want to become more educated about. The initial feeling I had with the whole issue of genetically modified food is betrayal. In the past, I will admit, I thought "certified organic" meant just another marketing technique to make me spend more money and I was leery to "buy" into it. This may seem completely naive to some, but I think there is an assumed trust that, as consumers, there is safe food on our market – it is just up to us to make healthy choices and not choose the Pop Tarts or the Twinkies, etc.

Now, what frightens me most is even the choices I would consider to be healthy (i.e., things that don't need a label – like fruits and vegetables) are becoming genetically modified by corporate giants. I remember the days when I didn't even care to read labels, however, over the past 10 years, I haven't bought a product without glancing at the label for the buzz words that flash big red warning lights: trans fats, hydrogenated oil, high fructose corn syrup, artificial sweeteners, etc. Sadly, natural foods that don't even require labels need to be scrutinized over.

After watching the movie, being exposed to the bewildering investigation regarding unlabeled, patented, and genetically modified food that is on North American shelves, and realizing the magnitude of the problem, I wondered where to start and what I can do. I think that knowledge is power and the more that people become aware of the issues and the more that people are able to consciously make choices, change for the better will occur. During our discussion, it was said that a good place to start is to ask yourself if you know where your food is really coming from when you buy it and try to support responsible, local farmers. Recently, we heard of the new listeria-killing cocktail and the E-coli outbreak with spinach. I don't know about you, but it really makes me wonder how all food is being handled.


Quite a few times, during the course of this program, I have heard that students now can be pioneers of the industry. We can lead the way to make changes and work with responsibly grown and produced products and we can start to educate people even in little ways. It will take time and a lot of support but little by little we all can hopefully get back to supporting local farmers, local producers, and be more in touch with food.

For interesting information and current news on the subject, you can visit Organic Consumers.

Tagged as: [ gmo local movie nwcav organic ]