Dessert Plate Production: Day Two

I'm not going to lie, this whole dessert plating thing is a bit of a pickle. We plated our desserts from yesterday today, and we prepared all the pieces of the plated dessert for tomorrow. You may remember that we prepared a while lotta chocolate and caramel bits for today yesterday.


You saw this tart yesterday without the ganache or Elvis-like amount of gold


But you didn't see this little nugget -- Chocolate puddin' topped with cocoa nibs

Once the desserts were finished, all the components were a little tough to put together. With all the elements on the plate, it was hard to find a way to plate them all together.


First I tried this way...


Then I eliminated the salted caramel ice cream (I just ate it because it tastes so good), and tried a different arrangement which I liked a little better.

Tomorrow's dessert is some kind of coconut and pineapple parfait and I have to be honest, I was not a fan of the individual parts and so I'm a little unsure about the finished whole. The base is a pineapple gelee, then there is a layer of coconut gianduja (basically a coconut and rum mixture lightened with whipped cream and stabilized with gelatin), then a very, very thin layer of coconut dacquoise, then another layer of the gianduja. Tomorrow we are going to be dressing the parfait with a layer of almond stresel (basically, almond-flavored dough that was frozen and grated with a cheese grater, baked and then cut to fit the top of the parfait glass) and a dehydrated piece of pineapple. Maybe if I was a coconut fan this would delight me but being that I'm not, it is difficult to be passionate about the parfait.

No matter. What's important is that today's plates tasted good and I think they turned out ok. This last plate is one made by Shannon, J, and Alicia. It is a gianduja parfait with caramelized bananas. I plated it for fun and thought it looked purty enough to share with y'all.

Dessert Plate Production: Day One

We began plating desserts today which might sound easy but when you factor in that each and every item on the plate has to be made before it can be plated, things get a little hectic. Our team worked on the components for a chocolate tart that will be filled with chocolate caramel, topped with chocolate ganache and that has a side of chocolate puddin', caramel and salted caramel ice cream...I think I got fatter just writing that.

I made the caramel popcorn, the dough for the tarts, and the ice cream and I helped with the ganache. It was pretty intense at times and I was glad that my partners and I were working together to get things done -- it's how things should be, I know, but it always helps when there is a good partnership flow.


Wee half-finished tart

The popcorn was delicious by the way. I may have to sneak that recipe onto the blog sooner or later. It reminded me of my Nannie's poppy-cock and since chef knew that everyone would be eating it, he had us make a double batch. I did have a fairly angst-ridden moment making the popcorn though: it's not as easy making it on an induction unit in the middle of a busy kitchen, using tin-foil and a pan to cover the pot and desperately peaking to make sure it wasn't burning! Oy.


Caramel Peanut Popcorn

Tomorrow we get to finish our plating by churning our ice cream, finishing our tarts, and of course, putting it all on a plate! I think it will be an exciting and tasty day -- stay tuned!

Fruits + Crumbles = Cobbler Goodness

Though last weekend really was the height of domesticity, this weekend still churned up some pretty excellent home cookin' with produce that was primarily found at the Greenmarket. In fact, as I write, there is apricot jam in the fridge, marinating overnight to be cooked, tomorrow morning, into (hopefully) some tasty goodness. The market also provided us with delicious salads, some potatoes stuffed with a delicious sausage, an excellent pasta with fresh fava beans and proscuitto and a cobbler, well actually, two cobblers chalk full of fresh fruit. Good eats my friends, good farmer's market eats.


Market Fresh Peaches

So, to end the weekend and hopefully begin a new week full of new foodie market fun, here is the cobbler recipe. Be advised that this is not a normal cobbler in that there are not oats in the topping and there are also no spices. Instead, the lemon gives the cobbler a very fresh taste and I find that it's not as heavy as its oat-filled and spice-filled counterparts. Enjoy!

FRUIT CRUMBLE
Adapted from Smitten Kitchen
Makes a 6 to 8 serving crumble

For the topping:
1 1/3 cup flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
3 tablespoons sugar
3 tablespoons Sugar in the Raw (or brown sugar too)
One lemon, zested
1 stick melted butter

For the filling:
*4 cups of fruit, peeled and cut into relatively similar sizes
Juice of one lemon
1/2 cup sugar
4 tablespoons cornstarch
Small pinch of salt

Heat oven to 375°F. Prepare topping by combining flour, baking powder, sugars and lemon zest and giving a little mix. Then, add the melted butter and mix till small and large clumps form. Put in the fridge to firm up the crumble.

