Classical Cakes & Tarts - Day 9 & 10

Day nine of CC&T was all about prepping for our practical on day 10. Most of us pretty much knocked out all of our components for the Opera Cake and the Black Forest Entremet and even put together the Black Forest in order to freeze it overnight. All I had to do for the practical was glaze the Black Forest and then put together the Opera and glaze it and then concentrate on decorating them. We did have two other entremets that we had finished (or was supposed to finish) on Wednesday and so at the end of the day we had to present all four finished products. Chef Issac threw us a little bit of a curve ball during the practical and said we all had to have a pulled sugar flower on our Black Forest. We haven't gotten to sugar yet so that was a bit of a struggle and took up alot of the time I had allotted myself for finishing all the cakes. In the end I had a decent pulled sugar flower for my first attempt and had to salvage some decorating for the Opera, Opal Passion, and Garnet Carmel as many things I had tried to do ended up breaking. I definitely need to spend some time at home working on decor.

Classical Cakes & Tarts - Day 8

Day 8 in CC&T had us building the Opal Passion and Garnet Caramel Entremets. The Opal Passion Entremet starts off with a layer of coconut feuillitine, followed by mango passion marmalade, chocolate sponge, white chocolate mousse, passion fruit cremeux, and more white chocolate mousse. The Garnet Caramel Entremet begins with a layer of streusel, caramel marmalade, chocolate sponge, chocolate mousse, spiced caramel cremeux, chocolate mousse and glazed in a caramel glaze.
I only got to finish and bring home one cake today though. That was the Black Forest Entremet. This one starts with a layer of streusel, Tahitian vanilla bean mousse, chocolate sponge, sour cherry marmalade, Tahitian vanilla bean mousse, brandied cherries, dark chocolate onyx cremeux, Tahitian vanilla bean mousse and finished with a chocolate glaze. Have I mentioned that everything I'm bringing home is outrageously delicious?
One minor point for today's photos of the Black Forest Entremet, the decor (which I made in class also) was severely damaged on the drive home. All the decor is so delicate. So I had to do a little fix and it's totally different than what I had when I left school today. Oh well.

Classical Cakes & Tarts - Day 7

It's day 7 of CC&T and we finally got around to putting together and finishing our Opera Cakes. We were beginning to run out of days to push it back haha. Glad it's finally done. Good thing since we'll have to make another one on Thursday as part of our practical along with a Black Forest Entremet. We also began prepping components for a couple of entremets that will be put together tomorrow. These should be really good. One is a Garnet Caramel Entremet and the other will be an Opel Passion Entremet. Tomorrow we will also be finishing the Black Forest Entremet that we did this past Thursday. Along with the Opera today, we also finished our Frasier cakes. The Frasier is made up of alternating layers of light almond sponge and diplomat cream with sliced strawberries lining the outside and a nice layer of chocolate glaze on top. The Opera cake is made up of alternating layers of pistachio biscuit, chocolate ganache and coffee buttercream and then glazed with chocolate.

Classical Cakes & Tarts - Days 4, 5 &6

This section is flying by so fast my head is spinning. We have been so busy in class every day constantly making different components for cakes and entremets. We were supposed to finish our Opera cake two days ago but have had to push it back both days and now hope to finish it on Monday. I have a feeling that will be the first thing we do Monday to get it out of the way. After that we should be finishing our Black Forest Entremet and the Frasier that was put together today. All we have left to do on that is glaze it with chocolate and decorate. Can't wait to taste that one, going to be incredible.
We did finish three cakes today to bring home. First up is the Suchard Torte which is four layers of chocolate-almond sponge with raspberry marmalade in between each layer and then glazed with ganache. Next was the Charlotte Russe which is composed of two layers of vanilla genoise with white chocolate Bavarian cream between the layers and on top and then topped with raspberry jam. The cake is surrounded by ladyfingers. Finally we have the Banana and Hazelnut Bavarian Cream Torte. This is made up of layers of hazelnut Bavarian cream, with two layers of chocolate genoise and a layer of flambeed bananas and then pate sucre (which is often used as a pie or tart shell).

Classical Cakes & Tarts - Day 3

It's Monday again and day 3 of Classical Cakes & Tarts. Today we got our carrot cakes out of the freezer that we made last week and made some cream cheese icing to ice them with. To finish them off we made some carrots out of fondant that we colored orange and added the "lettuce" on top of the carrots by pressing some green colored fondant through a sifter. Pretty cool. After finishing the carrot cake we moved on to the Linzer Tart which was filled with raspberry marmalade. Then came the Blueberry Bakewell Tart and finally the Engadine Tart which is filled with caramel and walnuts. Yummy.

