Gateaux & tortes

Problems, problems. Nothing went right today. I'm not even going to post the picture of the torte we made. The individual gateaux look ok (not great), but they were still very disappointing, for a number of reasons: (1) The joconde sponge cake layer was too thick, (2) the white chocolate bavarian was very eggy-tasting, and (3) the strawberry mirror glaze, instead of being a super-thin, shiny glaze, was too thick and too gelatinous.

But the picture looks pretty good.

Poured sugar

Sugar is fun! Monday night, we worked on poured sugar techniques, such as cast sugar, molded sugar, bubble sugar, flames, sugar eruptions, etc.

Here is my sheet of bubble sugar. I'm especially pleased with the color. The picture doesn't really show how beautifully thin and delicate the sheet is.



My flames need some practice. This was the hardest technique we learned. Everything else was easier than it looked, but this was quite a bit harder than I expected.

My sugar eruption turned out great! They are super-easy, but look impressive.

Next Monday, we will learn pulled sugar. I'm really excited about it!

Blueberry pound cake

Still on spring break. Tonight, I made a blueberry pound cake. It's rich and yummy with an ultra-crunchy crust. I'm very pleased with it.

Spring break

No school this week. I've been doing some baking at home this week, but nothing really picture-worthy. Instead, here's another picture of Honey, the best dog ever.

And here are Max & Gracie, in a rare moment of sweetness and tolerance.

Custards & mousses

Mmm...this has been my favorite set of desserts. I made a lovely Orange Creme Caramel. It's a silky-smooth baked custard with a caramel sauce baked on the bottom of the dish, so it pours over the custard when it's inverted. I made a long caramel spike for the top.

We also made Chocolate Pots de Creme, garnished with a marbled chocolate shard, Rice Pudding with tuile cookie spirals and candied orange peel, and a wonderful chocolate mousse.

Chocolate pot de creme

Chocolate mousse

Rice pudding

Sugar again

This week we did sugar again--kind of a review for most of us. We're working up to making our sugar showpieces.

I'm very pleased with my sugar spirals, and with the color of the red sugar. The other sugar was reheated a little often, and eventually became darker than I would like.

Here's a closeup of one of the spirals. I'm proud of how thin and even it is.

Yeah, my cuticles are pretty bad. But my nails sure are clean! Lotsa dishwashin' going on.

Nougatine

Monday night we made nougatine. It's sort of an almond brittle that is shaped while hot. We each had to make a basket with a handle and a bow. Here is mine in progress.

Unfortunately, my handle broke repeatedly. So, instead of my basket, here's a picture of our teacher's basket.

Large-scale production

Today, we made enormous pans of Opera Cake and Baked Alaska.

Our Opera Cake turned out so pretty, and delicious, too! We only used 6 layers, instead of the traditional 7, because it will be cut into very small portions to be served at graduation. Last year, some of the portions were a little top-heavy, so we made the cakes shorter. I don't imagine our guests will count the layers, will they?

Here's the cross-section of the Opera Cake, before the ganache was poured on.

The Baked Alaska was beautiful. I'm not a huge fan of Italian meringue. It's just a little too gooey and goopy for my taste. But still, this was pretty darn tasty. It had chocolate, vanilla and strawberry ice cream, and we brushed the cake layers with citrus syrup.

Here's a picture of the cake in progress, just to show the layers of ice cream.