Prepare filling: Toss fruit, lemon juice, sugar, cornstarch and salt in a bowl and transfer to a 9-inch deep-dish pie plate or an 8-inch square baking pan.


Cover fruit evenly with cold crumble topping and bake till golden brown about 40 to 50 minutes. Don't worry if the fruit bubbles up, it is supposed to and will taste delicious, I promise. Serve on its own or with vanilla ice cream.

*I've made this crumble with a few different fruit combinations and you should too! Try rhubarb and strawberries or peaches all by themselves, or peaches and raspberries or blueberries, or all berries...you get the idea. Have fun with it!

First 100 Highlights -- Part One

Y'all know me well enough by now to know that I can never, never ever, not talk a lot. As such, the First 100 Highlights will be delivered in a couple of posts...

Here we go:

1. I have to say that I was pretty nervous when I first began this blog. I didn't know if I was really cut out for all this writing business and I was super nervous for my first day of class. Lucky for me, it's turning out pretty well so far. I don't believe that I've ever shown this photo on the blog but it is kind of a neat one taken when my camera and I were still getting to know each other. Under the photo of my tool kit is the link to my first post and the aptly, the first post in the Highlight Reel.


First Day Jitters

2. Before I get all sentimental, let's get into the fun stuff. This post from the end of March is definitely a favorite because working on it really inspired me to begin recipe testing and researching on a regular basis. As before, the link is under the photo.


Hey Yo, It's Fro-Yo

3. After this particular day at school, I felt as though sugar and I were never to be friends again. I'm pretty sure that there were tears but the final product saved the day. Click the link to go back to that horrific day in April.


A Roller coaster Of Sugar and Pastry and Emotion

4. This was a crazy carb day in school. Seriously, the word(?) carb-tastic comes to mind. The bread module was a tough one because there were so many new skills that came our way in a short time and at such a rapid pace but this day, with its braided doughs and breadsticks, made it all worthwhile. Click the title to relive the post.


Oh My Land, What A Bread-Filled Day of Fun

5. I loved this day at school and not just because I made something Tiffany Blue. Petit Four day went so smoothly and it was just fun. By this time in our program, we are all working better as a group and have developed a better skill set so the kitchen is much more confident...and we made something Tiffany Blue!


Perfect Petit Fours

Part Two of the First 100 Highlights will be updated soon but if anyone has a favorite post, picture or comment, let me know on facebook or on the comments here. Oh yeah, and thank you so much for reading. If it wasn't for my faithful followers and their comments, I don't think I would have made it to 100.

The End Of A Cookie Marathon

I'm not sure if I've told y'all that the past two days, in addition to ribbon cakes and grenoblois, has been largely devoted to making dozens upon dozens of cookies. Seriously, I wish we had attempted to do a final cookie head count because I'm sure we were well into the thousands. Our class produced: a few varieties of chocolate chip cookies, spritz cookies, Tennessee icebook cookies, checkerboard cookies, shortbread, various types of biscotti, pecan balls, various types of brownies, rugelach, macarons, pignoli cookies, Sicilian fig cookies, linzer cookies, chocolatines, almondines, dream bars, lemon bars...have you got the general idea yet? We made a ton of cookies.


See? I'm not lying -- that's not even an eighth of all the cookies...

My partner and I made spritz cookies (in fact, I specifically requested to make spritz cookies because they are a Collin Murray favorite and have been absolute disasters every other time I made them...), pecan balls, white chocolate chip and dried cherry and pistachio cookies and I baked off some madeleines and helped out with some checkerboard cookies. It was a marathon of cookies and to be honest, I'm kind of glad it's over.