Classical Cakes & Tarts - Day 2

Thursday was another busy day as we finished 4 desserts and did a little prep for Monday. So what were the 4 desserts that I now have at home and have been scarfing down like crazy? Let's see... California Fruit Tart, Apple Custard Tart, New York Cheesecake, and Grandma's Chocolate Cake. I was running a little behind at the end of the day and only got to ice my chocolate cake which was disappointing because Chef finished his very nicely and I wanted to bring mine home somewhat like his but didn't get the chance. He made some chocolate cigarettes and curls to finish his cake off. After portion lining the cake, he piped a bit of icing near the middle end of each slice and placed a chocolate cigarette on the piped icing and had it pointing toward the center of the cake. The curls were placed only halfway up the sides of the cake. Very nice. Once I get cigarettes down I'll have to do that. Instead I practiced some chocolate piping at home on Friday and placed a chocolate swan on the slice for the picture below. Wish the other wing hadn't broken when I tried to attach it. Oh well. Practice practice practice.

Classical Cakes and Tarts - Day 1

Ok so I've been slacking the last couple of days. Monday we had our written final for Artisan Breads and had a demo from a local chef who does bread for a local big production bakery in town and then we spent the entire day on Tuesday going over nutrition and sanitation. So not much to post since I didn't get any pics of the demo which would have only been more ciabatta, focaccia and some small baguettes. I figured I had enough pictures of bread :-)
So today officially kicked off day one of Classical Cakes and Tarts. This is going to be a very busy but fun section and I'll finally get to make my first entremets. I am really looking forward to that! Today was a big prep day for tomorrow as we baked carrot cake, chocolate cake and a vanilla genoise. After baking we wrapped those up and stuck them in the freezer for tomorrow. Then it was on to making pate sucree and pate brisee, which are pastry doughs used for pies and tarts, and  pastry cream. These all went into the fridge for tomorrow.
Thursday looks like it is going to be another busy day as we will be icing and decorating the cakes from today as well as doing what may end up being a California fruit tart and then doing a lot of prep work for Monday. I have a feeling that the 10 days we spend in this section are going to fly by. I should have some pictures to add after tomorrow as I believe we'll be bringing home 4 cakes. Good grief!

Artisan Breads - Day 9

Today we had our practical for Artisan Breads. As mentioned before we had to make Baguettes and Ciabatta which is what the focus of this section was really on. Chef Isaac divided up the class letting one half start mixing their doughs while the rest of us did one final review for the written exam coming up on Monday. After an hour the other half had finished mixing and were now letting their doughs start the fermentation process while my half of the class started mixing our doughs. The timing for the rest of the day worked out really nicely as each person folded their doughs and let them rest to continue fermentation and then moved on to scaling and shaping the baguettes and cutting the ciabatta and letting them proof before finally putting them all in the oven to bake. Pretty much as soon as one group cleared an oven another group was ready to refill it. All in all there was some really good bread made today and everyone did really well with Chef giving some good critiques. Bread can be fun to make and of course it's great to eat, but do I want to do that everyday??? Doubt it. I don't think there are any "bread people" in our entire class.

Here's a look at my baguettes from the practical.

Artisan Breads - Day 7 & 8

Coming off a long holiday weekend and technical difficulties kept me from posting yesterday. Nothing like replacing dead batteries in your keyboard with dead batteries. Oh well...back on track today. Tuesday was day 7 of artisan breads and that brought us to the Olive Loaf and Zopf Swiss Braided. I gotta say that after doing two braided breads (Zopf and Challah) I do enjoy making them. They both look cool and taste great. If you like Calamata olives you would definitely like the olive bread.

Today was day 8 with only two days left of Artisan Breads. In addition to the Cranberry Walnut and the Miche that we made today, we prepped for the Artisan Bread practical that will take place tomorrow. For our practical we'll have to make Baguettes and Ciabatta so we had to make the starters for them both this afternoon right before we left for the day. Ahhh I can almost smell "classical cakes and tarts" which is right around the corner and kicking off next Tuesday.  But as for today's two breads, I liked them both.

Miche and two Cranberry Walnut batards