The Classics

Classic Desserts. Nothing new skill-wise, but this class is a good review of techniques we've already learned and we get to know more about the desserts that are famous around the world.

This week we made Charlotte Royal, Princess cake, and Sachertorte.


Charlotte Royal is the sister cake of the Charlotte Russe (French for Russian). It was invented by French chef Marie Antoine Creme for the Russian Czar. A charlotte russe was traditionally a moulded cake that was lined with ladyfingers and then filled with Bavarian cream. The royal, on the other hand, was lined with jam filled jelly rolls and glazed with apricot glaze.

Bowls make great moulds!

Shiny with glaze

The inside! (We added extra jelly rolls.)

You may recognize the Princess cake from Ikea. The princess cake is Swedish and was named as such because the three princesses of the Duke of Västergötland were fond of it. In fact, the recipe for it appeared in the "Prinsessornas Kokbok" - a cookbook in the 1930's!

Building the princess cake

Filling the cake

Marzipan time

A princess cake is composed of layers of sponge cake, raspberry jam, pastry cream, and whipped cream. All wrapped in pale green marzipan and decorated with a rose. A very feminine "light and fluffy" cake.

Opposite the princess cake is the sachertorte. (It's a German name so make sure to spit on the "ch"!) It was created by Chef Franz Sacher for the Prince of Vienna. One day the prince decided to throw a party and asked the head pastry chef to create him a "masculine" cake. Unfortunately, the head chef fell ill and the task fell to the assistant, Franz! Franz's son, Eduard, continued in Franz's shoes and perfected the torte recipe. Many years later, there was a seven year lawsuit between the Hotel Sacher (built by Eduard and his wife) and Demel Bakery (where Eduard first started serving the cake) over who could claim the title "The Original Sacher Torte", including the right to spell the cake "Sacher Torte" and not "Sachertorte". Sachertorte, with the lower case and no space, means a "cake made in Sacher style".

The sachertorte itself is a cake consisting of chocolate cake, apricot jam, and a chocolate glaze. Hotel Sacher's sacher has a layer of jam in the middle while Demel's is glazed with the apricot jam. Both cakes are actually rather dry as they are supposed to be eaten with a cup of coffee (and a cigar, back in the day). But the cake we made was nice and moist. No dry stuff here!

What kind of cake do you prefer? Light and fluffy or something more dense? I like both, but I think I'd have to go with the chocolate sachertorte because, well, it's chocolate! :)

The Secret to a Best Selling Dessert

This past week has been something quite different. As a class, we were given Monday and Tuesday off in exchange for having classes on Friday and Saturday (yes, a saturday!). 

On Thursday, for fun, Chef pitted us against each other in a competition to see who could sell the most desserts. In pairs, we all came up with different desserts we thought would win. The only stipulations were that the dessert had to use what we already had in the kitchen. We also had to come up with a tantalizing name to entice diners to choose our dessert over another. :)

Want to know the secret to a winning dessert? See if you can guess by the end of my post.

This time N took the reigns and we came up with a duo: chocolate mousse dome with feuillitine and a vanilla and strawberry carmelized mille feuille (napoleon to us North Americans). What is feuillitine? It is crunchy little wafer pieces. Think of it like corn flakes, but smaller, and no corn. Mixed with chocolate mousse, it adds a wonderful crunchy texture. So good!

For the napoleon, I layered filo pastry with butter and sugar to create crispy carmelized deliciousness. I then made a vanilla mousse and a strawberry mousse and layered it all together. Decorated with a simple dollop of chantilly cream and a mint leaf, it looked so cute.

We served the two with a spoonful of strawberry sauce and a little strawberry. An overall simple dish but with all sorts of textures and a mix of creamy, crispy, and tart. N named it "Strawberry Eclipse".

Here are the desserts created by my classmates:

Brownie with chocolate mousse and ice cream (not pictured)

Dark chocolate creme brulee with coffee mousse

Salted caramel panna cotta

White chocolate creme brluee

Deconstructed lemon meringue tart

Can you guess who won? We did! Actually, we tied with the white chocolate creme brulee at 11 plates each. The dark chocolate creme brulee and brownie tied for second at 10 plates each. Following was the salted caramel panna cotta and the deconstructed lemon tart. The salted caramel panna cotta was so good! I'm sure if the diners could have tasted it first, it would have been the most popular dish. I didn't get a chance to taste the lemon dessert, all the extras were scooped up by the cooks before I could get to it!

