Chocolate Week

We kicked off this week with fruit carving with Chef Armando on Monday, and Chef Hervé referred to the rest of it as “Chocolate Week.”  He had a good reason: Tuesday and Wednesday we would be learning then tackling the Chocolate Showpiece, then Thursday and Friday we would be doing our first molded Chocolate Bonbons, which are guaranteed to be on the final exam in June. 

This is what happens if you melt pure chocolate, then let it
set without tempering.  It hasn't gone bad, the lighter swirls
are just the cocoa butter that has separated from the cocoa
paste.  It can be fixed by tempering (this photo is of the little
box of chocolate I have in the cupboard to practice with).

Chocolate works on its own terms.  It does what it wants when it wants, and if we can even hope to manipulate it, we have to follow its set of exact and demanding rules.  Maybe it seems like I am making it sound harder than it is.  How complicated could it be, right?  Melt the chocolate, mold the chocolate, un-mold the chocolate, and it’s done, right?  Not quite.  In order to work with real, pure chocolate (without artificial fillers or oils), it has to be tempered; a process that breaks down the chocolate molecules, then re-crystalizes them in a stronger, shinier way.  Without this process, it never sets and it sticks to molds.  It gets soft at room temperature.  It looks swirled and dull (ever left a candy bar in a hot car, then put it in the fridge?).  At home, we have a lot of products that are designed to circumvent tempering, but they aren’t chocolate.  They are chocolate-flavored candy that is full of oil and emulsifiers that help them set and remain hard simply by melting and allowing to cool.

Anyway: I usually have pretty good luck working with chocolate, but even so, I was still a little nervous going in to the showpiece lesson.

Chocolate Showpiece

Chef Hervé approached this like any other lesson.  It was, after all.  In two and a half hours, he constructed a beautiful sculpture made entirely of chocolate.  While he worked, he explained what elements would be required for us:  A chocolate base that looks like granite, a large molded piece, a tall hollow cylinder as a support, a chocolate flower, chocolate leaves, and two “other techniques” (options: molded spheres, thin curved pieces, piped pieces, “coral,” or “straws).   Each element would be easy to make; the hard part would be balancing the design and keeping the chocolate tempered throughout our five-hour class so that it could be used as a glue when we finally assembled the sculpture.  The Chef used between three and four kilograms of chocolate, and said that we would each be given five kilos of dark chocolate and as much white chocolate as we wanted to complete our piece.

Chef's HUGE chocolate flower!  It's so big!

His showpiece from the front

We were required to come with a sketch, so I drew three and chose the best one.  I woke up an hour before the alarm on the morning of my practical, so I made a digitized version with color.  I was nervous that my showpiece would fall over.

I was prepared for the practical, but still nervous.  I didn’t have any trouble, really, until it came time to assemble my sculpture.  The first piece I glued into place, the large molded teardrop piece, was leaning badly backward, and it was too late to fix it.  Because of this, I had to place the flower flush against the piece (rather than tilted slightly forward as I had planned).  Chef Hervé suggested that I stick a scrap from my leaves, a tall, attractive red-colored white chocolate piece, right in the front.  I did it, then realized that he was probably joking, but again, it was too late to remove it.  I also had a little less chocolate left than I had hoped, so it became difficult for me to glue things toward the end.

All in all, though, I was satisfied with my showpiece.  It looked close to my sketch, and it was stable for the time being.  After it was finished, I was to walk it through a door, down three steps, around a corner, through another door, and place it on to a table.  I felt like I was on Food Network Challenge!  Nothing broke, and the showpiece lesson was officially over.

My showpiece from the front.  You can see my
digitized sketch hanging on the paper above it.

My flower -- not bad for a first try!

From the back.  I was inspired by tree fungus...
does it show?

Whew!  Successfully moved from the practical kitchen to the table.

Ta-daa!

It was a wonder than all the pieces fit on the two tables they designated for us!  When it was all over, 23 of us each made a chocolate showpiece with approximately four kilograms of chocolate.  Wow!

23 showpieces!  Our display made the hallway smell amazing.