Spritz cookie in the raw


Spritz cookies after baking


Pecan balls waiting to be baked


Confectioner's sugar drenched pecan balls

Best Pastry Day Ever

I have been waiting for this day at school for a very long time and I'm so happy with the results. Today was CHOCOLATE RIBBON CAKE DAY! Which means I made this lovely cake today:


But how you ask? Basically, we made chocolate hazelnut sponge cake, frosted it in chocolate mousse, covered it in chocolate plastic and then molded the chocolate plastic into decorative bits that we put atop the cake and then, finally, we painted some of the cake with gold dust mixed with a wee bit of oil. Now the cake and frosting part is all stuff y'all know from previous blogs but working with the chocolate plastic was a whole new animal. Chocolate plastic is melted chocolate with corn syrup mixed in -- remember this picture from yesterday? After the chocolate hardens, it looks like this:


Then you bunch it up and basically knead it like bread with the heel of your hand till it is smooth and has no bumps.


Then you run the the plastic through a pasta machine to lengthen and smooth it out. A piece is wrapped around the sides of the cake and then small pieces are ruffled and placed around the edges of the cake in concentric circles till the cake is covered in plastic.


After that, all that is left is to decorate and paint and admire.

The Tiffany Blue Chef Turns 100!

Today is a very special day for this blog because today's post is the 100th post! Whoo Hoo! Watch for a highlight reel blog from the past 100 posts in the next couple days. And thanks for reading. The Tiffany Blue Chef hearts you for reading.

Now, on to the good stuff. I know that I say this everyday but it was a really busy day in class today. We made chocolate-hazelnut sponge cake, chocolate mousse, chocolate plastic (what is that?! stay tuned for tomorrow because this chocolate melted and mixed with corn syrup is going to decorate a beautiful little cake), pecan ball cookies and white chocolate chip, pistachio and cherry cookies, both which will be baked tomorrow. Busy, busy day in a verra hot kitchen in an even hotter New York City.


Melted chocolate mixing with corn syrup for the chocolate plastic

We also finished glazing our Grenoblois cake from yesterday. A Grenoblois (Gren-o-blah-s) is a cake made with walnut sponge cake, walnut buttercream and then glazed with a ganache that had walnuts mixed into it. When you see the picture, I have a feeling your might think that it is the same cake but yesterday but I promise you it is different!

A Symphonie Of A Cake

I only have one cake to share with you today even though we made two because the second cake needs a final glazing before it's camera ready! Stay tuned for that but until then enjoy the beauty that is the Symphonie cake:


Don't judge the name, the Symphonie is really tasty even though its name sounds a little bit like a bad eighties band. To make the Symphonie we soaked our hazelnut cake from Friday with a cognac syrup, spread the cake with a rich, whipped ganache, spread it with a praline buttercream (a fingerlickin' good praline buttercream by the way), placed a layer of the almond cake we made on Friday on the buttercream, soaked it in cognac syrup, spread the whipped ganache on it, spread the praline buttercream on it, placed a layer of hazelnut cake on top, soaked it with cognac syrup, spread it with praline buttercream and, finally, glazed the Symphonie with ganache. Whew. Man alive. A lot of work but a really good Symphonie at the end of the day.

Buongiorno Zucotto And Tiramisu!

It was all about the desserts of Italy today in class as we prepared two desserts that were Italian in nature: Zucotto and Tiramisu . I'm sure that you recognize the Tiramisu (what Italian restaurant doesn't have Tiramisu on its menu), but the Zucotto was a new one for me and I'm guessing it might be for my faithful blog followers as well. Zucotto (Zoo-cot-o), which apparently means 'shaped like a pumpkin' in Italian, is a bit of a process to make. You take pan di spagna cake (remember, we made that last week) and you cut four-inch circles out of it. Then, using a spherical-shaped mold, you line the spheres with the cake. The mold is then filled with a ricotta cream that has gelatin (to firm it up) and chocolate and pistachios (to make it taste yum, yum, yummy) folded into it. After it is filled, you take another cut out little circle and place it on top of the filling. The second circle will eventually act as the base from the little Zucottos to sit on.


Spherical mold full of pre-frozen Zucottos full of filling and topped with their bottoms!


After freezing the Zucottos to set them, you unmmolded the little nuggets


Then you ice them with whipped cream, scatter them with chopped pistachios and enjoy!


A view inside/a Zucotto being enjoyed!

The Tiramisu was actually pretty simple to put together. We made a zabaione sauce by whisking coffee, Marsala wine, egg yolks and sugar over a double boiler till they were thick and frothy and then we whisked the zabaione till cool in a kitchen aid. We then folded whipped cream and mascarpone into the mixture and spooned it on top of some espresso and brandy-soaked pan di spagna. This "layer" of cake and zabaione was topped with another layer of cake and filling and then chilled till it was firm enough to pipe whipped cream onto. Then, after the Tiramisu was unmolded, we ate it. So delicious and so fattening.

