The day began with a demonstration of making and using Tulip Paste for decorating. Jean-Luc made a bunch of really cool shapes like leaves and wavy lines out of this paste that tastes a little like wafer-thin shortbread cookies. We have to make this in the restaurant section to put on our plated desserts, but he also taught the class this now because in a couple of weeks we will be tested on our ability to make tulip paste decorations and plate a dessert. A little intimidating. [But not as intimidating as the chocolate piping test we are going to have in December.]
Our first task of the day was to make some more pastry cream. I like making the same thing multiple times, because it gives me a chance to not make the same mistakes I made the previous time [e.g. making it grey by adding too much vanilla or burning it because it didn't look like it was boiling yet]. After we made our pastry cream, we set aside some of it for later that morning and put the rest in the fridge. We used the pastry cream to make a vanilla diplomat cream which we were going to put on our sponges. It is basically whipping cream and pastry cream so obviously it is delicious. Then we got out our vanilla sponge cake from last week and cut each cake (a small one and a bigger one) into three even layers -- this was not as intimidating the second time and with smaller cakes than the chocolate one we did last week. We soaked each layer in a light coating of light syrup and then added our lemon cream from last week, our newly made diplomat cream, and frozen raspberries around the edges. On the top layer we just did a crumb layer of diplomat cream. They aren't quite done yet, but I think tomorrow -- in the restaurant section -- we are going to wrap them in white chocolate. Yum.
Next, we took out our leftover sweet dough and used small tart rings to make the crusts for little lemon meringue pies. I can already tell I am getting better at the little things, like how to effectively roll out dough. Basic skills that I didn't necessarily have before. We had to roll out the dough pretty thin because the smaller the tart, the thinner the dough should be, and these were pretty small. After we had arranged these on a baking tray, we piped our lemon pie filling from last week into the adorable little tart shells. We baked them for a tiny bit too long because the lemon filling sort of bubbled over on the majority of the tarts. But it was okay because we were going to cover them in meringues.
While we were waiting for them to cool, we used our leftover sweet dough to make trois frères, or what I am going to call jam cookies. When we were rolling out the dough for the lemon meringue pies, Jean-Luc said that once it got too dry we should just throw out the dough, but then we asked if we could try making the cookies instead. I don't know how we had all this extra time, but it was great. We rolled out our dough and cut out two circles and then cut three smaller circles out of one of them. Then we baked these for a really short time in the oven, which even still was a little bit too long. Let's just say they were "golden" brown. [But more brown than golden.] Then we added a thin layer of a raspberry jam mixture (I didn't make it, but it was essentially raspberry jam with a bunch of frozen raspberries added to it, but I don't think it has to be too specific) to the bottom cookie and placed the one with the three holes on top. Then we dredged with icing sugar until the cookie was entirely covered. Then we spooned the jam into the holes and made sure not to get any raspberry on the icing sugar. They looked really cute. And you couldn't even tell that they might have been a tiny bit overdone. [Overcooking things in the oven seemed to be a theme for today, but Jean-Luc didn't seem to mind.]
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| Doesn't this one look like a face?! |
At some point, we made our meringue mixture [the day is always sort of a blur]. I like how we learn so many different kinds of meringues and buttercreams and they all taste different and we all have our own preferences. The Swiss buttercream was okay but the German buttercream was DELICIOUS. I'm not the biggest fan of meringue in general, but it is definitely a great skill to have and applies to a lot of different baked goods. We only made two batches of meringue mixture between the five of us in the group, so it wasn't as hands-on as the other things we have done so far. After the mixture was done, we put it in a piping bag and piped it onto our pies. I am not that great at piping yet, but I think that I am improving. So, that's a good sign. It doesn't help that one of the people in my group works as a cake decorator. We baked these until the meringue was slightly browned on top (not overdone this time!) and then let them cool. We made a lot of adorable stuff today.
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Today's Recipes
Pastry Cream
1 litre milk
250 g sugar
10 egg yolks
90 g corn starch
pinch of vanilla
Vanilla Diplomat Cream
250 g pastry cream
2.5 gelatine leaves
15 ml vanilla
500 ml whipped cream
50 g icing sugar
Lemon Cream
150 g egg
180 g sugar
120 ml lemon juice
1 lemon zest
1 gelatine leaf
225 g butter
Vanilla Sponge Cake
5 eggs
155 g sugar
pinch of vanilla powder
155 g flour
Light Syrup
500 ml water
250 g sugar
Lemon Pie Filling
350 ml water
45 g corn starch
240 g sugar
1 g salt
1 lemon zest
5 egg yolks
150 ml lemon juice
70 g butter
Sweet Dough
400 g flour
200 g sugar
4 g baking powder
200 g butter
2 eggs
Meringue for Pies
250 ml egg whites
250 g sugar
2.5 ml lemon juice
Raspberry Jam for Trois Frères
[Not sure yet, but I will know eventually.]
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