Chocolate Bonbons

After tempering five kilos of chocolate for the showpiece, bonbons seemed like they would be a piece of cake.  Chef Hervé demonstrated seven different types to us:  Nougat (a chewy, thick honey base dotted with assorted nuts), Cinnamon and Pistachio Bonbons (white chocolate shells filled with a soft white chocolate, pistachio, and cinnamon ganache), Chocolate Caramel (caramels flavored with dark chocolate), Dipped Marzipan (thick almond paste dipped in dark chocolate), Praliné (dark chocolate shells filled with a hazelnut praline and bits of crispy, dried crêpes), Palets Or Café (coffee-flavored dark chocolate ganache dipped in dark chocolate and colored with gold dust – “Or” is “Gold” in French), and Tea Truffles (dark chocolate shells filled with a chocolate and tea ganache).  We learned the technique behind molding perfect, bubble-less shells, filling, and closing them. 

Chef's shiny Palets Or

He taught us how to color our molds.  These are the pistachio
bonbons...appropriately green!

Chef's Nougat...it's like a thick, sticky marshmallow with nuts

On the top:  Dipped Marzipan.  On the bottom: Tea Truffles
It is encouraging to see that even the Chef gets some small
bubbles in his mold sometimes

Chef's Pralines.  I didn't like the log mold initially...but tie design
has grown on me.

For the practical, we were to make five candies in five hours: the Cinnamon and Pistachio Bonbons, Chocolate Caramel, Dipped Marzipan, Praliné, and Palets Or.  The practical went well for me, overall.  The Chocolate Caramel was the most difficult, technically, and I nailed it.  My white chocolate shells are a bit too thick, but the dark chocolate ones are “perfect for the exam,” as Chef Hervé pointed out.  The dipping on my Palets Or was too thick, too, but Chef really liked my marzipans.  Everything was consistently sized, a major goal of mine for the lesson, so I was pretty excited about that.  I tried to paint a little design into the molds for the pistachio bonbons, but a lot of the color stuck, so they didn’t all turn out attractively…but my log-shaped Pralinés look really nice.  At the end of the five hours, I had between 165 and 175 candies to take home.

My Pistachio Bonbons (left) and Pralines (right)
It's a shame that my color didn't really work out
for the pistachio ones.

My Palets Or

My Dipped Marzipans (left) and Chocolate Caramels (right)
A+ for size and shape consistency!

My little Praline logs (the tastiest kind!)

What I presented for the practical. 

I left with SO many candies!  Well over 100 of them.

I inadvertently made my marzipans look like a little guy in a hat...
Quinn named him "Marzi-man." 

From left:  too thick, too thick, PERFECT!

After the practical, Chad picked Quinn and me up at school with the car because we were allowed to take our chocolate showpieces home.  The car definitely helped…I’m not sure I could have walked the thing home.  When it was safely on our counter (missing a couple pieces from the ride), Chad was a great sport in helping me take photos of it.  It’s a good thing we did!  This morning while we were still sleeping, the direct sunlight found the showpiece and pretty well destroyed it.  First it fell over, then the pieces facing the sun caved in and drooped over.  I’m glad it happened – now it will be easier for me to melt it down and use the chocolate for practice!

From Every Angle

The base really did look like granite!

The leaves were really shiny, and had some texture from the
veins I carved into the chocolate

Missing a few pieces, with my bonbons on the
base

No, the photo isn't crooked...that's definitely
the showpiece.  See how the white chocolate
piece in the front is getting floppy?  THAT
is why it was a joke when Chef suggested
that I put it there.  White chocolate is not
very resistant to heat.

From the back

So many finger prints!  Definitely one of the top
things I need to improve for the next time.

From the right side

Now we can eat it!  (Just kidding - I'm going to separate the dark
from the white chocolate and melt it down to have it here for
practicing) 

Whoops!

Fruit Carving with Chef Armando

Throughout Superior Pastry, we have two classes with Chef Armando Baisas, a fabulously talented chef who is so world-renown for his ice carving that he usually is asked to judge competitions, rather than compete in them.  (He has been recognized by two national governments for his achievements in the art!)  The two classes we have with him teach us fruit carving and “ice carving,” which my class will do with humongous blocks of lard, since it will likely take place at the end of May (and even in Canada, it isn’t cold enough to carve ice that late).  This past week, we were lucky enough to have our fruit carving class, and I was SO excited!

