Pastry Update #5

It’s been five cakes and six lessons since Pastry Update #4, and it has been an exciting three weeks!  From our first experiences with poured glazes to the infamous Croquembouche, these were definitely lessons that I will not soon forget.

Leçon 11

Mousse cakes have become pretty standard, and it is exciting to not be intimidated by them anymore.  In this lesson, we learned yet another: the Délice Caramel.  It consists of a coffee-flavored lady finger base with a caramel mousse and a pear mousse.  Chef Eric also taught us how to make an exceptionally delicious reduced caramel sauce for the plated dessert, and showed us the best ways to make two-toned chocolate décor.

Chef Eric's Caramel Mousse Cake with two-toned chocolate
cigarettes

Chef's plated dessert -- the caramel sauce is so good!

The practical didn’t go as well for me as the previous few had.  I over-baked my lady fingers a little, which led to the entire cake having some problems.  Caramel mousse leaked out of the bottom, my “cartuchière” wasn’t even (the outside ring of cake), and I didn’t have time to make any chocolate décor.  It was a bit of a nightmare, but my caramel sauce was delicious, and my mousses were well-done.  Even so, I will definitely be practicing this one at home in the coming weeks.

My plated dessert.  My lady fingers are over-baked, so they
cracked during construction, and I didn't have time for chocolate

My big Caramel Mousse Cake -- the caramel mousse leaked
out of the bottom of my cake...sad day.

Layers from bottom to top: Coffee lady fingers, caramel mousse
with pieces of pears, coffee lady fingers, pear mousse

Leçon 12

The Marquise au Chocolat was our first time working with poured glaze.  It is also said to be the most difficult cake in our entire program to cover because of the nature of its especially quick-setting glaze, so the Chef assured us that if we could successfully tackle this one, we would be fine with glaze all the way through Superior.  The cake itself consists of milk chocolate mousse and a crispy praline layer.

One of Chef Herve's Marquises au Chocolat.  This one is
surrounded by heart-shaped macarons

Another of Chef Herve's Marquises -- surrounded by chocolate
fans and dusted with gold dust

Chef Herve's plated dessert

Chef Herve's last Marquise au Chocolat, with which he demonstrated
how to wrap the side in chocolate, rather than glaze it.

My practical was smooth.  I didn’t run into issues with the chocolate mousse that many of my classmates did, which left me thankful.  While the cake was setting, I had time to try the two-toned chocolate cigarettes that Chef Eric had showed us in the previous lesson, and it was fun to finally give those a shot.  Glazing the cake wasn’t too bad.  I didn’t get the entire side, but the Chef showed me how to cover the exposed mousse without leaving the side too choppy. My plated dessert, on the other hand, was kind of embarrassing.  I literally threw it together in one minute, and it looked pretty sad.

My Marquise au Chocolat, with gold dust and my first two-toned
chocolate cigarettes

My embarrassing plated dessert.  Better than nothing, but
definitely not something I'm particularly proud of

My first cigarettes:  I let the white set a little too much, so they
cracked.  For the most part, it worked, though!

Leçons 13 and 14

As part of his demo, Chef Eric showed us how to make
ribbons and flowers out of sugar

Of all the lessons in Intermediate Pastry, all the chocolate tempering and mousse cakes and plated desserts, this one is the most famous.  It is the most anticipated and the most feared.  It presents the most likely possibility of blisters and burns.  This lesson is Croquembouche.

Chef Eric's Croquembouche

Croquembouche (sometimes called “Croque en Bouche”) is the traditional French wedding cake.  (“Wedding Pastry” is maybe a better term, as it isn’t a cake by any definition.)  It is a tall, hollow cone built of round puff pastries that are filled with Grand Marnier cream and dipped in caramel.  The cone sits on a base made of “Nougatine”, a crunchy concoction of slivered almonds and caramel.  Many times, a Croquembouche is decorated with sugar ribbons or birds, flowers, royal icing, and angel hair caramel. Since we have yet to officially work with pulled or blown sugar, we were tasked with building a Croquembouche on a nougatine base and decorating it with royal icing.  Chef Eric used approximately 80 choux in his demo, but we were only required to use 50 (an announcement which was accompanied by an evil Chef Eric laugh).

The lesson was split into two days and had four parts: two three-hour demos in one day, then two three-hour practicals the next.  This meant that we would have five hours of work time to make this pastry happen.

My Croquembouche -- not bad!

