Roulade Torte

In this week's Advanced Cake Decorating class, we made a Roulade Torte. Roulade implies a roll of a thin sponge cake and a filling. In this case, we had a thin vanilla sponge cake with chocolate buttercream.

To build this cake, we placed a vanilla chiffon genoise layer down first and then spread a thin layer of chocolate buttercream. We then cut strips of the vanilla sponge cake and layered on chocolate buttercream. We rolled this and placed it in the center, then continued to place strips around to continue to form the roulade to the outer edge.



After completing the roulade layer, we spread a thin layer of chocolate buttercream and then placed another layer of vanilla chiffon genoise on top. We covered the entire torte in chocolate buttercream. I must say, I rebounded well from last week. With some pointers from my friend Anna who is a great cake decorator, I was finally able to do a better job on smoothing out the sides and the top of my cake. We then marked the cake into 16 slices and piped spirals on each slice.



We finished the cake by placing almonds around the bottom edge and placing a slice of marzipan covered in chocolate on each of the 16 slices. I didn't do a great job overall with making my chocolate-covered marzipan slices, and I'm generally not crazy about how large they are, but it does make for an interesting and different garnish.



Chef cut into his cake so we could see how the inside looks when sliced.





I really like the look of the inside of this cake, and I think it could have lots and lots of applications in terms of flavor combinations of cakes and buttercreams.

Retail Baking

Retail Baking is a lab class that has two main objectives. The first is that as a class, we mass produce a variety of products and hold bake sales for the public three times a month. The second objective is that we work with a partner or a group to develop a legitimate business plan. I really feel this is the course in my program in which I will gain the most real-world experience, and I'm really excited about the course overall.

My friend, Gilly, and I are working together on a business plan, which we actually hope to enact in 2012. There will be lots of information on that in the next few months, but for now, I want to share with you what our class is like on a weekly basis.

We split up into four groups, and are responsible for a category of items to be sold at the bake sales. The categories are pies/cakes, cookies/pastries, breakfast items, and breads/special events. We spend two weeks at a time on each category, and rotate through twice. My group of four spent the first two bake sales responsible for breakfast items.

In the breakfast category, we are responsible to produce cinnamon twists, cinnamon rolls, muffins or scones, croissants, and quick breads. Sometimes, we're able to use product made in other courses; for example, over the past two weeks, we were able to sell zucchini bread and banana nut bread from the introductory courses. These are popular items. Last week, Gilly and I worked together to produce the croissants - turkey/cheese, ham/cheese, and pain au chocolate - and lemon blueberry muffins, while our two additional group members made cinnamon rolls and cinnamon twists. This week, we swapped tasks, and Gilly and I made chocolate chip scones as well.







Some of the other items sold this past week included sugar cookies, brownies, cream cheese brownies, assorted quiche, chocolate cream pies, beer cheddar bacon cupcakes, dinner rolls, and danishes.







We've had two pretty successful bake sales, and it's really fun to set up these for the public, and to see how excited people are about the products we make. Like I said, I'm really excited for this class, and looking forward to future weekly sales and working on our business plan.

Fuerst Pueckler Torte

The third week of Advanced Cake Decorating required the production of the Fuerst Pueckler Torte. Why it's called that, I have no idea, but it's basically a neapolitan of three different colored/flavored mousse. On the bottom is a chocolate cake layer, and then a dome is built on top of it with the three different flavored/colored mousse. Chocolate ganache is poured over top and then it is decorated with chantilly cream.

So, going in to class, I know that this isn't a layer cake in the traditional sense. I knew I wouldn't have to slice three or four even cake layers and build a flat cake to cover the sides evenly and the top flatly with buttercream. So, I thought, this would be a nice break from that typical process and I may actually do better with something a bit different.

I go into class with this great attitude. I watch the demo and think, "Well, it doesn't look too bad. I think I can handle this." So off I go.

I don't have to slice a chocolate cake layer because we are using ones saved from the previous week. There's a freebie. I prepare my chantilly cream, and flavor some of it with pineapple to build my first layer, in a small dome shape in the center of the cake. Not too bad to start. Things seem ok so far.

I then flavor some of the chantilly cream with raspberry and I put it over the pineapple cream dome. I think I'm getting the shape correctly, so it seems ok so far here as well.