Chef Armando hard at work on a honeydew melon basket

Class was on Monday, and my friends and I arrived even earlier than usual.  Chef Armando is a pretty laid-back, quiet guy, so he let us in the classroom and tamely did a roll call while we waited for the last few students.  He had a huge industrial-grade tool box on the counter, and another Tupperware container full of small chisels.  I recognized the carving tools:  Justin Willmert and I used almost the exact same ones to carve stamps in high school Art class.

Once everyone was in attendance, Chef Armando began the class by explaining his tools and a few basic techniques.  He started by showing us some fruit and vegetable sculptures that are mostly made by attaching different pieces together and merely accented by a little simple carving.  He made a funny little bird’s head, a palm tree, and a dolphin out of a banana and a grapefruit.  He progressively introduced more carving with each piece, moving to a swan, turtle, and butterflies made from green apples, then an ingenious way to carve a quarter pineapple so that it becomes a pineapple-serving vessel.  He carved the core of a pineapple into a seahorse that stands on its own!  He then moved to melons, carving a (kind of scary) rat from a cantaloupe, a basket and a swan from honeydews, and beautiful flowers and a bird from half-watermelons.  Watching him work was captivating; it seemed effortless, but it was just so lovely.  He often commented that we were being too quiet, but really I think that we were all impressed.

Only about a third of what Chef Armando made!

Just grab a slice of pineapple and go!  Way faster than cutting
it the conventional way, prettier, and smarter.

Honeydew basket filled with melon and grapes

Now THAT is a fruit salad!

Granny Smith the swan

This seahorse is made from the core of a pineapple,
and he can stand on his own.  Impressive!  The butterflies
are each made from an apple slice

Granny Smith the turtle

A swan made from a honeydew that doubles
as a fruit basket: pretty and functional!

This funny little bird is the first thing he showed us

His eyes are made of peppercorns

This is what I was looking forward to!  I have seen
so many of these beautiful watermelons on cruise ship
buffet lines, and I was sure he would teach us how
it is done.

Some people think he's a rat, some people think he's
a koala, Alyson thinks he's Stitch...I just think he's
a little freaky

Our practical was right after the demo, and this time we had three hours rather than our usual five.  We loaded boxes and boxes full of fruit into the room (enough for our section and the next), then began to work.  Chef Armando encouraged us to try to reproduce his work, and said that we had to take home everything we cut in to.  We were each allowed one honeydew, one cantaloupe, half a watermelon, one pineapple, and an unlimited supply of oranges, grapefruits, bananas, carrots, zucchinis, grapes, strawberries, and apples. 

I had some trouble right away, and when I asked the Chef to lend me a hand he rolled his eyes at my carving tools (fresh from the boutique downstairs) and took them to sharpen them.  Evidently the factory doesn’t like them as sharp as he does.  As soon as he returned, it was a lot easier, but definitely nothing like he made it look!  I started with the palm tree, which turned out well, then worked my way through the apples, melons, watermelon, and finally the pineapple.  It was so fun, and at the end, Chef Armando said that I “definitely have potential, but [I] need to practice.”  I think I will practice: fruit carving would be welcomed in my future.

Concentrating on my watermelon.  Thanks again to Quinn for
taking an artsy action photo!

My watermelon!  Not perfect, but pretty good for
a first try!  As soon as watermelon is in the grocery
store again, this will probably be a pretty common
sight around our apartment.

Honeydew swan!

I'm glad I got this one figured out -- I'll never cut a pineapple the
conventional way again!

Apple swan with a strawberry rose and the base of my palm tree

My work from the practical.  You can imagine the fruit salad
that came from it!

My palm tree.  He is now in a fabulous vegetable
soup that I made to use up the carrot.

Chef also made this melon basket in the demo as
a good way to use up the other half of the melon
that is used as the "leaves" of the palm tree.

Quinn and I were the only two in the class who used our honeydew
melons to try the swan!

Chef Armando and me.  And my palm tree.
I felt like Lady Liberty.

As required, I carried all of my fruit home (in two large bags that I brought to class).  I cut them up and made a huge fruit salad, but it tasted so great that Chad and I had it cleaned out in a few days.

To experience Chef Armando carving fruits and vegetables, click here.  It's a short video shot in our class room by Health Check, part of the Canadian Heart and Stroke Foundation.