First Time Pickler

Yesterday was an intensely domestic day for me...in fact, so was today. This weekend I've made marshmallows (you will read about it soon enough Angie and Karen...I'm trying to get the recipe just right), biscuits, two batches of mascrarpone ice cream, candied cherries AND PICKLES! It was my first time pickling anything and so I was a tad nervy about the results but the little bread and butter bites of deliciousness do taste pretty darn good according to the chief taste tester, Collin Murray. I didn't start out the weekend intending to pickle but after a trip to the Greenmarket on Saturday morning when I found these:


I just couldn't resist. I had read on Smitten Kitchen's website a recipe that looked easy enough for a first time pickler, and low and behold it was. I've changed it a little from her original recipe because I'm not a fan of super sweet pickles. If you are, feel free to increase the sugar just a touch. Similarly, Collin Murray and I will likely decrease the amount of coriander and mustard seeds next time to half because as the pickles "age" the spices intensify but again, use your own taste buds as your guide.

BREAD AND BUTTER PICKLES
Adapted from Smitten Kitchen
Yields about 4 cups o' pickles

1 pound baby cucumbers, sliced about 1/4-inch thick
1 medium vidalia onion, thinly sliced
1/4 cup Kosher salt
1/2 cup sugar (or 3/4 cup if you like a sweeter pickle)
1/2 cup distilled white vinegar
1/4 teaspoons ground turmeric
1 tablespoon mustard seeds (1/2 tablespoon is your less inclined to spice)
1 tablespoon coriander seeds (as above, 1/2 tablespoon is your less inclined to spice)
1/4 teaspoon celery seed

In a medium bowl, combine the sliced cucumbers, sliced onion and salt. Mix well, I used my hands and they worked better than any spoon in the drawer.


Then cover the mixture with ice -- I know this is weird but just scatter enough ice on top of the cucumbers and onions so that they are covered and let the ice do whatever magic it does for two hours at room temperature.

Just before the two hours is up, combine the sugar, vinegar, turmeric, mustard seeds, coriander seeds and celery seeds and bring to a boil.


Then, drain the cucumbers and onions and add them to the vinegar mixture; bring back to a boil. Once boiled, quickly remove from the heat and cool.


I put my pickles in a bowl and set them into a larger bowl of ice to chill them quickly but You could just leave them in the pot to cool too.

Store the pickles in an sealed container in the fridge for up to three weeks. We began eating them almost immediately but technically you should wait a couple of hours before trying them...

How To Candy Cherries

On Thursday Whole Foods sent a friendly e-mail to inform me that cherries were going on sale on Friday. Since I can't resist buying cherries for $1.99/pound and since Collin Murray and I can only eat so many, I figured I better get busy and find something to do with all three pounds of 'em. Having recently purchased David Lebovitz's new book, Ready for Dessert (a sort of greatest hits of the pastry chef's favorite recipes), I was delighted to find a recipe for Candied Cherries to use up my stockpile!


CANDIED CHERRIES
Adapted from David Lebovitz's Ready for Dessert

2 cups cherries, pitted
1 cup water
1 cup sugar
1 tablespoon freshly squeezed lemon juice

Combine all ingredients in a medium saucepan and bring to a boil. Lower the heat to medium and simmer for about 25 minutes or until the syrup takes on the consistency of warm honey.


Pitted cherries bobbing in their sugar water

Cool cherries in their syrup and transfer to a jar and refrigerate for up to six months. Use as a topping for ice cream or chop the cherries and add them to vanilla ice cream or chop the cherries and add them to cookies or brownies. Just be warned, they are super sweet so use them sparingly.


Cooled cherries camping in their new home

A Disjointed Day With Some Pastry Surprises

There was a whole lotta action in our kitchen today. Man-alive. We made, are you ready? We made, four cakes, pate a choux (remember pat-a-shoe?), pastry cream, eclairs, chocolate glaze and finally, last but not least, an almost perfect strawberry miror cake. It was a busy day but a fun one too.

