Sugar work

A hasty one here. This week and the following week, we'll be devoting ourselves entirely to sugar. Sugar work. We are going to play with all sorts of sugar: pastillage, sugar paste, sugar syrup, to build a sugar showpiece that looks like that:

Above was made by Chef Herve. Sugar work is really interesting. Some of the techniques used are quite similar to glass-making. For example, blowing, pulling, pouring, casting. Yep. The development of heat-resistant fingers is also quite crucial for a good sugar artist. (Sugar is cooked to 155 degrees Celsius and has to be pulled at the minimum temperature of 70 degrees Celsius. We are only given a mere rubber/silicone gloves for protection. That's why.)

Little pieces by Chef Herve.

My baby showpiece.

Compared to the more eye-catching pieces of my friends.

I didn't realise sugar look better bigger, when you don't have the skills to make delicate things. Well, I look forward to being able to make sugar ribbons. :D

End.

Superior assessment

Hohoho, exam's over! And I passed!

Nah~ my finished cake. I took a picture of it only after Chef tried it. Therefore, the cut there. Nevertheless, you can still see the design. I cut the leaf design out of cardboard myself with the tomato knife. (To my secondary school art teacher: My papercutting skills improved!) It is not as defined as I liked it to be though. :(

"Happy Birthday" was piped in pistachio, chocolate jelly.

My classmates' gateaux!

The second assessment was the chocolate box. Each of us has to make a box entirely out of chocolate complete with 12 dipped marzipan petits fours.

Originally, I had this idea of making a sitting ballerina out of modeling chocolate and stick piped butterfly wings onto her back. It will be placed on top of the box as a centerpiece. (it will be so beautiful...) Sadly, I don't have the skill for it. First thing Chef said when he saw the humanoid shape thing that I've made was: I wouldn't make a woman like this. End of story. I changed my design. I made this ribbon instead. Very plain, very simple, because my time ran out.

My classmates' designs. All so beautiful!

Exam's over~ Home in 2 weeks!

End.

Decorative Breads- Dead dough

Dead dough, also known as bakers clay, is basically dough without yeast, or any leavening agent. Our task for the day is to produce at least 2 decorative bread pieces.

Chef Herve's demonstration. With a combination of normal bread dough and dead dough, he created this bouquet of wheat grass. This is super cool. You know, you have to cut and shape every single wheat you see there.... within the time that the normal bread dough below takes to prove. If you're too slow, the normal bread dough tends to explode, and you'll see little gaps here and there. Not good at all..

Crocodile. Chef says for some reason crocodiles look especially good in bread. The entire of the crocodile is made with the "live dough" (which is another name for the normal yeast dough). The fact that the dough is expanding all the time, makes it more difficult to shape. Especially for first-timers like us, we take more time to get the croc into shape. Let's say by the time the head is done, the tail will look a bit bulbous. Then you have to try to squash the air out, and roll the end more, to get the tapered off effect again.

So this is what happens. An obese crocodile which may very possibly be saddled with high cholesterol and diabetes.

Wheat sheaf is cool though. The middle piece is a porcupine. haha.

Better looking crocodile, but still looks over-fed.

Guess who made this. Stella. My roommate. She made this super huge owl with a mouse in its beak (though I don't think you can see it). Kimmy observed it and told me in a very calm manner: Heidi, I think you need to be careful. O.o

End.

Panetonne, Stollen and Foccacia

This whole week seems very Christmassy. 2 other Christmas items: Panetonne (Italy) and Stollen (France, Swiss, Germany, that Europe area). Oh, and Foccacia. One of my favourite bready!

This weeks's student helpers: Soo Jin and Heidi.

The panetonne made the day before and left in the fridge to be retarded. Baked and eaten on the second day. Nice, quite like the brioche except it has got lots of extra stuff like sultannas, dried fruits.

Stollen. A fruit bread stuffed with marzipan and baked together. I find this bread is quite similar to panetonne, but it has got much less butter and ofcourse this has marzipan.

