Pastry Update #3

Basic Pastry is officially over.  Well, not quite, seeing as we still have our big scary exam to deal with this Tuesday, but today we had our final demo of the term.  That makes this my final Pastry Update of the term, rounding out all of the pastries we discovered in these three months.  Enjoy!

Leçon 13

In lesson 13, we encountered our first (of many, evidently) mousse cake.  The concept seemed junxtaposed, (with the term “cake,” I usually picture something solid and spongy, the definite opposite of what I picture for the term “mousse”) but after the demo, my eyes were opened to a whole new world of cakes. 

In the demo, the Chef made a Mirior Cassis (shiny-topped black currant mousse cake) and a Mirior Citrons (a shiny-topped lemon mousse cake).  They both tasted fabulous, but I preferred the lemon one.  In the practical, we were to reproduce the Mirior Cassis, and it went well, overall.

Chef's Miroir Citron (bottom) and Miroir
Cassis (top)

Chef's Cassis

Chef's Cassis - how whimsical! 

My Cassis!

A little too much glaze, and my mousse wasn't quite as high,
but overall a job well done!

Leçon 14

This was the soufflée lesson!  I had been looking forward to this one, featuring those notoriously time-sensitive (and therefore expensive) desserts that I had only seen in fancy restaurants on family vacations.  I was intrigued by the mystery of making such a strange dessert, and it was fun to learn how.

In the demo, the Chef presented what I think of as a “soufflée,” the “Soufflée chaud Rothschild” (in an individual-sized ramekin, this specific one is kirsch-flavored and spotted with candied fruits).  He also showed us a Tarte Soufflée (a large tart with a soufflée built into the top) with Coulis (a sauce made from assorted blended fruits), and a Gratin de Fruits (fresh fruits in a cream with a thin torched-sugar crust).  We were to do the three latter recipes in our practical.

I was a little disappointed in the taste of a plain vanilla soufflée, but now I know how to make chocolate ones at home, which is definitely an experiment worth trying!

Chef's soufflées, fresh out of the oven

Chef's Tarte Soufflée

After about three minutes...

My Gratin de Fruits

My Tarte Soufflée

Starting to fall a little already!

You can see the Coulis inside

Leçon 15

Lesson 15 featured the Gâteau Basque (almond-flavored cream and fresh cherries incased completely in a crust) and Cake au Citron (lemon bread).  The Chef also showed us some basic shapes to make with marzipan, which we would airbrush during the next lesson.  We only had the Gâteau Basque and a few marzipan characters of our choice to do in the practical, so it was a pretty laid-back class.

Chef's Gateau Basque

Chef's marzipan "characters"

Chef's Lemon Bread (one with fresh cherries on top)

My Gateau Basque

Leçon 16

I didn’t come into this course expecting to learn how to make ice cream, so Lesson 16 was a wonderful surprise!  Ice cream is my favorite food, so it had me pretty excited.  This was also the Crème Brûlée lesson, and we learned how to use the airbrush, so I was all smiles the entire time.  The Chef demoed Soufflée Glacé Montmorency (an ice cream that doesn’t require an ice cream machine, and that looks like a little soufflée in a ramekin), Crème Glacée Vanille (vanilla ice cream), Sorbet aux Framboises (raspberry sorbet), Crème Renversée au Caramel (caramel reversed cream), and Crème Brûlée.  For the practical, we didn’t get our hands on any ice cream, but we did make Crème Brûlée and Crème Renversée, as well as airbrushing the marzipan characters we finished the day before.

Chef's Reversed Cream

Chef's Creme Brulees, vanilla and chocolate

Chef's airbrushing (sorry it's a little blurry)

My plate from the demo.  Clockwise starting at 9:00:
vanilla ice cream, raspberry sorbet, vanilla creme brulee,
reversed cream, and chocolate creme brulee (center)

 The Practical went incredibly well for me!  I surprised myself with the ease of the airbrush, and was happy with the way my marzipan characters turned out.  The chef was also very impressed, and asked if I had any experience airbrushing (I don't).  When he came around to taste my Reversed Cream, he took one bite and seemed to melt.  He looked at me, nodded a few times, and just said, "Yep!...Oh...perfect!"  He then took the one he had taken a small piece out of, set it aside by his personal tools, and said, "I'm keeping this.  Not letting this one go" and smiled at me.  As we walked out of the room after class, he asked me a few details about how I did it; how long I kept it in the oven, the oven temperature, all with a mouthful of my dessert.  It was a wonderful compliment.

