Pour Some Sugar On Me

Hey all! Well, I just got home from my last class of our first sugar unit, and boy was it a doozy! This unit involved two projects, one small and one large, which is why I waited until the end to post this entry.

I'll start with the larger of the two...the pastillage cake stand. Pastillage is a form of sugar "dough," exlusively used for decoration. It is completely edible, but I can't imagine it tastes very good. The specifications of the stand were to make a base, elevation, a cake covered in fondant, and three to four "favor" boxes, all with the theme of Spring. I decided to make mine "I Love Paris in the Springtime," and I made the Eiffel Tower. Yeah, I don't know what I was thinking, either.

Along with this project, we were lucky enough to have two classes with Chef Ron Ben-Israel, the wedding cake god. If you've never heard of him, Google him to see his amazing cakes. He's most well-known for his sugar paste flowers, and it was such an amazing experience to be able to learn his techniques.

That being said, I have to say that this whole project stressed me out. So, while I really appreciate the amazing opportunity, it really gave me PTSD flashbacks to first grade and my inability to color inside the lines. But I think my flowers came out great!

Long story short (too late), here's my stand! Voila!

The other, smaller project we completed was a nougatine candy bowl, filled with marzipan fruit. This was very fun, and I think everything came out really well!

Well, c'est tout for now...next up, Chocolate 2!

A Plethora of Plates

Hi everyone! Sorry for the long absence, but it's been a crazy few weeks here for me. Not only have I begun my new internship at a real live bakery in New York, but we zoomed through our first plated dessert unit in class! Craz-ay! Since there's so much to get through here, I'll just dive right into it and give a quick description of each dessert...to the best of my memory.

First off, we have the chocolate marquise, which is essentially an enriched chocolate mousse that has been frozen and molded. We plated this with chocolate decorations, creme anglaise, and berry-hibiscus gelee. Not bad, huh?

Next we have custards. First off is the creme brulee, served with rhubarb and a pistachio shortbread.

Followed by creme caramel, aka flan, served with a meringue "petal," candied kumquats, and mint.

These are orange crepes, filled with an orange custard, served with orange brown butter sauce, blueberry sorbet, and orange supremes.

Chocolate crepes filled with ganache, creme fraiche ice cream, "lacquered" raspberries, and chocolate sauce.

Now we have a couple tarts. Here's a lemon tart with creme anglaise, berry sorbet, and candied basil.

Chocolate tart with coconut ice cream, chocolate decoration, coconut "chip," and malt sauce. Mmmm.

We then did a few puff pastry tarts. This one's got a hazelnut cherry filling and is topped with praline ice cream, served with a spoon of anglaise and a swipe of port wine reduction.

This one's a puff pastry tart filled with milk marmalade (essentially, a reduction of evaporated, condensed, and coconut milks) and pineapple, served with diced pineapple, sage pineapple foam, lemon frozen yogurt, and a pineapple tuile.

Here's a savory plate of a spinach, mushroom, chevre jalousie, served with chevre bechamel.

Finally, we have a warm apple charlotte, served with roasted plum sorbet, creme anglaise, and a caramel apple sauce. Topped with spun sugar, which is totally awesome and fun to make...although cleaning it off the ceiling wasn't so fun.

Well, that's it for our first plated desserts unit. It was a lot of fun, and we got to learn a slew of new techniques. I promise that I will try to get these up more often, now that things are settling down. Just wait til you see what we're doing in Sugar 1!