Onto the chocolate chantilly cream. This requires the proper temperature in the melted chocolate, so the chocolate doesn't chip up when it gets added to the cream. Mine wasn't the right temperature - it only chipped very minimally, but I of course overwhipped it - I used to do this a lot in my other cakes class, so I'm not really surprised, but since it's on the inside of the cake, I'm not too worried about it. I get the chocolate on there, Chef agrees that the dome is "good enough" so I put the torte in the cooler to set up.

At this point, I'm generally feeling fine about my progress. It's not the best it can be, but I generally strive for mediocre in this sense so I feel like I'm right on point.

Chef continues his demo. He takes his cake and covers it with chocolate ganache. And then demonstrates the proper decoration. A ring of chantilly cream around the bottom edge, 16 equal slices, 16 rosettes, and 1/4 slices of candied cherries. I'm obviously not looking forward to rosettes because I still haven't managed to do them properly in the past, but I figure I'll get Chef to show me and it will be fine.

It's supposed to go something like this; these are from Chef's demo:










After setting up my ganache, Chef discovers that mine and my bench partners is thinner than the other students so he's concerned we screwed something up. We figure we probably mis-measured the chocolate but we can't remember for sure, so we go with it. The ganache covers evenly and sets up, so we're fine to complete the torte, but it's less shiny in color.

I begin to mark my cake with my knife into 16 equal slices. It's generally slightly difficult even though you don't think it will be. This time, it's even worse for me. On the first try, my knife goes too far into the ganache so it looks sloppy. Chef immediately points this out to me, as if I didn't notice or as if I did it on purpose. I kept moving along, and even being aware of this, continued to screw it up five more times, which Chef continued to point out to me. This is the biggest reason I currently have a strong dislike for cake decorating. My brain knows WHAT to do, and I'm fully aware of how it should look, but my body never cooperates. It's not like I purposely try to screw it up. I purposely try NOT to. It just always happens.

So at this point, I'm pretty irritated. But I keep progressing. I get my piping bag and I start piping the bottom border, and it's a complete disaster. It looks easy to do. For a lot of people, it probably is really easy to do. For me, well, again, not so much. And of course, Chef immediately points out how bad it is, which I'm already aware of. But once you start, there are no do-overs, so I continue the process and it generally doesn't get any better.

Now, at this point, I'm really irritated and I haven't even started on the rosettes. I ask Chef for a demo because I'm not convinced I have ever done these correctly in the past. He shows me, I practice. I get to the torte and make my first one, which I realize is too small and too far up in the slice. So that's not obviously good, but it's there, and I can't remove it, so I have to move forward with the other 15 rosettes in the same wrong place and of the same wrong size. Chef immediately points this out to me, again, as if I didn't already know it was problematic. I get the candied cherries on there, and call it quits.





I'm obviously extremely irritated at this point. Chef knows it too. I'm obviously not pleased with the downward progression of my attitude during the course of the class. I really hate the person I become in the cake decorating process. I like to tell myself over and over and over that I just need to do my best and be fine with it. But it's so damn frustrating. Like I said, my brain knows WHAT to do and HOW to do it, but my body fails me repeatedly. It's such a vicious cycle.

As I'm writing this, part of me thinks it's probably not in the greatest light to share these frustrations and these moments in which I'm not proud of myself. People may read it and think less of me. But the truth is, I think it's important for people who keep up with me to know that pastry school is a great overall experience, but like anything else, it has its bumps in the road and its obstacles and its frustrations. I like to think that I rise every time I feel that I fall. I'm aware of my shortcomings and I'm aware of where I need improvement, both in terms of skill and attitude. At the end of the day, I think it's important to be honest with myself, and push myself to do better. Putting this out there for people to read and see, I guess, is my way of holding myself accountable and trying to do better and be better.

Introduction to Wine

As I mentioned a few posts back, my semester is a little different than last year's due to the courses I am taking. Since I only have two baking lab classes, I decided to sign up for Introduction to Wine. I have an interest in wine, and I've always wanted to be more educated as a consumer, so I felt this would be a necessary course for my personal and professional growth.

