February Update

Sorry, no flashy title this time... ;)

We really have been making so many different desserts lately, it's hard to keep track of them all! I think I've got all the right names, but it's always possible that I've gotten confused because it's been a while since we made some of them, and there are a few of them that look similar from the top... So, here we go!

Alibi

The Alibi cake has pistachio cake around the outside of the mold. Inside are the following layers: chocolate génoise, white chocolate mousse, bitter chocolate sauce, white chocolate mousse, chocolate génoise, white chocolate mousse, and then a strawberry gelée on the top. Fresh strawberry halves go around the top, with dark and white chocolate shavings in the middle.

Opéra

This is the second time making the Opéra cake, because it's going to be on the exam, so nothing special to note for this one.

St-Honoré au chocolate

For the flaky pastry module, we made a batch of chocolate flaky pastry, which was kind of different. It doesn't taste very chocolate-y, to be honest, but it's kind of a neat idea just the same. So the concept was the same as the other regular St-Honoré that we made a while ago, only chocolate! So there is a disc of chocolate pastry on the bottom, then a chocolate choux pastry, as well as 9 separate cream puffs. After baking, we filled the puffs with chocolate pastry cream, then dipped then in chocolate. Then we covered the "cake" with chocolate chantilly cream, placed the puffs around the top, piped rosettes between the puffs, and finished with chocolate shavings. Yum! :)

Chocolate & pear baskets

Also using the chocolate flaky pastry, we made the same little square "baskets" we made once before, blind baking them. Then we filled them with chocolate ganache and chocolate chantilly cream, and placed a sliced pear half on top. The pear half was covered with apricot glaze, with a few pieces of pistachio sprinkled on top.

Fers à chevals

It seems like we made these quite a while ago, but I never got a chance to take a picture or forgot to post it or something. So these fers à chevals (horseshoes) are fairly straightforward - we an almond paste filling which we rolled out into snakes. We then cut squares of flaky pastry and rolled the almond paste up in them, and formed into horseshoes before baking. After baking, we glzed with apricot and then dipped in fondant.

Trottoirs aux pommes

And then, with the scraps of flaky pastry left over, we made more sidewalks, but this time we made an apple compote for the filling and put a sliced apple half on top before baking, then glazed the apples with apricot.

Grand Louvre

The Grand Louvre dessert has a chocolate chocolate chunk sheet cake around the outside. Inside, the layers are: chocolate cake (the same as what's on the outside), dark chocolate mousse, chocolate cake, and white chocolate mousse. To finish, we sprinkled white sugar over the top and caramelized it with the torch, then covered with clear gel, and finished off with some chocolate squares and candied orange peels.

Le Choco-banane

The concept of this cake was pretty interesting, and it tasted ok, but not one of my favourites. I did, however, like that we cut them up to sell as individual pieces instead of whole cakes. So it starts with a thin chocolate génoise on the bottom, then a dark chocolate mousse, and a banana mousse, with ganache on top. Each wedge was then placed in a cellophane wrapper, and decorated with a chocolate "cigarette". :)

Carré magique

I didn't think this dessert was going to be all that good, because it's chocolate and apple, and the apples seemed a bit yucky to me, but I was very pleasantly surprised! In a square mold, we layered the following: thin chocolate cake, dark chocolate ganache with cooked apple cubes, cake, milk chocolate mousse with the same apple cubes, another cake, and then meringue which we made designs in, toasted with a torch, and covered with clear gel. And then decorated with chocolate squares and dried apple slices!

I guess that's it for this time. We have been working on other desserts, but they aren't finished yet. We made heart shaped macarons for Valentine's Day, but then we had a huge snowstorm and only 6 people were able to get to school, so they finished the macarons for everyone and I never got a picture of them. We also made heart shaped rum balls which we airbrushed red/pink, but they were really ugly, so I didn't take a picture of them. We had also made some Valentine decorations with sugar paste, to decorate various desserts, but I didn't make it in on the 14th, so I didn't get pictures of those either.

This next week should be pretty laid back. Monday is a make-up day that I don't have to go in for. Thursday we're going to have a pizza party, but we're making the pizzas ourselves, because we're awesome like that. And then Friday is a planning day before March Break! After the break, we're going to get to put together our own entremet moderne (modern dessert) - like the ones we've been making - including the decoration. This is of course super exciting for me. Not because I like to make things up, just because sometimes I don't like the flavour combinations they give us or the way they finish off the decorations. So it will be nice to put together flavours that I like, and make as fancy a decoration as I want to - but just for once. :) I've had tons of ideas, and what I'm thinking will probably end up being too grand and take too long, but I think it'll be amazing and I'm super psyched! Hopefully I don't have to work in the store that day, because that would just be my luck... And actually, hopefully we can have more than a day to do it, because I think I might need it! lol