Confectionery Tales: Plated Desserts

Day 7 of Plated Desserts had us working on some deco since we haven't really had much time to concentrate on that much. Chef Isaac showed us how to do a lot of cool stuff with sugar and then let us spend a few hours practicing on our own and making some stuff that we could use for our practical coming up. We made sugar baskets, fans, rings, and did some piping as well. Chef whips out sugar deco like it's nothing. He piped a swan with wings and added some fans around all in just a couple minutes. Ridiculous haha. I guess when you've been working with this stuff for 30 years you get good at it. Takes me a while.

On Day 8 we did pineapple fritters with coconut pastry cream and a spicy dipping sauce. So good. We also made a ton of chocolate crepes and chocolate diplomat cream to build a Chocolate Crepe Gateau.

Day 9 had us plate up Espresso Chocolate Mousse with Lemon which was inside an almond jaconde with pate chocolate decor. This looked and tasted amazing. The rest of the day was prep for the practical on day 10. Talk about a busy day. For our practical we had to prepare 2 plated desserts and 2 buffet desserts of 10 portions each. So for the days prep, I had to prepare Chocolate Caramel Pot de Creme, Creme Caramel, mini tart shells for Chocolate Raspberry Cremeux Tart, and White Chocolate Mousse.

Day 10 was practical day. We took our written final on Plated Desserts first thing this morning followed by essays that each of us had to do. Each section we are assigned a short essay on a particular dessert or ingredient that has to be shared with the rest of the class usually on the day of the practical. Mine was on the Pavlova (named after Russian Ballerina Anna Pavlova). Once that was done, we had 5 hours to complete our desserts, plate them up and have them on the table for Chef Isaac and Chef Notter to critique. I had to finish my mini chocolate raspberry cremeux tarts so I had to prepare the chocolate cremeux and the chocolate Chantilly cream. Next I had to spray my chocolate caramel pot de cremes with chocolate cocoa butter and then spray the white chocolate mousse dome with white chocolate cocoa butter and then throw all of those back in the freezer until I was ready to plate and decorate them. Time goes so fast and I ended up running out of time so I didn't get to do some of the deco I had planned like piping chocolate Fleur de Lis for the mini chocolate raspberry cremeux tarts as well as some additional pulled sugar I had planned for the chocolate caramel pot de cremes. Oh well, at least everything ended up on the table.

White Chocolate Mousse (plated final)