Sugar play

Salutations!

 I am LOVING restaurant! We got to play with sugar today!

 First thing we did was make caramel to put in the bottom of the creme caramels. After it was made we had to add a tablespoon of water at a time until we got to the soft ball stage. Worked out great. Then we made the creme part. Its essentially just adding hot milk to an egg and sugar mixture and stirring then passing it through a chinois to make sure that if you got a few little scrambled eggs they don't go in to the mixture. Then you add that to the cup with the caramel and bake it for an hour in a water bath. ta da!

 Next we got to play with our tulip paste. I love tulip paste! You can make anything with it.  Its so bendable (for about 30 seconds right out of the oven.) so we made some rings (which we will use in a dessert) Then we got to play around with some colours and make some leaves! Looking at the picture of my leaves I realized I completely forgot about the colour yellow! So they look much darker than my group mates leaves. Oh well, they are "rustic."
 I'm excited to play with this at home (if my oven ever works properly again) I want to make lots of different designs. What you do is place a stencil over some parchment and spread the paste over the stencil. peel the stencil off and then cut it out. You place the parchment in the oven on top of an upside down baking sheet (easier to grab it off there the the flat bottom of an oven.) You bake it for 7-10 minutes until the edges are golden brown. Now this is when your fingers start screaming in pain..You need to work with this stuff right away to shape it, it hardens quickly. You flip it over and roll it, or lay it over something and then let it set. If you do them too thin they will snap as soon as you try to pick them up - on the plus side when this happens you get a tasty snack!

Then we made decoration syrup which lead to us making bird cages! I'll say it again, I love sugar work.

 You needed to make a light coloured caramel and then cool it down quickly in a water bath and then mix it with your spoon a little until it cooled some more. Then you take a lightly greased ladle and slowly work back and forth and around until you get a birdcage! I was pretty good at these, not much issue at all.

 The kitchen was so hot today! The fans that pump fresh air in aren't working...again..so when I tried to get dressed after class I couldn't put my jeans on. Gross. My hair was wet and stuck to my head. Just all around not a good look. It's called "kitchen look"

 I have to go colour my marzipan figurines I made for the competition. Once they are coloured chef will look at them and help me tweak them to make them even better. I made a penguin with a scarf and ear muffs and a seal with a scarf and ear muffs holding a present. I think they are adorable!

Have a wonderful evening.

 I have a movie of me doing a bird cages but My friend is having trouble sending it to me. I'll try to get it at a later time.

Caramel!

Before the oven. Creme Caramels

A tulip paste ring

My broken leaf that I ate..om nom nom

Cooked creme caramels

All my beautiful leaves

Some of my classmates work

Birdcages! 

I LOVED making these.