Thursday marked the last day of Classical Desserts. It's not my last class, but it's pretty close!
We got to burn things!
Actually, we got to flambe bananas foster, cherries jubilee, crepes suzette, and baked alaska. Banana fosters is a dish of carmelized bananas, banana liquor, and ice cream. Cherries jubilee is a dish of crepes flambeed with kirsch, a cherry liquor, and boozy soaked cherries. Crepes folded into a sauce of carmelized sugar and orange liquer makes crepe suzette. And a baked alaska is a layer of cake and ice cream all covered in meringue and then baked in the oven. Since almost everyone wanted to try flambee-ing, we used a lot of alcohol. And of course, we got to eat it all after. :)
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| It was a boozy day |
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| Lighting the baked alaska |
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| The aftermath (it got a little burnt) |
Following, we finished up some more classic cakes - the Fraisier (a strawberry cake) and the Charlotte Russe (ladyfingers, bavarian cream, and lots of fresh berries). For some extra flavour and variety, we added a cherry gelee to the middle of the Charlotte. It's a lot of cream, but I liked them both. Light and tasty. A good choice if you're looking for something creamy but light at the same time.
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| Fraisier - an inspiration for cake style strawberry shortcake? |
I really liked the Gateau Basque. It is a tart filled with pastry cream. Very simple, but good! The tart shell is like a cross between a cookie and a cake.
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| Deceptively plain looking |
In the last week, we concentrated on choux paste. We made a few different kinds. By far, my favourite were the gougeres, which are savoury puffs with gruyere cheese folded in. So good! I ate way too many. Pretty sure I ate more than we ended up packaging for sale.
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| Delicious cheesy morsels! |
With the rest of the paste we made mini Saint-Honores and a croquembouche. A Saint Honore is a cake like pastry made with a base of puff pastry and a ring of pastry cream filled choux paste. The middle is filled with whipped cream and then small caramel-dipped cream puffs are lined along the edge. The mini ones are the same thing except a cookie is baked on top of the cream puffs to make them crunchy without the caramel. This dessert is really popular in France and it comes in many different flavours.
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| The baby and its mama |
And finally, the croquembouche! A croquembouche is a tower of caramel-dipped cream puffs in the shape of a cone. While traditionally they are a type of French wedding cake, I've seen them as birthday cakes or center pieces at events. What better way to have fun with the last project in a class than to make it into a panda! And not just any panda, but a Party Panda!
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| Building the panda |
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| PANDA! |
Instead of using only caramel, we dipped the choux puffs into rock sugar for the white and cocoa nibs for the dark. The face, ears, bamboo, and pompom were made out of fondant. The blue ovals are blue colored almond dragees (almonds covered in sugar). Making this little guy was a lot of fun. You can't see it here, but he's actually leaning back a bit so it's like he has a big belly. I guess anyone would if they partied as much as Party Panda did. :)
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| The class' croquembouches |
Next week is finally Capstone - our exam week. I'm not so much nervous as I am excited and ready to get started! Bring it on!
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