The first half of my practical was not great.  In theory, we were supposed to complete the choux (empty puff pastries), cream, and nougatine base and triangles.  Of these three tasks, I messed up two: my choux were too big (which meant I yielded exactly 50 of them), and my nougatine was too dark.  Working with the nougatine was pretty tough: in order to shape it, it had to be almost too hot for human hands to tolerate.  With mine being pretty dark, it was less pliable than usual, which meant it had to be even hotter to be flexible enough to mold.  After about 40 minutes of wrestling with it, I decided that my only feasible option was to just get out what I could, and worry about attractiveness later.  In the first 2.5 hours, time wasn’t an issue, but by the time we were to go to the basement for a lunch break, I wanted to just stay upstairs and re-do everything.  Not having this as an option, I was pretty disappointed in my work, and I was pretty sure that there was no way I could turn it around for the better.  It was comforting to know, though, that I wasn’t the only student with big choux.  We would get through this together.

It's actually kind of cute!

After the lunch break, our task was to fill the choux, make the caramel, dip them, build the Croquembouche, and decorate it.  I was determined to not mess anything else up, and to somehow make my fail-Croquembouche attractive.  Dipping the filled choux in caramel was pretty comical.  I was hyper-aware of my fingers’ proximity to the burning-hot caramel and was sure not to burn myself, but the kitchen was a chorus of “Ah!”s and “Ouch”es and muttered cuss words as students dipped their fingers with their choux.  

With my choux dipped, I was on to the construction, determined to make this thing look right.  Building it wasn’t bad; the big choux actually didn’t pose too much of an issue and my cone was only a tiny bit crooked.  When the decoration was done, I stepped back and took a good look at the thing.  I was pleased to see that it actually wasn’t as bad as I anticipated it would be.  In my critique, Chef Eric even assured me that the nougatine wasn’t burned.  He broke off a piece and made me eat it, and I was amazed that he was actually correct, and it was delicious.  Imagine that!  At the end of the day, I only went home with one burn – an imprint of the baking tray’s corner on my palm.  Oops.

They were too big for our cake boxes, so most of us wrapped
our Croquembouches in plastic wrap and carried them home

The little royal icing flowers really helped
brighten this thing up.  The color of my
caramel is also nice

Ready to walk home!

My only burn of the day.  I was lucky!

Leçon 15

Whew!  Croquembouche is done, and now we’re on to another mousse cake: the Pacific.  Pacific consists of a very light sponge cake, strawberry mousse, and lemon mousse, and it is decorated with colorful cigarette décor and a swirly design on the side.  The demo was fun and the cake was light and refreshing – perfect for summer in Iowa.

Chef Eric's plated Pacific

Chef Eric's large Pacific with cigarette paste decorations and
candied lemon zests

My practical went great!  The timing was good and I only had one major problem: I over-mixed my sponge cake a little, making its edges dry.  The edges are cut off and discarded anyway, but I was still concerned about fixing that issue.  Decorating with the cigarette paste was fun, and I really enjoyed the tiny Pacific for the plated dessert.  Overall: a success!

My little plated dessert -- what a cute little guy!

My big Pacific -- the piping isn't great, but I'm really happy
with the designs on the side and top

A successful practical!

Leçon 16

In our most recent lesson, we learned the Opéra, a richly delicious six-layer cake that I loved in France.  It is built out of sponge cake soaked in coffee syrup, coffee buttercream, dark chocolate ganache, and another poured glaze.  In the demo, Chef Eric also showed us a chocolate tart, which was quick and easy.  It is too rich for my taste, but my chocolate-loving friends couldn’t get enough.  In the practical, we were to make a full-sized Opéra with a piped chocolate border and chocolate décor, and a plated dessert.

Chef Eric's plated Opera -- I LOVE this design!

Chef's Opera (not sure why the photo is sideways -
sorry about that)

The simple but nice chocolate tart

The practical was great!  My sponge cake, which was the same recipe as the one I over-mixed in the previous lesson, was a lot better.  It was great to have more experience pouring glaze, and I had plenty of time to temper chocolate.  My piping wasn’t great, even though I practiced (time to practice some more!) but it wasn’t awful.  My goal for the day was to use a treble clef in the design without it looking campy, and I think I succeeded in that.  Chef Arnaud (the new pastry chef) really loved it.

My plated Opera.  I don't love the chocolate swirls in the
front there, but Chef Arnaud liked them

Goal to use a treble clef -- accomplished

My large Opera cake

Layers from bottom to top: Sponge cake with coffee syrup,
coffee buttercream, sponge cake with coffee syrup, dark
chocolate ganache, sponge cake with coffee syrup, thin layer
of coffee buttercream, poured glaze

Only six more lessons before our final exam!  Eek!