Culinary School - Week 6

Week 6 out of 11. Classes are more than half way over already. Unbelievable! I don't have any pictures to share from my Advanced Cakes & Tortes class last Monday. We made chocolate flourless cakes, chocolate ganache, apple strudel, apple streusel topping, pastry cream, white chocolate mousse, dark chocolate mousse, strawberry ice cream, raspberry ice cream, salted caramel ice cream, raspberry sauce, strawberry sauce, caramel sauce, chocolate sauce, crème anglaise sauce, and blackberry sauce. Basically we did all the prep work and all the leg work for this week's class where we will focus solely on plating some beautiful desserts. I can't wait and will have lots of pictures of all my platings for you.

In chocolate class this week we learned how to make Hand Dipped Chocolates. It was a lot of fun. I made Palet Or hand dipped chocolates. They were so rich and so wonderful! Notice in the picture how the front 2 chocolates are a lighter brown color and not as cleanly dipped? That's because my chocolate came out of temper at the very end of my dipping. Chocolate is very high maintenance, if you will and very challenging to keep in temper. Once it's out of temper it does not harden quickly and doesn't have the crispness and sharp appearance.



We also finished our first group centerpiece. We were given the diminsions and instructions on what to make and we had to find the time to work on it over the last several weeks...sometimes that meant waking up at 4:30am on a Saturday morning to go in to class early to work on it!



My group got full credit for our centerpiece and it even got put on display for the entire school to see. The hardest part about making a chocolate centerpiece was trying not to get fingerprints on it!

In sugar class we are working on an individual clock centerpiece. I felt like one of those pastry chefs on TV who are in those competitions! We were gluing our tall pieces of pastillage together and hoping they didn't fall over and break! I can't wait to show you pictures of it next week once it's all assembled. Stay tuned...