Numero 2 Cake


I finally got around to completing a cake I'm happy about. I kept the same kind of formula, some spices, a little citrus & tea, but this time with success. I think I may have gotten a few extra brownie points with the chef for staying a little later a couple of nights but that's nothing compared to the self gratification of making something that makes you blush and taste good at the same time.


I'll take you through a little guide like the last time around:

Bottom layer is a shortbread crust where I added some chai spices (cardamom, clove, ginger and a few other flavors)

Up next is a layer of honey mousse with a teenie bit of lemon zest

Then is a lemon cake with lemon segments hiding in there

And the cherry on the cake, and earl grey tea mousse with little chunks of cacao beans. I had a terrible time with this one cause my gelatin kept on seizing up on me, creating a chunky mousse as opposed to the wanted air-y ones. I finally realized I was initially having a heavy hand with the gelatin so the second time around I just added less and I got that texture I was going for.

Finally, wrapped around the cake is a jacadon which is a thin, pliable cake that I baked upon a stencilled cigarette paste design.

I'm still thinking of a name for it but I'm thinking of stealing the title Sunday Morning from the last cake I tried. Just cause it's one of those cakes I could imagine eating in bed.

And Claire Clark came in to take to the class as promised this afternoon. Now I'm experiencing an existential crisis cause the master patisserie told us of 14 hour days and a gas pilot stove explosion. And with all the 'glory marks' I've received on my arms and hands from ovens & hot pans I'm wondering if I'll ever love it enough and endlessly to sacrifice everything she has to be master of your craft. The hand modeling gig I had always used as a back up plan is out of the question so I guess I'm sticking with it...

The Local French Laundry


I'm so excited to brag about a lovely pastry chef coming in to visit our school on Wednesday. This lady is a legend who prepared tiny bite(petite four) cakes for the Queen of England, was rewarded some fancy award which basically entitles her to use the words 'master of pastry making' on her business cards and was hand selected by Thomas Keller to oversee the pastry department of the French Laundry. Yeah, I said it, THE FRENCH LAUNDRY. That little ol' restaurant that is booked solid for six months in advance and regarded as one the best restaurant in the US, if not the world. Her name is Claire Clark and she is a master patessier and meeting her will grant me bragging rights till the day I die. I've been reworking the disaster of my entrement from last week and hopefully the new and improved will be edible enough to have a 'master patessier' take a bite. I'll post a picture when all is said and done.


Today we were also introduced to the pretentious world of chocolate tasting. We spent a whole afternoon tasting different kinds of chocolate and like wine snobs pretending to pick up aromas from the chocolate. "I taste tobacco yet smell flora." "Though I liked the earthy tones to it, the snap wasn't crisp enough for my liking." That's the snobbery we threw around today. And just for those wondering what a lady like myself, with a birthday around the corner, likes my new found saying 'the bitter, the better.'

And thanks to the people who raised concern about the bike thief. All I can say is that the situation is taken care of and because of an oath of silence(mainly for legal issues) I can't divulge in any way as to how if got back in my hands. But my lovely bike is home and being ridden on a daily basis.

Vegan Baking


We were given a list of wide ranging topics that we had to produce a tiny presentation for. While we've had ones on Indian Sweets, El Bulli's influence on modern cuisine and one on wine and dessert pairings where the whole class got drunk off wine and giggled, I choose to do mine on Vegan Baking. I made a couple vegan cupcakes based on recipes from the beyond awesome baking book Vegan Cupcakes Take Over The World by Isa Chandra Moskowitz. Some banana peanut butter cupcakes, espresso flavored and even ventured into the unknown with some curry & coconut cupcakes. I swear I'm not patting my own back but you couldn't tell these puppies were dairy free. They were rich and moist and so good. The banana peanut butter were the class favorite but I knew that would happen. A person that doesn't love bananas and peanut butter is a madman. I have to say the spices one were my personal favorite. I don't think my presentation trumped the other gal who got us drunk but just in case your egg less next time you consider whipping together some muffins here's some alternatives:

Ener-g Egg Replacer (tapioca starch and potato flour)
Method: 1 ½ tbsp Ener-g Egg + 2 tbsp Water= 1 egg
Use: Good replacement when eggs act as an emulsifier or binder in a recipe.

Silken Tofu
Method: ¼ cup blended= 1 Egg
Use: Dense Cakes, Brownies. Used as a Binder. Also good as a replacement in recipes like tiramisu & custards.