As a prize for winning, Chef let us pick from a little bag of goodies. As a consolation prize, everyone else got a chocolate bar of their choosing.

Did you guess the secret? It's chocolate! Chocolate desserts almost always do well. I'm not sure if it is because everyone loves chocolate, or if it is just that those who love chocolate always save room for dessert.

Saturday night was the 100 Club dinner where supporters of our program are treated to a themed dinner. This years theme was James Bond, 007.

The class was separated into groups and each group handled a different part of the prep for this event. N and I made mini buns.

The dessert featured recipes from the school's new cookbook, Seasons.

Left to right: Chocolate mousse,
pumpkun brulee, spiced fruit salad

That wraps up plating and pairings. It was short but sweet. Next up is classical desserts. Only three more weeks before the big capstone! Capstone is a four day examination period where we are given a list of products to make and present throughout the four days. After that, it is smooth sailing through the last class, right to the end. :)

Showpieces and a Japanese Dessert Trio

After sugar class I headed right into Elegant Showpieces. It wasn't much of a change - same room, same schedule, same Chef.

What's the difference between this class and Sugar? Well, showpieces can be made of all sorts of mediums. Our two basic choices in this class were chocolate or sugar.

Our first showpiece was made out of chocolate. A massive piece weighing in at around 7 kilograms!

The "back"

It is supposed to be spring inspired, though other than the green pastillage vines and white buds, I don't really see it.

The second showpiece was entirely of our choosing as long as it fit the Easter theme. Sometimes when I finally get free reign on what I make, I am not sure what to do. My partner N and I drew up two separate designs and we decided to go with hers. 

One of the fun parts about this showpiece was that we got to assemble it downtown! We spent the rest of the week and a half making the individual pieces and then it all got shipped to the downtown campus. The next day, we put all the pieces together while the people getting lunch could watch.

Our piece was more contemporary and less "in-your-face-Easter".

You would never even know the hardships we went through with the center flower. We built the flower on a piece of metal wire (a piece of hanger) for support. But when it came time to take the flower off the metal, it just wouldn't come off! We tried and tried, but it was stuck. It came to the point where we had to break off all the pink petals (4-5 layers of petals) before we could pry the center of the flower off. We attached the center onto our showpiece and rebuilt the flower, petal by petal. N was definitely close to tears, but it worked out and we were so happy!

Totally nerve-wrecking, but also kind of fun. :)

Here are some of the showpieces my classmates created:

The only chocolate showpiece

And with that, sugar and chocolate was done! Next up is Wine Pairings and Plating.

For the plating portion, our classes is divided into two groups. One group stays late and plates desserts as orders arrive while the second group prepares the special desserts (allergen-free, ethnic, and special effects). The first group also prepares the regular four desserts. I started my first week in the first group - dinner service.

Plating desserts is fun! I find I quite like it.

Left to right: Tiramisu with sabayon sauce, goat
cheese souffle, pear chip, pear compote

Indian rice pudding, gulab jamun with mint, mango sauce

Lemon creme brulee with passionfruit sorbet in a sugar basket

Plates ready for their waiters

Plating a palate cleanser for 54 people

The most fun so far was last Thursday night. I got the chance to realize a dessert I had planned in my mind: a Japanese inspiried trio. I couldn't have done it without my awesome partner N.

Left to right: Lychee gelee with raspberry sauce, matcha
shortbread, black sesame daifuku

The plating was really simple but the flavours were so good! The lychee gelee had little pieces of lychee in it for texture and to make it more juicy. The slightly tart raspberry sauce helped to balance the sweetness of the gelee. The matcha cookies were tender and crisp and had just enough matcha without being bitter. The black sesame ice cream was a little on the bitter side (the black sesame seeds were not the best) but very black sesame-y. Daifuku is the name for a Japanese confection where mochi is wrapped around a filling. Mochi is a soft, sticky and chewy dough made from rice that can be served either sweet or savoury. 

The black sesame daifuku required a lot of running around. Because I had to make the ice cream day-of, it didn't have time to set hard enough to wrap, so N and I had to run up and down three floors from the blast freezer down stairs where we could scoop little balls of ice cream and freeze them, back upstairs so we could serve them. Lots of exercise, but totally worth it!