Our section's airbrushed characters.  Mine are
in the top left corner

My Creme Brulee, after struggling with the torch that throws
fireballs

My reversed cream - a huge success, even though one of them
broke

My airbrushed characters: a hedgehog, a pear,
a rose with three leaves, and a mouse.
We had green, yellow, red, and orange to work with,
so I made my mouse red.  Why not, right?

Leçon 17

In Lesson 17, Chef Jocelyn demoed the Pavé du Roy, an incredibly chocolaty 3-layer cake filled and topped with dark chocolate ganache; and the Entremets Casino, a very attractive cake that consists of little cake rolls meant to resemble poker chips surrounding a pear cream.  He also finished the Montmorency from the previous demo, since it needed to be frozen overnight.  We made the Pavé du Roy in the practical and, aside from most of us leaving covered in chocolate spatters and smears, it was a pretty simple cake.

Chef's Pave du Roy

Chef's Casino, in the shape of a log because it is Christmas time.
Usually, is it round and flat, like a cake

The Montmorency from the previous lesson

My Pave du Roy: a success!

Very chocolaty!  Chad loved it, but I couldn't have more
than a very small bite a day

This was our first experience with handmade chocolate decor.
I made these chocolate swirls!

Leçon 18

Lesson 18 featured the infamous Charlotte aux Poires, a pastry that is always on the exam list, and that requires the chef to open the demo with an “Architecture Lesson” complete with drawings of buildings and how they stay standing, with plenty of comparisons to this little cake.  It is a small cake lined with Lady Fingers and filled with the most delectable pear cream and pear pieces, but with a flared bottom, it is perilously constructed.  We revisited the Coulis in this lesson, just so we could serve it with the Charlotte, and the Chef also made an Entremet aux Poires (a cake, as we think of it in America, layered with pear cream and pieces of pears).

In the practical, we were all faced with the construction of the Charlotte.  One student had a little trouble, but no one completely failed the construction, and I found it easier than all of the scary hearsay suggested it was.

Chef's Charlotte

Chef's Entremet

My Charlotte

The Chef complimented me greatly on my piping, saying
that if I pipe this well during the exam, Chef Herve will be
proud!

Leçon 19

Our last pastry approached so quickly!  Throughout the term, Chef Jocelyn made it explicitly clear that the course is specifically formatted for us to learn the most difficult cake last so it can be fresh in our minds for the exam.  He talked it up like it was terrible and we would all fail in some fashion.  We learned that cake yesterday: the Saint-Honoré.  Though it didn’t look as scary in the demo as the Chef had talked it up to be, it still involved many of the elements we learned in previous lessons, so it is probably best that this choux-based pastry was left for last.

The Saint-Honoré has a shortcrust base that is surrounded by choux (cream puff pastries filled with Chiboust cream), filled with Chiboust cream, the most delicious but also most difficult cream in the French Pastry realm, and topped with caramel.

The Chef also demoed Paris-Brest, a favorite of one of my French friends that I was anxious to try.  It was so delicious that I will definitely be making this one at home.

The practical was only over the Saint-Honoré, and, though no one completely failed the cake, everyone had a little something that wasn’t quite perfect about it.  For me, it was the color of my caramel.  Overall, though, definitely a doable pastry!

Chef's Paris-Brest -- SO tasty!
(They're puff pastries filled with praline cream
and topped with toasted almond slivers)

Chef's Saint-Honore

My Saint-Honore (not sure why it's sideways)
The caramel is too dark and my "Angel Hair"
decor didn't work out, but it wasn't a complete
failure at all!

Each little puff pastry is filled with delicious
Chiboust, a light, fluffy vanilla cream

Leçon 20

Though we had learned our last pastry, we still had a demo today.  In it, Chef Jocelyn gave us the details on our final exam (coming up on Tuesday – wish me luck!), and gave us an example of an Intermediate Pastry demo.  He made a stunning (and mouthwatering) chocolate mousse cake with layers of chocolate and crunchy praline, and topped with the most beautiful glaze and chocolate décor.  He seduced us with the decorating techniques and arm-saving KitchenAid, and definitely got me excited to begin the Intermediate term.  I just hope, for eveyone’s sake, that no one who saw such a great demo today fails the exam and isn’t allowed to continue!

The bonus cake we got in our final demo!  A tantalizing preview
of what we can expect in Intermediate Pastry

In Intermediate, we will make a small, plated
version of all of our cakes.  Like this little guy!