Baking week three

Cheesecake made on Wednesday

How to make a great sorbet?

This was our last week in Baking and pastry skills development. The chef was probably happy to get rid of our class. For me it was sad to go. I did enjoy this class and all these great products we made. I feel that I learned quite a lot. On our last day I told the chef
that I would be happy to work with him and he was happy to hear that. He is going to keep me in mind when he need a student for help.




Monday

Angel food cake

We made an Angel food cake, Italian buttercream, and chocolate genoise cake. Angel food cake is a very light cake made from egg whites, sugar, vanilla and a bit of flour. It was baked in a tube form and it suppose to be cooled after baking upside down (to prevent from deflating).
Italian buttercream is a common cream for cakes. It is made by preparing Italian meringue (whipping egg whites and then whisking in sugar syrup at 245 F) and then whipping in butter. Yes, it is not light in calories, but if prepared well it's quite delicious.
Chiffon cake is a sponge cake, light and delicious. You start with mixing eggs and sugar over water bath to incorporate sugar and heat up the mixture. Then the mixture is whisked for a continuous period of time until very foamy. After that by hand you mix in flour trying to be gentle and keep volume. The last step before baking is to incorporate oil in the mixture. The best way for this is to take about 25% of mixture and mix with oil until homogenous. Then fold it into the remaining 75% of the mixture.

Tuesday

My disastrous cake

For the whole day I had a feeling that I was doing something wrong.
Production for the day was: vanilla Sauce, chocolate sauce, chocolate genoise, and at the end each of us had to assemble a cake.
I started with chocolate sauce. That was easy and no room for mistake: heat cream with honey and vanilla, add to melted chocolate, combine. This sauce was made because it was a part of production for the day. The application for the sauce was not clear.
Chocolate genoise was partially a skill development test, partially for Wednesday production. It was made by each team member exactly the way it was done on Monday.
Vanilla sauce was overcooked at the first attempt by a member of my team. Second attempt was delegated to me. I made two small mistakes: did not divide sugar and put the whole amount into milk (was not noticeable in the final product) and slightly undercooked it. The chef said that there is generally a very fine line between undercooked and overcooked and it's better to have it undercooked. If you overcook it there is no way to save the product, only through away and start over.
Assembling a cake was not a big success. Everything was good to the point when I have to transfer my cake from a cardboard round to a plate. At that moment the cake just fall apart, not in pieces, but it was not pretty. Such a disappointment.

Wednesday

Creme caramel

It was a day for baked custard. We made a cheese cake, cream caramel, bread pudding, and finished our Black Forest cake.
What I learned about cheesecake is that you should mix it at low speed. I always did it on high. If you mix it on high speed you incorporate a lot of air. When baking is completed the cheesecake will sink in the middle because the mixture is too heavy to keep the air inside. So we did mix on low speed and it came out beautiful.
Cream caramel is a fun way of making dessert.

Black Forest cake

You prepare a caramel and pour a little bit in the forms (we used aluminum tins 4 oz). Then you prepare custard and pour over caramel into the tins and bake it. For the service you loose baked custard around the edge and invert onto the plate upside down, so the caramel is on the top of custard. The biggest challenge is not to overcook it.
Bread pudding was very nice, probably it was the first time I liked it. We used challah bread which is reach. It was diced and mixed with custard, then it was baked.
Assembling my Black Forest cake was a scary task. I scared that I won't be able to transfer it onto the service plate. But this time I had no issues and the cake was very nice.

Thursday
Was dedicated to frozen desserts: ice cream (zabaglione), frozen yoghurt (raspberry and chocolate), sorbet (mango and blackberry). The flavors were chosen by teams, so these flavors were our choice.
Zabaglione is one of my favorite ice cream. The recipe is here Zabaglione ice-cream.
Frozen yogurt we chose raspberry and chocolate flavor. The basic ratio is 9 oz sugar for 1 pound of yoghurt (plain, do not use greek) and flavor (fruit puree, vanilla, etc).
New trick I learned that day is how to make proper sorbet, which is ice-cream without dairy products (milk, cream). Use fruit puree for flavor, add simple sugar sirup (50% water and 50% sugar). To check that sugar level is appropriate the chef taught to use an egg. Wash a fresh egg and place it into mixture for sorbet. It should submerged in mixture and only small part pop up from the mixture (approximately a dime in diameter). If there is not enough sugar the egg will sink, if there is too much sugar the egg will float.

Friday

Apple Tart Tatine

Savarin

was the last day of this class and actually the last day of the fourth semester.
We suppose to make churros and tarte tatin. The production was very light and we finished early, so I asked the chef if there is something else to do. He gave me savarin as an extra project.
Tarte tatin is an upside down pie with caramelized fruits.
We made it with apples. It is easy to make - caramelize peeled and cored apples using pan and metal ring (you may use a pan only), then cover with pie dough and bake. When it's done turn it over on the serving plate, so the dough is on the bottom.
Savarin is a rich yeast dough baked in donuts rings and then soaked in a flavored syrup and served with berries.