Capstone

*huge sigh of relief* Capstone is long over and I can catch up on some much needed sleep.

Capstone is a week long bake-a-thon! Well, not really, but it feels like it! About two months before, we are given a list of what we will be expected to make. This year it was: one chocolate occasion cake with chocolate flower, piping, and a chocolate "Happy Birthday" plaque on the side, 12 individual lemon wine mousses with chocolate garnishes, 12 brioche buns, 12 slices of opera cake with chocolate piping, a chocolate box with a white chocolate flower and 14 salted caramel bonbons, and a plated dessert consisting of a french toast apple charlotte, a tuile, a cream caramel, and orange sections.

I didn't have anytime to take pictures during capstone, but luckily my chef was willing to share the pictures he took.

Brioche - some of my heads fell over!

Chocolate occasion cake

Opera slice

Lemon wine mousse

Chocolate box and salted caramels

On Thursday, the last day of capstone, each of us were assigned a time at which we had to present our plated desserts.

Plated desserts with an extra cup of sauce on the side

Along with the baking, we each had to prepare a time table of all our tasks for the week. This was meant to reflect the reality of the baking industry wherein being efficient and timely lies in proper planning beforehand. Our Chef would check on how closely we stayed within our estimated times per task.

There was also a mandatory break built into our schedules. We had to make sure to set aside time to clean our stations and properly store all our products and ingredients before the break started. Anyone caught still working after the break started would be docked points.

My station during a break - it's organized even
though it doesn't look it from this angle

How was capstone overall? Well, honestly, it was more stressful than I thought it was going to be. After writing up my time table, I saw that I would end up with a lot of time on my hands on the last day. But once capstone started, I hit some snags which really slowed me down. I really struggled with making those chocolate swirls that top the lemon wine mousse. I lost count of how many times I redid them! It got to the point where I just had to put the least crappy ones I had on because they needed to be handed in now!

I also ended up remaking my chocolate bonbons because half of my chocolate wasn't tempered. Attempting to make chocolate garnishes and bonbons on the hottest day of the week (Tuesday) wasn't the best idea. 

In the end I came out with a pretty good score, but the whole week threw into my face, repeatedly, my biggest issue: speed. I'm not terribly slow, but I could be so much faster.  Of course, I feel it so much more because my entire class is fast!

With battles fought and lessons learned, I can finally sleep again! I stress dream way too easily and it was a brutal week of very little sleep. The upside was that because I got up so early (5:30 or 6am), I could go for runs while it was still quiet out. :)

What about you? Do you like the hustle and bustle of high tension work or do you prefer tasks that are more mellow and at your own pace? And do you stress out easily too?

Flambe, Chous Paste, and Party Panda

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. :)

It was a boozy day

Lighting the baked alaska

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

Building the panda

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. :)

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!

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! :)