The first thing we did today was make cream cheese icing for the carrot cakes we made yesterday. All we did was soften the butter in the KitchenAid with a paddle, then we added icing sugar, then we added softened cream cheese and kept mixing until there were no lumps or clumps of butter left. After this, we took our carrot cakes out of the fridge, took them out of the cake rings, and cut them into two "even" layers. I used to be pretty okay at cutting cakes into layers, but that skill has somehow vanished entirely from my repertoire. Come back! We cut so many cakes today. After our cakes were cut somewhat evenly, we spread the cream cheese icing between the layers and did a crumb layer and then put them back in the fridge.
Next, we took out our chocolate hazelnut cakes -- we each had a small one and a big one -- and cut those into three layers. We cut out strips of acetate to line the cake rings we had baked them in with, and then placed the bottom layer back in the cake ring. I prepped some soaking syrup, which we would be using later. Then we started on the caramel cream for the inside of the cake. I think I was at an advantage here only because I made a caramel sauce for my Christmas Buffet tart and I also made a mousse cake, and this was a caramel mousse, basically. First, we whipped our cream and put it in the fridge so it would be ready when we needed it. Then, we did a dry caramelization of the sugar, added hot cream, and then added butter. To this, we added hot milk and gelatin (dissolved in the milk). Then, once the caramel mixture was around room temperature (e.g. not warm enough to melt the whipped cream) we folded the whipped cream in, starting with a third, and then the rest. We divided the cream between each of the two layers of both cakes and brushed each layer with soaking syrup before adding the cream. These then went in the blast freezer and later we transferred them to the regular freezer and hopefully, we will finish these off tomorrow.
At this point, it was already time for our break. Once we came back, we finished off our carrot cakes. We did a final layer of icing (softening it up a little in a KitchenAid first) and coated the sides of the cake with sliced toasted almonds, which was surprisingly terrifying. Mostly because we had to lift the cake and hold it in our hands while we pressed the almonds on... I feel like there might have been a better way, but apparently this way was the "easiest." After the almonds were on, we then coloured 3/4 of our leftover icing orange and 1/4 of it green to make little -- you guessed it -- carrots around the edge of our cake. Although I still lack confidence in my cake decorating / piping skills, making the carrots wasn't as awful as I thought it would be. In fact, it was kind of fun. I think I am getting better at adjusting the pressure on the piping bag when I am trying to create specific shapes. Once these were done, two went to the cafeteria and two went into the fridge to save for restaurant service tonight.
The carrot cake was actually the only item we finished today, so that's it for pictures. The last thing we made was craquelin for the chocolate hazelnut cake. Craquelin is basically brown sugar, glucose, butter, and sliced almonds. The first three are heated on the stove until melted, then the almonds are folded in. This mixture is then spread on a baking tray lined with parchment paper then baked at around 350 in the deck oven for 7-10 minutes (until golden brown). Once the craquelin was done, we greased our chef's knives and cut 1.5 inch squares of craquelin. We made the same thing in the first time in the restaurant section, but we baked it in a silpat mould and had little craquelin rings instead of squares. It basically tastes like brittle or any sort of caramelized nut. As the craquelin gets cooler, it is more likely to break when you cut it, so we had to make our squares quickly before it cooled down too much. These we then set aside for tomorrow.
After we had everything cleaned up, I relocated to the decor room to practice my piping in preparation for the test tomorrow. I don't know if I'm quite ready for it, but I think there's only so much practice you can do the day before... or at least, that's the theory that I'm going with. I am better at it than I thought I was, but I'm not as good at it as I'd like to be. It's funny because the designs that look super hard and intricate are sometimes way easier than the ones that look very simple. I might make up some on-the-spot designs tomorrow, because then at least there is no template to compare it to... I should probably not have a cup of coffee before the test, because my hands tend to shake in situations like this, and I'm sure the caffeine would not help. After a couple hours in the decor room, I decided to call it a day. I sort of wish I had stayed after class more often, because there's something kind of nice about being one of four or five people around and having no time constraints on what you are doing. Especially when that involves chocolate.
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Today's Recipes
Carrot Cake
Cream Cheese Icing
Chocolate Hazelnut Cake
Caramel Cream
Craquelin
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