Hey everybody! Hope you've been doing well since my last post. I actually graduate from pastry school this coming Friday...can you believe it?! I know I can't! It feels like just yesterday that I was nervously telling my mom I wanted to go to an open house at ICE and check it out. It wasn't that I was nervous what she would think, it's just that it seemed like such a crazy idea at the time, even to me. I still think it's crazy how God led me to this new path, but I know it's what I should be doing because I find so much joy in it.
Back at the end of our third module, we worked on plated desserts. I love it because you get to decide what would make the dessert most appetizing and then use different components of the dessert to make your idea play out. Below are some of my favorites that we did. Then we started mod 4 which consists of chocolate and cakes. To be honest, I actually hated working with chocolate at first. It's messy, temperamental, and takes a lot of patience. But once I started getting comfortable with the process of tempering chocolate and making it useable, I realized I actually love working with it. There's something artistic about chocolate that makes it so much fun, and when it turns out the way you wanted it to, there's nothing better.
We're currently in our final week of school (AH) and we're all making the final components of our celebration cakes. Mine is an engagement cake for my brother John Mark and his bride to be, Hannah. They actually don't know that yet--they'll find out when they read this!! She loves sunflowers and chose to use them in her wedding, so I made a huge sunflower out of gumpaste to be the centerpiece of my cake. I also chose bright colors to use because they're having a casual outdoor wedding in July and they both have amazing, fun, and bright personalities. I just wish they could be here to actually see the cake when it's finished! A picture will have to suffice :) love you both!
Now for some pictures...
Chocolate caramel tart served with caramel popcorn, chocolate pudding and salted caramel ice cream. --Nicole Kaplan recipe.
Chesnut parfait with roasted pear, orange, chesnut biscuit and wafers. --Michael Laiskonis recipe.
Gianduja parfait--a semi frozen dessert made in a sphere mold and then sprayed with dark chocolate spray to give it a really cool texture. Served with praline cream, hazelnuts, vanilla ice cream and caramelized banana. --Michael Laiskonis recipe.
Greek yogurt panna cotta with grapefruit, avocado and basil seeds and basil foam. --Michael Laiskonis recipe. ...so honestly this recipe really didn't sound all that great to me, and ends up that it looks a bit like sushi. But it turned out to be one of my favorites that we made!! This chef is a genius.
Callipos tropic--pineapple gelee, coconut gianduja, coconut dacquoise, almond crunch and dried pineapple slice. --Stephane Iten recipe.
Milk chocolate and raspberry mousse on top of vanilla and chocolate sable and garnished with fresh raspberries and chocolate curl with raspberry sauce. --Stephane Iten recipe.
Caramelized banana tart--linzer tart, cooked banana filling, caramelized banana, caramel ice cream and spun sugar garnish with caramel sauce. --Sherry Yard recipe.
Raspberry mille feuille with ice wine granita and litchi sorbet, garnished with fresh raspberries. --Nicole Kaplan recipe.
Assorted molded chocolates--these have either a milk chocolate ganache or orange white chocolate ganache filling.
Molded chocolate candy bar--salted caramel filling. I decided to channel Picasso and "splatter paint" my chocolate with cocoa butter color...I really love the way they turned out!
These are the molded chocolates I made for my practical exam--they have a champagne filling, and I got 100 on them!
Chocolate showpiece--the base and center of the flower are dark chocolate, the flower petals are white chocolate, and the vial of "love potion" is made out of blown and pulled sugar. Sugar is crazy hard to work with! It burns your hands because its 320 degrees when you work with it, takes a TON of patience, but is so much fun when it works out the way you wanted it to!
Assorted molded and dipped chocolates from my class--we got to invite friends to come to a party to view our showpieces and taste all the chocolates that we made.
White cake with apricot filling, covered in a marzipan- rolled fondant combination. The rose is made out of chocolate plastic and the butterfly out of royal icing.
Sunflower made out of gumpaste. This is going to be the focal point of my final cake. We got to design our own cakes and we've been working on the decorations for the past week. It took me about 3 classes (12 hours) to make all of the petals, let them dry, make the center and put it all together. Hopefully I'll get a little faster haha
I got to assist my chef instructor with a recreational class that she taught on macarons. She co-wrote a book titled "les petits macarons" and we made several different recipes from it. A few of them are pictured above.
Picture from our class party with the chocolate showpiece.
~ Thanks so much for continuing to read my blog! ~
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