Flax Seed
Method: 1 tbsp ground Flax Seed + 3 tbsp water= 1 egg
Use: Pancakes, Whole Grain Items. Used as a binder.
Caution: don’t use if recipe calls for more than 2 eggs.

Baking Powder/Corn Starch
Method: 2 tbsp warm water + 1 tsp Baking Powder or 2 tbsp water + 2 tbsp Corn Starch= 1 egg
Use: To replace leavening produced with eggs with a chemical leavener

Bananas
Method: ½ blended banana + 1 tsp apple cider vinegar/lemon juice=1 egg
Use: In quick breads and muffins, cakes. Also used as a fat replacer in recipes.

Psyllium Husk
Method: 1 Tablespoon Psyllium Husk Seeds+ 2 Tablespoons water = 1 egg (the longer they sit in water the "eggier" they become)
Use: Same results as with flax seed mixture

Dairy Free Milk
Method: 1 cup Soy/Nut/Rice Milk + 1 tbsp Sugar
Use: As an ‘egg’ wash

Sunday Morning

After much debate and headache I had to finalize my choice of flavor for the cake project. I really wanted to do something colorful, full of flavor and something no one else in the class would do. Well, I surely was the only one with this flavor combination but I over did it resulting in a dessert that was too sweet for a second bite.
I'll dissect it for you, starting for the bottom up:

A shortbread crust added for a little crunch
Deluce De Leche smothered a top which is similar in taste to butterscotch and is simply accomplished by simmering a can of condensed milk in water for two(to top a sundae) to four(a toffee texture) hours
Next is an orange sponge, which is light in texture but has a tart texture because of the oranges
Layered with Chai Pastry cream which I let simmer overnight to bring out the millions of spices in Chai
Then comes an Earl Grey Cake, which I thought would compliment the chai and chocolate flavors but turned out bland and unrecognizable with the rest of the cake
Another layer of orange sponge, and painted with a bitterchocolate ganache
Decorated with candied oranges(cause of time restraint they were too wet) and sable cookies sandwiched between chai pastry cream dressed with cocoa beans

I took a peak of Chef when he was test biting my cake and he had the "ohhh, way too sweet" face and I knew I was doomed. I tasted the cakes on there own and concurred they were lovely but once I had a nibble of the final product I knew I did too much. All the flavors were overwhelming but I learnt an important lesson today; less is more. Especially in developing pastries. Chef defiantly credited my creativity in the cake but we both agreed it was too much. The other pastry ladies in my class made some really fantastic cakes, kiwi & mango mousses, banana & hazelnut cake, lemon chiffon & pardon the pun, the one that took the cake was defiantly a pistachio cake with marscapone filling, a crunchy white praline on the bottom & topped with poached pears.


On an extra shitty note, my bike was stolen. There was biblical rain on Friday and with full hands I decided to leave my bike, locked of course, outside of school and when I returned on Monday it was gone. And the cherry on top was when I was walking home Monday I noticed my bike half a block away from my house locked up to a post in front of a huge apartment complex. My conundrum is what to do about my beloved bike. Leave a note on the bike gently explaining how much I miss it? Knock on every door apartment door and flatly accuse anyone that crosses my path? Or let fate have its way?

Bread Making & Love Baking


So this was my first attempt at baking bread at home. Sure, I've done plenty of loaves at school with the nifty equipment like proffers and rationale ovens but this was my first D.I.Y loaf. After kneading, and waiting, and kneading, a little more waiting and a brief encounter with the oven I had a fresh loaf of dough. It was a little dense, didn't rise as much as expected and chewy beyond words but in all I was pretty proud of myself. I think it was all the love involved in making it that made my forgot how it was supposed to turn out and a little bit of fig preserve surely helped that. I used 100% multi grain bread flour which is a mixture of rye, flax and cracked wheat but I was a little bored with it so I threw in some goji berries; a newer berry on the market that everyone is calling the 'super food' of the future but I was lucky enough to find it on sale and curiosity got me, and some pecans. I'll post the recipe if I have bread enthusiasts around.
And in the very near future I'll post some more ideas about the Entrement presentation that is slowly lurking up on me. I've had staunch opposition to my mustard & pretzel cake but I've got some other ideas brewing.

El Bulling In Vancouver

Sorry If I'm boring everyone with all the kitchen/baking talk but it's all that's been on my mind as of lately. I dream about baking a perfectly symmetrical sponge, talk about different ways to bake a pie extra flaky and walk outside like I'm still in a kitchen. I can't help it.