The class meets Tuesday nights from 6-9pm. We've had three classes so far. During the first week of classes, we discussed the basics of wine history, including things like Prohibition. We also discussed the process for tasting wine, including examining a wine's appearance, smelling a wine, tasting a wine, and making conclusions. Each week, we use this process and taste a few wines. Our homework each week always include tasting a new wine as well.

During the second week, we discussed viticulture - the process for cultivating grapes - and viniculture - the process of making wine. We talked about climate, harvesting, trellising, terroir, and the differences between making white wine and making red wine.

During the third week of class, we had a component tasting. The instructor set up various cups of ingredients, like different fruits, vegetables, spices, etc, and we smelled each during that part of the wine tasting experience. We did this with four different wines.



I am not the greatest at identifying components based on smell, so this process was really helpful for me. We've also tasted some wines I have really liked, so my exposure to different wines has already grown in just three short weeks. We're beginning to look at different countries and their governing bodies, laws, regions, grapes, and market trends, and we're starting with France. I imagine it will begin to seem like information overload, but for now, I am enjoying the exposure and new knowledge.

Upside Down Cake & Raspberry Checkerboard Torte

The fall semester started on Monday, August 22. This semester will be different from last year's journey through baking and pastry school as I am only taking two baking lab classes - Advanced Cake Decorating and Retail Baking. I'm also taking Introduction to Wine and two Small Business Management courses, but based on this course load, it's very different than my first two semesters of culinary school.

If you've been reading along with me since last fall, you're probably guessing that I'm not generally thrilled about Advanced Cake Decorating. You can recall that I struggled during the Fall 2010 semester in improving my cake decorating skills; it's one of those things where I know what to do, I'm just generally not able to execute. I'm also generally out of practice. I haven't made a layer cake since last November or December, whenever my final exam in my Introduction to Cakes class was. And since this is a process I've only really attempted about 20 times since starting school, I just don't have enough experience to really enjoy the process.

One of the barriers to my improvement in cake decorating is money. It's not cheap to make a layer cake covered in buttercream, and since I'm on a pretty strict budget these days, I try to save my grocery dollars for real food, rather than icing. The related problem is that while I could make layer cakes at home to practice, I don't like wasting food and there's no way I want to eat an entire cake by myself on a regular basis. I'm sure I could give them away to people, but I really wouldn't feel good about giving away cakes that I don't think are decorated well.

My other general barrier is that when you're training to improve this type of process, you're intimately aware of your imperfections. To the common observer, my cake decorating probably looks pretty good, but when you know what great cakes are supposed to look like, my own imperfections seem glaringly obvious. I worked really hard in my 20s to let go of my perfectionist tendencies so you can imagine that this process remains challenging for me on a psychological level.

The final struggle with cake decorating is that we execute one cake per week in class, and it feels like a final exam each and every week. It can be a bit stressful, and well, who wants to feel final-exam stressed on a weekly basis? Not me. I have enough stress to deal with on a daily basis.

But, this class is a good, positive challenge. It's required, and I want to take all of the baking lab classes offered at my school, so it's a necessary course on my path to growing, both professionally and personally. It's also a good test each week to try my best and be satisfied with the outcome, without feeling the ridiculous emotions I allowed myself to experience last fall. Not an easy mindset, but a necessary one at this point. So, off we go.

This course meets two days a week. On Mondays, we bake the cakes and prepare the icings and other elements needed for the cakes. On Wednesdays, Chef demos the cake from start to finish and then we have 75 minutes to execute the cake. You work until you're finished, however, so if you exceed the 75 minutes, your grade is negatively influenced.

Last week, during the first week of class, we executed the Upside Down Cake. This is a four-layer cake made of chocolate chiffon genoise, Italian buttercream, and rum flavored simple syrup. After building the four-layers, we used a paring knife to cut out part of the cake at a 45-degree angle. We turned this piece of cake over and gently pushed it into the remaining cake hole, thus creating the upside down feature of the cake. We then iced the cake and decorated the top with a specific pattern. The cake was finished with fig jam and crushed toasted almonds.






Chef cut his cake so we could see the inside and taste the cake, so this is what it is supposed to look like:






During this past week, we executed the Raspberry Checkerboard Torte. Using two chocolate chiffon cake layers and two vanilla chiffon cake layers, we cut out rings of cake to create the checkerboard effect inside the cake. Raspberry jam was added to the Italian buttercream to create the icing and a brandy-flavored simple syrup was used to complement the raspberry flavor. After building the cake, we decorated it with a specific design, and finished it off with raspberry jam and crushed toasted almonds.





