We arrived at 8:30 and stayed til about 11:30. Almost everyone else was already there when I got there. [People get to class SO early everyday. If I found it easier to get out of bed in the morning, maybe I would too.]
I finished off our Chocolate Pillows from earlier in the week. We had rolled them into three equal logs and today I cut them into 12 pieces each (more like between 10-13...must work on even slices), rolled these into balls, and then rolled them first in regular sugar, then in icing sugar. Then they were placed on a baking tray and I pressed down the tops slightly. They were baked for about 7 minutes at 350 degrees in the convection oven. The way to tell that they are done is that they start to crack. It was funny because someone else in the class was walking by the oven and said, "Your cookies are starting to crack..." and then my timer went off. Good timing.
They were really chewy and gooey inside. Yum. After I baked ours, I baked another group's from yesterday. They were already shaped, so I just had to roll them in the sugar and put them in the oven. I also finished up the Chocolate Indulgence, which are another kind of chocolate cookie. I didn't take a picture of these, because I didn't actually make the mixture... (and also because I forgot). All I did was cut the logs into slices and bake them. They just looked like chocolate cookies with chunks of chocolate and possibly various kinds of nuts in them. I'm actually not even sure. For these, it was pretty much the same baking time and temperature. With chocolate cookies, it's hard to tell when they are done, because the colour doesn't change. For these ones, Jean-Luc said that the sides would start to crack and then it would spread to the centre, once it does that, they are ready to be taken out of the oven. They looked deliciously chewy and chocolatey too. I'm not a fun of chunks of nuts in my cookies though, so I didn't try one of these. We saved baking these until the day before so that they wouldn't get dried out waiting for Sunday.
Once the cookies were cooling down, everyone in the kitchen was working on pulling sugar. We heated up 400g of isomalt and 40g of water to 150 degrees, stirring constantly, but not enough to get the sugar all over the sides of the pot. Once it was at 150, we removed it from the heat, and poured it onto a silpat (which is a silicone baking mat) that had three drops of food colouring on it. Once the isomalt started to cool down and set a little, we used our finger (wearing latex gloves) to bring in the edges until it was in a ball shape. Then we folded it over a bunch of times, alternating between folding it sideways and top to bottom, to incorporate the food colouring. Once the isomalt held its shape after folding, it was ready to be pulled. We pulled the sugar (from right to left) then folded it once, then again, and repeated until it had a shiny look to it. Once this was done, we cut it in two pieces and then we shaped little petals, flattened out the edges, pulled, twisted, and snapped them off. Then we pressed it into a mould, rounded the edges, and brought the end together a little. We made a bunch of little petals and then some bigger ones.
The centre of the pulled sugar flower that we were obviously making was a ball of blown sugar, which was really cool. Jean-Luc showed us how to do this by shaping the sugar on top of the end of this weird-looking tool and then pumping air into it slowly. Then once it cools down enough (usually after holding it in front of a fan), it can be removed and you have a little hollow ball. We held the petals over the stove just enough to melt the ends a little and then stuck it on to the centre of the flower. Jean-Luc did most of my flower, but I'm claiming it as my own anyway. We also made little sugar swirls by pulling the sugar and wrapping it around a metal tube, then sliding it off once it cooled a little.
While working with sugar, it is important for it to stay warm, because once it starts to cool down it gets really hard to work with. We kept it under a heat lamp when we weren't using it and had to pop it into the microwave for a few seconds if it got too cool (Ha, ha. Too cool...). Also, when shaping it, you have to do it fast because once it hardens, if you try to shape it, you will just snap whatever you're working on into pieces. I had a pile of broken petals by the end (but then we just heated it up and melted it back into one big ball of sugar). Oh, also, the sugar is REALLY warm. My hands were sweating in the latex gloves. But if I wasn't wearing them, the skin would probably be singed off. So, there's that.
After the sugar stuff was done, I just had to pack up the cookies I made earlier and then we were done for the day. I'm sort of sad that I can't go to the event tomorrow, but I am happy that I get to sleep in tomorrow.
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Today's Recipes
Chocolate Pillows
Chocolate Indulgence
Pulled Sugar Mixture
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