I'm sorry I missed blogging yesterday. I fell asleep (no surprise), then we used my newly obtained gift card to go out for supper after we opened the meat we bought and found out that it was rancid, then we came home to discover that we have a mouse in the walls. Lovely. So the cat played solider and won't leave the kitchen and Davin was pulling out the stove and fridge to check behind them. Its going between our kitchen and our neighbours kitchen in who we share a wall with. I'm very scared Patches is going to grab it in the middle of the night, chuck it against the wall (like she does very violently with her toy mice) and come drop it on the bed to show off her amazing killing skills. If I wake up with a dead mouse in my bed I will lose.my.shit. So pray for me that it never happens.
I'm trying to remember what we did in class yesterday. The only thing that I can't get out of my head is when chef was giving us a demo of dry caramel and syrup caramel. Now liquid sugar is very dangerous and can very easily cause second or third degree burns. He has a bowl of water beside him and he very quickly dips his fingers in the water, then in to the boiling liquid lava caramel!, then back in to the water. Holy shit! I looked around to see if everyone else just saw what I saw. He rolls it in to a ball and says "see how i can roll it in to a ball? This is soft ball stage so about 140 degrees." Then he does it again!! at 160 degrees! and he's saying "now, don't get this on your skin..you will know it." and here he is dipping his friggen hands in sugar lava like its nothing. I nearly crapped my pants when I saw this and I'm still in awe when I play it back in my mind.
On our way out sara and I stopped in to the Boulanger lab to admire their newly made mountain of breads. We stuck around long enough that to get rid of us Larry gave us some nice fresh cheese bread. Davin was as giddy as a school girl when I brought that home. It was delicious!
So that was the major things that happened yesterday.
Now on to today!
Today was more chocolate. Today we would use the mango ginger caramel ganache that we made yesterday to fill some chocolate moulds. We also had to make a base for our chocolate chefs and stand them up.
I am getting to be a pro at tempering chocolate though! I know what to look for now and I know what to feel for now which makes things easier when you have to do it and re do it and re do it to the point that you are just walking around swearing at nothing because you are so sick of tempering.
So we made our bases for our chocolate chefs which was easy, pour and shape in to a circle wait for it to semi set then cut it out and chill. easy. not a problem.
Next came the chocolate moulds. oh god. Now watching chef fill a mould, tap the air out and dump the excess off and scrape everything clean you think "pssh, i got this. easy!" but you only think that because he makes it look easy. It was not overly easy. I guess I spent to much time trying to tap the air out because when i went to dump out my excess...nothing came out lol. So I started shaking it to get some out and a few globs came out. I didn't have a nice thin shell nor did I have any room for my filling. So I had to chill it, dump it out and start over. crap. we have 5 people in our group and 2 out of 5 had to re-do, myself included. So while we were re melting our chocolate my wonderful team was cleaning up and waiting for us to come back and try it again. Chef stuck around this time to make sure i was able to do it right. You have like 20 seconds max to fill it, tap the air bubbles out and dump it out. So in my haste and panic I start tapping the sides with the back of my off set spatula while the front of it was still dripping with chocolate and sent chocolate flying all over my group lol. holy crap what a mess. I felt so bad hahaha. So needless to say I made some laundry for them, white coats and dark chocolate - I am still pretty clean! hazaa!
So I finally have my chocolate setting and I'm filling it with my ganache, then we have to cover them. That part wasn't to hard except I put a touch to much filling in them so some of them have bumpy backs where I tried to cover them with extra chocolate.
I must say I have mad respect for chocolate-tiers. This is not easy work and the art of it and how much time it takes to make one amazing chocolate its just unreal.
I almost had a heart attack when It came time to stand our chocolate men up and attach it to the base. Luckily I was successful and nothing broke! Lets just see if my two are still standing tomorrow morning. He wouldn't let us use chocolate cooling spray because he wants us to learn how to do it by hand, which is fair. We are in school after all. We we had to dump some chocolate out on our table and work it until it thickened, then we had to dip the feet in and attach it to our base, then attach the backing, then pipe around it all while making sure he doesn't fall over, smash, and make you cry as you look at two days worth of work in pieces. The stress on my poor heart, but they are still standing..as far as i know..
On the way out of school I stopped in to the Boulanger shop to purchase some amazing bread for 2 bucks a loaf!! seriously!? If anyone wants fresh bread at an amazing price stop by NSCC for some! :)
Tomorrow is our last day in the decor room for 4 weeks until we rotate back around. On tuesday we start on breads, I'm nervous and excited about this.
Ashley out. Dinner, errands, studying and tennis are next.
Have a great night! and enjoy some yummy pictures of my painstaking chocolate work today.
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| My piped and filled chocolate chef! |
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| The three chefs |
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| My beautiful chocolate shells! hell yeah! |
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| so shiny, perfectly tempered chocolate. |
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| The base with him standing. |
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| All of our hard work on a tray. |
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| The heart mould had some moisture in it, thats why they are discoloured. |
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| Fresh bread for 2$! |
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