Again, Chef cut into the cake so we could see the inside and taste it, so this is what it's supposed to look like when cut:




All in all, some fun new skills in the area of cake decorating. One cake at a time.

Plated Desserts Practical Exam

Our practical exam for Plated Desserts included a great deal of preparation and work, both inside and outside of the bakeshop classroom. At the beginning of July, we had to submit a project proposal. Our main objective was to develop a six item seasonal dessert menu for a proposed restaurant of our choice. Each of the six desserts had to include recipes for the main items, complementary sauces and garnishes, and a drawing of each plating.

I chose to create a casual style Italian restaurant called Nonni's and I chose to create a summer dessert menu. This was my proposed menu:

Nonni’s Italian Restaurant – DOLCI – Dessert Menu

Summer 2011

Tiramisù

Italian for “pick me up”
Ladyfingers, Espresso, and Mascarpone
Chocolate Sauce and Espresso Sauce

Cannoli Tart

Sweetened Ricotta Cheese with Chocolate Chips and Orange Zest
Cannoli Shell Crust
Caramelized Orange Sauce and Chocolate Sauce

Sorbetti e Biscotti

Enjoy three different types of sorbet and three different Italian cookies
Limoncello Sorbetto in a Lemon Shell with Pistachio Biscotti and Mint Sauce
Tangerine Sorbetto in a Tangerine Shell with Amaretti and Chocolate Sauce
Blood Orange Sorbetto in an Orange Shell with Anise Pizzelle and Apricot-Honey Sauce

Zeppole e Affogato

Zeppole (fried Italian doughnut rounds), Cinnamon and Sugar, Warm Chocolate Sauce
Affogato (Italian for “drowned”) – Espresso poured over a scoop of Chocolate Gelato
Fresh Strawberries and Strawberry Sauce with Balsamic

Budino di Gianduja

Custard of Dark Chocolate, Toasted Hazelnuts, and Crumbled Biscotti
Gianduja Gelato, Vanilla Praline Sauce and Chocolate Sauce

Frutti di Bosco Crostata

Rustic, Flaky Tart with “Fruits of the Forest” –
Blackberries, Blueberries, and Raspberries –|
Berry Coulis, Vanilla Bean Chantilly Cream, and Fresh Basil

All desserts are $6.00.

After reviewing my project proposal, Chef and I decided that I would create and plate the Cannoli Tart and the Zeppole e Affogato for my practical exam. We had one class day to prep our components and one class day to finish prep and plate two identical plates of each dessert for grading.

To date, this was the most detailed and intense project I have completed in my culinary school career. My aunt and uncle were visiting during the time I was working on the proposal a few weeks ago, so they can attest to the time I spent just working on gathering my information and recipes, and getting everything together initially.

Of note, I should tell you that my class was working out of the storeroom instead of our normal classroom because kids baking camps had taken over our usual bakeshop. So we had a makeshift kitchen set up in the storeroom and we had to use ovens and stovetops in two additional rooms. At one point, I had things going on in three different kitchens. I was getting my exercise in addition to attempting to accomplish my work.

I set out with a to do list of items to complete and the order I hoped to complete them. On Monday, I spent class time making my own ricotta cheese, preparing candied orange peel, making tart dough, churning chocolate gelato, and attempting to create chocolate curl garnishes. The chocolate gave me some difficulty and I lost at least an hour of time attempting to make these garnishes. It seems like I should have been able to do more than this in five hours of class time, but given the nature of the steps involved in these processes and a fire alarm in the middle of it all, this was all I was able to accomplish.

On Tuesday, I went to school to continue working on my components. I baked off tart shells, made a caramelized orange sauce, made a chocolate sauce, prepped a strawberry sauce, and again worked on chocolate curl garnishes. It was another five hours spent at school where I felt I should have been able to accomplish more, but the chocolate work was getting the best of me and my frustration level. Thanks to Chef V for helping me work through my chocolate frustrations and leaving the day with something to call a garnish!