I was also asked, by Chef, to give the guests of the Chef's table that night an impromptu tour of the downstairs baking labs and the chocolate lab. It was a total surprise but I was in such a good mood, it was fun!

By the time I got back upstairs, my group was long gone. I was about to pack my tools when Chef pulled me aside again to help with plating the desserts for the Chef's table.

Chocolate mousse, white wine jelly, apple tartin

A busy day but a good one. I would really like to get more into the high-speed and demanding world of plating. Perhaps it's my calling. :)

From Sugar to Plates

Wow! I'm already a week into my third class this semester. I must admit, I am ready to be finished already. Last year I was enjoying the student life all over again. But now, I just want to finish and get out into the world! There is so much to do, see, and experience! Graduation is only two months away, but two months too long!

These last two months can be summed up in one perfect little word: stressful. This semester started off with sugar class. If you've watched Food Network, you may have seen some sugar sculpture competitions. Yup, that's what we were doing! Shaping molten sugar into delicate flowers, fruits, and other shapes, attaching them together, and the whole time, praying it doesn't all come crashing down.

Pouring boiling sugar out to cool a little

Moving the sugar around so it can cool evenly

I apologize for not having many action photos. The class was so busy that I didn't even have time to take a water break!

First we made blown sugar fruits. The apple, pear, and banana are basic shapes that can be used for a variety of other fruits and even birds.

The second pieces was Swan Lake themed with a combination of cast sugar pieces, a blown swan, and a pulled sugar flower and ribbons.

A blown sugar swan!

Abstract pulled flower with pulled ribbons

This showpiece required a variety of skills, even the basic pouring skill. When casting large pieces, it is very important to pour the sugar in a steady stream and not to get too close to the edges of the mould. If it touches the sides, then the cast piece gets weird jagged edges that are really hard to fix. Also, if you pour the sugar when it's too hot, the edges won't come out nice and rounded. So many little details to pay attention to.

The finished piece

The back

I had to recast many many pieces which is why I had a couple different colors in my final piece. I even took the time to make a second small bird and another flower with a bud, but the second flower broke! I was so sad! Also, ribbons are hard!

Throughout this class, showpieces broke. Fruit bowls fell apart, swans fell over, flowers fell off. Almost everyone in the class shed a tear, either for their own broken disaster or for another's. This third showpiece made me cry a little.

The theme was an Asian inspired with bamboo, orchids, and a water lily in a rock garden.

An orchid

Water lily

I had a lot of trouble building the water lily. To attach the petals to each other, you had to heat the bottom of the petal in front of a flame, but that would often start melting the petal and cause it to mishappen. And even after you try to squish the petal on, it doesn't stick and falls off. Or while you attach one petal, you chip another, or plain rip it off. Very very frustrating and time consuming!

The finished piece

What really made me cry was that while I was attaching the top flower, the last thing, it fell off, taking the water lily with it. Both flowers broke. Did I mention it was also marking day? I was so frustrated, I didn't even take time to mourn the loss, I sniffled and plowed right on, rebuilding them as best as I could with what few spare pieces I had. (I had used up most of my spare pieces mending the flowers from earlier.)

I have to admit I am embarrassed to post the photos of the above showpiece. The swirls coming out of the flowers are so thick! Somehow, I got the idea into my head that those pieces should be big, when sugar pieces are always about thin thin thin! Everything else on that piece was thin and dainty, and then there are those huge honking pink things! Argh!

I put that piece up for marking and didn't even bother taking pictures of it on the nice white pedestal that was set up for picture taking and marking. I was so done with it.

But oh, how I was wish I was done with showpieces. Too bad for me, the next three weeks was all about showpieces (sugar and chocolate). Weee! But that's enough for now. Just writing this post made me get all wound up again.

I am currently in wine pairings and plating and it is a lot more fun. Who doesn't have fun when a daily wine and dessert tasting is part of the learning experience. :)

Wine and sticky toffee pudding, anyone?

I don't really drink, but I love the idea of wine - the rich colors and aromas. I don't have a developed palate for wine so I like the sweeter ones, like the moscato (white) and Ben Rye (amber) above. Do you drink wine? If so, what's your favourite?