The cakes that we made today were all made using the biscuit method from yesterday. They were all baked in half-sheet or cookie trays and are all going to be put to some use next week. We made pan di spagna (which literally translates to 'bread of Spain' in Italian and will be used for tiramisu next week), walnut sponge, hazelnut sponge and biscuit jaconde (which is similar to regular ol' biscuit but with almond flour added to the mix).

We also made eclairs and I must say that they taste divine. The first time we made them, way back in the early days of school, they didn't turn out so hot, in fact, I don't think my team had any turn out...So chef thought that maybe we should give eclairs another go and this time they were fantastical.


The last part of this disjointed day (and disjointed post...sorry) is the (finally) finished miror. Oy. To recap, the miror is comprised of a genoise mousalline cake, strawberry Bavarian cream and a strawberry nappage top. At the end of the day, it is a pretty cake and a tasty cake but also a heck of a pain to make cake.


The blessed Strawberry Miror!


A look inside (sorry there is a little bit of the nappage on the side, not sure how that ended up there!)

A Delightful Little Charlotte

For those of you who tuned in to see the Miror cake from yesterday, I hate to disappoint you but it remains in the freezer at school. I remade the cake today without too many issues (yes, there were a couple, again...) but it needs to set up before it can be glazed. Tomorrow I promise there will be a beautiful Strawberry Miror photo on this blog and in Collin Murray's belly. Promise.

On for the rest of the day. We made a dessert called a Charlotte today and it was a rather complex and time consuming cake. Traditionally found in France, Charlottes are usually made using lady fingers, a Bavarian cream filling and a topping of whipped cream. In the United States, Charlottes are often made with sponge cake and a whipped cream topping -- whatever the case, they are labor-intensive and not for the faint of heart. To make them we first made the cake base and lady fingers using a biscuit batter. Biscuit, pronounced BIS-KWEE, is a cake batter made from whipped egg whites that are folded into whipped egg yolks and finished with a quick fold of flour. We piped the batter into lady finger shapes and the cake base and then baked them till firm in the oven. We made a chocolate mousse that should have been easy to make but was actually ridiculously hard -- trust me, you don't want to know the chocolate mousse drama -- and then we made whipped cream for the top of the Charlotte. When all was said and done and the Charlottes were dressed with their little ribbons, they looked darn adorable but I must admit that they were a bit of a pickle to make.

Broken Bavarian

We had a bit of a technical error today and as such, the cakes on the blog belong to the Chef and to Shannon...tomorrow my beautiful cake will hopefully make an appearance but till then hopefully their lovelies will delight you.

We made a cake called Miror today. Miror, pronounced mirror, is a cake made from genoise moussaline (the same genoise cake that has been on the menu for the last few days but this time with a little butter folded in so it is a little bit moister), Bavarian cream and a nappage (nap-ahge) glaze on top. The name refers to the glass-like, reflective topping on the cake -- you can actually see yourself in them, just like a mirror! Get it?! Bavarian cream is a mixture of fruit puree, liqueur, lemon juice, gelatin and whipped cream. You make a fruit puree, hydrate the gelatin in the liqueur and lemon juice and then dissolve the gelatin into the fruit puree over a double boiler. Then, once the fruit/gelatin is cooled, you quickly fold whipped whip cream into the mixture. Somehow when we folded our whipped cream in our mixture started to curdle and it just didn't stop. After we froze our cake in order to set it, the curdling was looking not too bad when when we glazed it with the nappage (a heated mixture of jelly and fruit puree and gelatin hydrated in liqueur), it began to break up and look really icky. Our chef assured my partner and I that we could fix it and so hopefully tomorrow our strawberry miror will make show up on the blog. Until then, here is Shannon's blackberry miror and Chef's mango miror.

Your Roulade Is Maisie's Jelly Roll

We made roulade today. Sounds fancy, right? Not really, it's just a jelly roll. At least my Grandma Maisie would have called it a jelly roll. She made these cakes all the time and while they weren't super fancy, they were always damn tasty, especially with her "special" strawberry sauce. I thought of her today as I was making my roll, and I think she would have liked its sass meringue outside. Here is how the roulade came to be in pictures:


Here is the cake stacked high with strawberries and whipped cream and waiting to be rolled up like a cigar...


Rolling...


Rolled!


Coated in meringue and waiting to be adorned with sassy spikes!


Spikes on the finished roulade! After this I torched the roll and browned up the little spikes but I liked this picture better...sorry.