Wrap, roll and seal. Then shape. bam bam bam.

After it is baked, you cut it like a pro with the bready knife. Chef Herve is demonstrating.

HOHOHO, foccacia. Chef says he finds it very close to the pizza dough except that this is much much thicker.

Topped with olives, basil, thyme and majoram.

End.

Gingerbread House

Christmas is coming! Theme for this week is The Gingerbread House~

First we make the gingerbread dough and pin it out into sheets to bake. After it is baked, we attempt to cut it into the shapes (roof, walls, chimney etc..) Then we make icing sugar (a combination of egg whites and icing sugar) as means to stick the pieces together. The sticks poking out from the gingerbread house are to hold them together before the icing dries. Looks quite scary huh, like some voodoo house (or so kimmy says).

We had such an excess of time during the lesson that we made honey lemon tea for the class. Waaaaa.

And time to idle around, to take many pictures..

From left: Efsun (Turkey), Eduardo (Venezuela), Stella (Philippines) and Kimmy (Indonesia).

Hong wants to stuff the pastry brush up Kimmy's nose to revenge Kimmy for sticking the brush in his eye.

Our Gingerbread House, decorated with icing sugar, candies and smarties.

Heidi's love nest.

Why love? There.

Afternoon Tea

Okay! The high point of Superior patisserie: Afternoon Tea. It is an exercise that every patisserie student must go through. For this week, we made crepes, savarin, all kinds of petit fours for an afternoon tea service, served to real customers. In the ambassador room, tables are set up, food displayed prettily on platters, and us, we became front of house, kick-ass members. 2 of the girls went behind the bar to churn out coffee and cold beverages, 2 made crepes suzette as an open presentation (you can totally see the flames going up high when the grand marnier goes into the pan), the rest of us became the waitstaff.

"Those who can smile go behind the buffet counter." I volunteered. Haha, I figured it was the easiest job out of the three. Well, it was, until I found out how lonely it can be. Most customers are just eager to get the food on their plate rather than stopping to hear you lecture on about the cake. (I am sometimes like that too, so I can understand.)

We had tons of leftovers. I really really tried to sell my gateaux but no amount of coaxing can give the (miserable turn-out of) customers a second stomach. In the end, our class tried to polish the pastries off the trays either by insane, vengeful eating or take-away in makeshift doggy bag made out of disposable towels and plastic boxes. I had no appetite for either. There's something about leftovers just puts me off. o_o

Before the service, each of us had to make a crepe suzette each. First you melt sugar on the pan, on its own, until the sugar turns liquid. Then you add the butter. Very quickly, orange juice goes in. With a wedge of lemon, you clean the pan with it to dislodge any stray sugar. Next, add the crepes to soak in the nicely caramelised orange juice mixture. Now, the most important grand marnier is added to the edge of the pan, so that it can catch the fire. If you tilt the pan a little backwards, then you add the grand marnier to the top and quickly catch the fire, a tall flame will erupt. Spectacular. I reckon this is how I got my A. Because, frankly speaking, standing behind the counter, smiling blandly, won't get you many points. ._.

The crepes, made two days before the service. We've got many complaints for this one. Mr. Ivan said they were too thick to be French crepes. Thus during practice, we ate the thick ones ourselves. haha.

Savarin. It is a yeast product which is just plain weird. Good weird since it tastes so good. It has got the texture of a bread, sweetness of a cake. My brain cannot make the connection. Luckily, my brain knows my tongue likes it. Finished like a cake with creme chantilly and fruits.

Les Macaroons et Les chocolat- contributed by the various Chefs.

Danish pastries- donated by Intermediate patisserie.

Sable boutin (I hope I got this right) and lemon meringue tartlets- made by us.

Sugar showpiece by Chef Herve, to impress our customers he says.

Thank god it is over. Sure it was fun but trying as well. I didn't pee for long periods.

End.