Today was our last day in Decor round 2. We finished our pate de fruit. And we made our arabica ganache dipped chocolates with nougatine sprinkled on top. We also tried our hand at two toned chocolate cigars.
I loved doing the Pate de fruit. The raspberry was so yummy and we rolled them in sugar and sent them down to be sold in the cafeteria. Chef told us to measure them out to a certain size. Now, me and math on a good day don't get along so well. Math at 730 in the morning..forget about it. Chef looked at me and said "So, do them in 5 cm blocks. Whats 5X's 4?" "25!!...no wait...Jean-Luc its to early for math.." hahaha. I know it was 20. Embarrassing. Needles to say I got them cut to the right size.
Next we made our dipped chocolates. We had to use a stand mixer to soften our ganache. I ended up whipping mine. oops. Just meant that my ganache wouldn't have a fudgie consistency. It also meant that instead of my chocolates having a shelf life of 3 weeks, they would only have a shelf life of 2. I think It has to do with the incorporation of air, makes it spoil quicker? That would be my educated guess.
We also had to make nougatine. I love this stuff. You do a dry caramelization of sugar (something I am pleased to report I am getting better at doing! no burning! yay!) Then add your nut of your choice, its traditionally done with sliced almonds so thats what we used. Then you spread it out super thin, crack it in to pieces and enjoy. Expect we were using these as decoration so we crushed it in to a powder. So very yummy. Love it.
Chef also showed us how to use the wood grain tool for chocolate. I need practice doing this. It looked like i made messy waves of nothing. No wood grain what so ever. We also practiced making the two toned chocolate cigars. They are so pretty! I'm always impressed when I can make something that looks more complicated than it actually is.
The cook chefs are starting to hover around the chocolate room windows, so we feed them chocolates. I'm going to start demanding steak or lasagna in exchange for chocolate. Its funny, they wonder in to our kitchen because they love the smell of the sweets. I stand in the hall way and breath in the steak and pasta. I don't crave sweets, I want actual food! They want cake. haha.
My group gave me a nick name today. "little Ash" haha I kinda like it. I'm anything but little but whatever floats their boat. I snapped a comment to one of my group members today and I heard "Little Ash is being a little Ass." Nice eh? haha sometimes I deserve it. We bust each others balls?...boobies?...whats the term when Its all women in the group? Anyways, we bust each other all the time.
Tomorrow we start in Breads. We shall see how this goes. I know I'm going to have to attempt to roll stuff in to a rectangle or square - anxiety! I got this.
Have a wonderful evening.
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| Pate de Fruit! |
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| mmmm |
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| Nougatine. |
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| All my chocolates dipped. Don't worry, I ate the ugly ones. |
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| These are Jessicas chocolates. She cut one open so I stole her picture to use so you could see. |
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| My cigars |
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| My beautiful group members and our chocolate mess. |
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