Another day in the chocolate room. Today it consisted of making a chocolate box and a chocolate bow. I made the box no problem - not a fan of bows. I was ready to crush it with a hammer. smash! I'm just being dramatic, it wasn't that bad. It just turned out ugly and I hate having an ugly end product.
Today we had to temper a lot more chocolate. Pain. OH! We also made covered almonds! Those I enjoyed making. We put the sugar and water in a pot, brought that to a boil and then threw in the blanched almonds and cooked them until they were beautiful and golden brown and caramelized. They smelled so beautiful and nutty. We spread them out on a baking sheet to cool. We then roll them by hand in chocolate twice. The third a coating of chocolate will come tomorrow - It has to be tempered chocolate. Then we will be rolling them in cocoa or icing sugar or something. Can't wait! People might like these for christmas. Almonds are super expensive though..so maybe not.
So back to the chocolate box. Its a lot of melting, tempering, spreading on asatate, or textured plastic and shaping it. We had to do the lids twice. We were suppose to make them on guitar paper (gives it shine) but I made them on parchment. Fail. That got a "look" from Chef. Lesson learned : Guitar paper gives chocolate a shiny finish, parchment a matte finish. okie then.
Then came time for the bows. We had three strips of transfer sheets with a heart design. We had to spread tempered chocolate on to it, wait until it set a little, make score lines down it, about 2 fingers wide...now. When Chef says 2 fingers wide I don't think he realizes that my two fingers are MUCH smaller than his are - I should of used three fingers to get the right width. Then you fold the top over to the bottom and press them together to make the rolled shape. Let them chill and peel the sheet off and just break your pieces off and voila!
The first sheet I did..well It was useless. I didn't score it all the way through the chocolate so I had no lines to break it apart. I tried to break it apart anyways and it just crumbled in my hands. Luckily Chef made a demo one so I just took some of his pieces. When you fail, just steal someone else's work and use it as your own! haha.
Chef showed us how to put it together so I made the base and he said I had to many on..so he took some off and spaced them out. After I was all done my crappy bow he comes to look, and says "its a little spaced out...you should of done it closer." *slow head turn up to Chef* "You took my pieces off and spaced them out..." "...oh...yes. Well its too spaced out haha." Chef got "the look" from me. My next one will be better.
I wish we had chances to do things a second time. You learn a lot your first time and you just want a chance to do it again because you know how to make it better. There is just not enough time to do it. Kinda sucks. Fondant bows are so much easier than chocolate is.
I know I complain a lot about chocolate, but its really not so bad. Just a lot of work and you need to know what you are doing - and I don't fully know what I'm doing. Which results in a lot more work. A bonus about being in the chocolate room is that Chef allows us to listen to music. So tomorrow I will be bringing my iPod and we will be rocking out! Sara had music playing from her phone today and in the middle of working I would bust out the dance moves (maybe thats why I kept making mistakes?..hmm..)
I need to go work on my paper about modern vs classic cakes. I'm actually loving doing this assignment. Trying to avoid doing my resume and cover letter...
Have a lovely evening! (I said like that Dracula - just so you know)
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| This was after I added more pieces to try and fill it out more |
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| My box came out well. |
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| I added my ribbon. Looks a little better.. |
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| Excited to put my jelly chocolate in it!! |
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