We started by baking off the last two trays of our chocolate indulgence cookies from yesterday and making the most intense brownies you have ever eaten in your life, basically. There is a lot of butter and a lot of sugar and surprisingly little flour and chocolate and a lot of eggs. So, they are delicious, but I couldn't eat one after making an entire hotel pan of them. They are also prepared in a way that I did not expect. First, we melted down our semi-sweet chocolate and butter (I think there was more butter than chocolate... uh...). Then, while this was happening, we whipped our eggs and sugar together until they increased in volume. We folded this into the melted chocolate/butter, then folded in the vanilla, then folded in the flour. Ideally, you start folding in the next ingredient before the first ingredient is fully folded in, so you don't lose too much volume in the folding process. We may not have done that, but it turned out okay in the end. Then we baked them in the deck oven at 350. They took at least 40 minutes, if not more.
While we were waiting, we made the ganache for the brownies, which consisted of melting some white and dark chocolate together, folding in some heated cream, and then incorporating butter. Just your average ganache. This we set aside to use for both the brownies and to glaze our banana cakes from yesterday. Next, we took out our Sable Breton from yesterday, which is essentially a French shortbread. [Breton is a region in France; Sable means shortbread.] What makes it different than a regular shortbread is that it is baked in a ring or flexipan, so that the cookie rises rather than spreading out. This gives it a more cake-like than cookie texture. It was similar to the pur beurre that we made earlier in the year, but I think I liked these better. You could really taste the vanilla and they were so fluffy and delicious, especially warm.
We softened the dough up a little and then used the metal rulers to roll it out to the right height. Then we took our cookie cutters that were the same size as the pan we were using and cut out our cookies. Then they went in the convection oven for about 10 minutes at 350. These were supposed to be egg-washed, but we forgot... again. But they still looked good. And tasted good. But all of our jaws dropped when Jean-Luc was by the oven as we were taking them out and he asked, "Did you guys egg wash them?" I don't think anyone even responded.
The brownies were still baking so we glazed our banana cakes with ganache and then sliced them into 10 pieces, which took a lot more spatial thinking than I would have expected. We heated up the ganache a little to make it runnier and poured it over our cake and spread it out just to the edges with our offset pallette knife. Then, we made a little wave pattern through the ganache. After the ganache was set, we cut it into 10 "equal" slices.
Eventually, our brownies did come out of the oven, but we had to wait for them to cool before we could take them out of the pan and pour the ganache over them. In the meantime, we made the batter for carrot muffins. First, we mixed the grated carrots and sugar together, even though this is the last ingredient that gets added to the batter. This is because the sugar draws out the moisture in the carrots and just creates additional liquid which will prevent the muffins from getting to dry. We mixed the ingredients using a "Muffin Method" which is essentially: mix dry ingredients together; mix liquids together; mix dry ingredients and liquids. After that was done, we added our carrots and sugar and folded it all together so it was evenly incorporated. We didn't actually bake these until after we came back from our break.
Once we got back from our break, we could take the brownies out of the pan and heat up our ganache again. We also needed a cornet of white chocolate for the pattern that we were going to create. We poured the ganache on top of the brownie and spread it out evenly, not worrying out going over the edges because we were going to trim (and eat) those parts anyway. Then, taking our white chocolate cornet, we piped lines from left to right and then back over the entire brownie. Then, using the back of a knife, we pulled through the chocolate towards us and then away from us, continuing across until the end. It is important to do this quickly, because once the ganache sets, the knife will leave grooves in the chocolate. If you can get this done before the ganache sets, it will just flow back together after you pull the knife through. Knowing how quickly the piping had to be done made piping the white chocolate and overall terrifying experience, but if I had to do it again, I would just make sure my lines were a bit closer together so you could see the pattern a bit more. Not bad for a first attempt, though. [The ganache was so shiny that it was reflecting the light from the ceiling.] Then we put them in the fridge so they could set before we sliced them into four by eight pieces.
At this point, our carrot muffins were in the oven. To bake them, we put them in tulip muffin cups in silicone muffin trays. Then they went in the deck oven at 350 for about 25 to 30 minutes. They sort of finished all at different times, because some trays were emptier than others. I really like the muffin cups we use; they look so classy.
Once these were out of the oven, all we had left to do was slice our brownies and send all of it out to the cafeteria. Then at around 11:45, when all of that was finished and we had mostly cleaned up, we had a bit of time to work on some stuff for the buffet. I didn't get as much done as I wanted, but I made the sweet dough for my tart and a vanilla sponge for my mousse cake. I want to do a salted caramel and dark chocolate tart; a vanilla sponge with chai-flavoured mousse and vanilla buttercream; and a chocolate genoise with peppermint buttercream. That leaves me with a bunch of things to do for tomorrow still, but I think it be okay, because we do have the whole day. As long as the things I want to make aren't too ambitious...
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Today's Recipes
Sable Breton
Banana Bread
Brownies
Carrot Muffins
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