On Wednesday, I got into class around 7:15am with a revised to-do list and spent the morning working on the following:
1. Using my home-made ricotta cheese to make the filling for the cannoli tart, with chocolate chips and orange zest.
2. Rewarming my chocolate sauce; bottling it for use.
3. Finishing the strawberry sauce; bottling it for use.
4. Reducing my caramelized orange sauce; bottling it for use.
5. Drying out my candied orange peel which was affected by humidity since Monday.
6. Melting chocolate and brushing the inside of the tart shells with it.
7. Making zeppole dough; allowing it to rise for 1 hour.
8. Gathering strawberries, plates, etc. and preparing my components for plating.
9. Un-molding my chocolate curl garnishes.
10. Making a chocolate dipping sauce and keeping it warm until plating.
11. Preparing oil and a station for frying.
12. Frying off zeppole at 11:00am.

I had all of my components ready at 11:15am, and I had 15 minutes to prepare my plates for presentation at 11:30am. The last thing I had to do was brew fresh espresso and present my plates to Chef.





I liked my overall concept of the cannoli tart because I found a way to take a traditional Italian pastry and create a new form of it. Making my own ricotta cheese was easy, but time-consuming, yet in the end, resulted in a delicious and smooth ricotta filling. The tart shell was too thick overall for the dessert, and proved a little challenging to break into, but I still believe it could work with some necessary tweaks. My favorite thing about this dish was the inclusion of orange in the ricotta filling, the sauce, and the garnish, and Chef liked also that this flavor ran through each of my components. Some will say that cannolis should include candied orange peel in the filling, but since it doesn't appeal to everyone, it's often eliminated. I wanted to use orange and was pleased with the results here; the caramelized orange sauce is so tasty, and even though the process to make candied orange peel is time-consuming as well, it's always a nice treat. It took a great deal of time, energy, and ideas to create the chocolate curl, and though I spent most of the process in utter frustration, I learned a great deal through the process.

I also liked that this tart concept can be made even smaller in the form of a petit four and can easily see myself playing around with this with my leftover ingredients. I wasn't thrilled with my overall plating of this dessert; the caramelized orange sauce wasn't as thick as I needed it to be, and because I missed the mark on the consistency I wanted, I couldn't plate it the way I set out to initially. The plate worked overall, but I would have liked for it to be more crisp and clear. All in all, though, the cannoli tart was a success.






The zeppole and affogato is a really fun dessert. I liked both of these components - the doughnut rounds with the dipping sauce and the chocolate gelato with espresso can both stand on their own, but together create a really pleasing dish. The zeppole are really good right out of the fryer, but even tastier when just warm with the sauce. The chocolate gelato is so good it speaks for itself really. Overall, I think this dessert definitely hit the mark in terms of taste.

Again, my strawberry sauce missed the mark on consistency, but it worked well enough to complement this dish. On this dessert, I learned a lot about timing because of the cold, warm, and hot components throughout. I also learned how challenging it is to carry plates with smaller plates and bowls on them, so Chef gave me some pointers on how to improve this in the future. Overall, though, this too was a success.

All in all, I successfully accomplished my goals with this project, and was pleased with my ideas and results. After 10 weeks of this course, I feel confident in understanding the basics to creating restaurant style desserts and their components. And if I ever find myself wanting to work in an Italian restaurant, I think I have a pretty great concept for a dessert menu.

Desserts with Cheese

The components of this week's desserts contained cheese in some way. The first dessert was a carrot cake baked alaska. To create this dessert we cut carrot cake into circles and then placed a scoop of cream cheese ice cream on top. This was kept frozen until we were ready to pipe a ginger meringue to create the exterior. We used a brulee torch to give this the baked look, but one could also put this under a broiled to get the same effect. This was plated atop of sliced carrot, apple, and raisin salad, and garnished with crisp carrot spears which were covered in ginger simple syrup, dried, and rolled to create a nice effect.







The second dessert this week was a goat cheesecake. To create the goat cheesecake, we included home-made creme fraiche. The goat cheesecake was placed in the center of the plate. A rosemary pine nut brittle was placed on the plate. It was covered with a fig compote, and pieces of fig were placed on top and on the plate as well. A citrus honey syrup was drizzled over top, and the entire cheesecake was garnished with a sugar design.