Today was an extra inspiring day. Our Chef brought in a female pastry from one of Vancouver's leading restaurant(she also helped out in the inital development of the famed Feenie's) who showed us how to make a chocolate cake which was dense like a brownie, garnished with a chocolate tulie to blow many of minds and finished off with a white chocolate and lime ganche. The shot glass to the right is Mango puree and vanilla ice cream.


It was really inspiring to see where deserts are going. I watched in awe as Chef E whipped together a creme anglaise will tackling a citrus short crust with such ease and magic. I know that kind of skill is really only honed with practise but it was quite a sight. Her breeze and confidence are defiantly something I aspire to master further down the line. The best part about it was the dessert above was my lunch!
The day was capped off with a presentation on El Bulli. I was oblivious as you probably are when I first heard the name but completely enthralled when I discovered a little more. El Bulli is a three stared Michelin restaurant tucked away off the Cala Monjoi bay in Spain. The small restaurant is masterminded by Ferran Adria who closes the kitchen October through March to tuck away into his laboratory and create the finest of Haute Cuisine. He is defiantly worth investigating because the man truly creates food porn. And though you may not want to drop $350 on his eight course meal, it's sure fun to look at all the fancy pictures on his website an daydream.

Scientest In The Kitchen

p.s. No, these are not any cakes that us amateur patisseries have made but there is always wishful thinking.

So we've got our midterms just around the corner an of course this involves cakes. Oh, and creams and Bavarians and tuiles and mousses and gingersnaps and tempered chocolate and more on the never ending list. We have to bake and compose a cake all on our own doing which means we pick the flavor combos and decorative work.


Now I've been exercising some options and I'm kind of keen on doing this:
A Manly Dessert-
Mustard based Cake
With a Pretzel Crust
And a Dark Ale Mousse
Topped with a Dark Chocolate Ganche
And sprinkled with Salted Caramel

But I'm afraid I may scare my teacher cause he already believes me to be a wild card because of my love of sneaking in extra ingredients to our desserts so some back up options include:
Seasonal Dessert-
Butternut Squash Cake
With a Butterscotch Bavarian
And a Chestnut Cream Cream Filling
And a Cinnamon & Apple layer stuck somewhere in between
Smothered with a Honey and White Chocolate Ganache

But who knows, I may just flake out and make a basic White & Black cake with some fancy decorative to adorn the top. They're a couple of guidelines that have to be followed like a minimum of two layers of cake and the use of two different fillings. What do you guys think? Should I risk making a festive cake or keep it clean? Sometimes I get these urges to use the kitchen as a lab but tend to forget that it will be reflected in my marks. I'll keep you updated cause I'm sure a couple more combinations will spring to mind before the big day two weeks away.

Happy Thanksgiving

I had my first adventure over to the island this weekend. It was brief but pleasant. I have to admit I was a little disappointed that I got there a little too late to get a tour through the birthplace of Emily Carr but I guess that's the consequence of sleeping in. I strolled into a great little record store, ate at a vegetarian restaurant, hung around a bookstore, ventured along the waterfront and ate a fine little pastry and coffee at a Parisian style cafe. I also squeezed in the movie Across the Universe and it was so great I would recommend it to anyone. It's a musical based on all the classic Beatles songs set during the Vietnam War with a sweet love story thrown in.

Carrot Cake


We've been baking a storm, naturally. The last couple of days have been rather relaxed compared to the frenzy that was bread week. We have been baking cookies for the last three days and I must admit cookies are two bite delights but a little tiresome when all you want to do is play with Marzipan so imagine my surprise when Chef rolled out some dyed marzipan to play around with.


We had made a Carrot Cake at the beginning of the week and have been tinkering with it in between baking off some Checkerboard cookies & Linzer cookies. I have to admit that the Carrot Cake is just plain fun to look at but when I brought it home for "testing" purposes I found the actual recipe a little too sweet. Could be because we a top all that cream cheese glaze, we portioned half the cake to be filled with extra cream cheese filling. I was staunchly opposed to this idea cause I think a filling should only be used when you have a basic cake recipe to work with as opposed to something so full of flavor like a carrot cake but I went with the crowd and kept to myself about keeping the cream cheese to a minimum. Oh well, baking is all about trial and error.
But back to the fun that was marzipan. I learned a lot about myself while tinkering with the marzipan.

Lesson 1. I could totally build miniature figures of sorts for the rest of my life an be completely content.

Lesson 2. Time looses its function when your paying attention to detail. One hour and five carrots later.

Lesson 3. Labour=Love