Modeling, Piping, Turning

On Tuesday morning after the long weekend, I successfully made a Dacquoise. At Le Cordon Bleu, the methodology is to teach us the long, manual method of creating a dish. I think this is a fantastic way to learn especially if you don't have a gym membership. To date, I have beaten egg whites to the point of stiff peaks a few times, made buttercream, chantilly cream and hollandaise sauce all by hand. Unfortunately, I am not ambidextrous so my right arm will be pretty fierce when I graduate.

Dacquoise




Making a dacquoise cake involves a step where you need to check the temperature of a boiling sugar and water concoction. The goal is to get the sugar syrup to a soft ball stage (115°C)). Because we learn everything at LCB by feel and taste, you need to stick your fingers into the boiling sugar (not yet caramel) and test for doneness. I had read about this before in cookbooks and perhaps seen it done on tv once by professionals. I've always used a candy thermometer for working with sugar but not this day. As I stared deeply into the boiling sugar and then glanced at my neighbor who was about to venture unwillingly into hot sugar as well, I said hear goes nothing and stuck my fingers in.

Now, I had been warned by my roommate who had done this recipe a few days earlier that you really have to stick your fingers down into the sugar in order to come back with any sugar that you can test. If you just swipe the top, you are going to have to do it again. Knowing this, I went in deep, but unfortunately for me and my neighbor, we tested our sugar too soon and had to wait until the sugar got even hotter only to do it again. In all, I tempted fate 3 times until the sugar was ready. The process is not so bad, but it is like talking to strangers, it's fun but I've always been told not to do it. In this instance, we have been taught that a caramel burn is the worst burn you can get so of course I was nervous.

Once the cakes are baked, the praline buttercream is made and piped out (I'm getting a bit better) and then the two cakes are sandwiched together with the buttercream protruding a bit for a "generous" effect, it was time to made the marzipan rose.

I've made a few roses before out of gum paste but still need a lot of practice. The rose and leaves on the cake look fine here though and I receive some compliments on the cake itself which was nice.

Today, I made Poached Hake Steaks with Hollandaise Sauce. Of course, it could not be as easy as just poached fish and hollandaise (which I have made before because I love it), the majority of the practical was spent on turning carrottes, potatoes and courgettes. It was great practice and I hope to buy some veg tomorrow at the market to practice more. Plus, we had an amazing chef who was a great teacher and super nice. My favorite chef of the week.

Troncons de colin pochés, sauce hollandaise (and turned veg)


Side note: I oversalted my hollandaise--I was in a good mood this morning and was a bit generous with the salt. Some of the chefs like more salt and some much, much less. At LCB, you have to learn all the chefs palates and season accordingly. I knew when I tasted it that the sauce had too much salt but I didn't have (or I thought I didn't) any more citron to correct it.

When I had my tasting, the chef said everything was good including the turned veg, the fish, the plate looked nice, but then he tasted the sauce twice and I knew what he was going to say before it came out of his mouth in french. He told me that we are in france, not in america (earlier, he had looked at my name badge to check where I was from) and hollandaise should only have a little salt and I should have added a bit more citron. He was so sweet about it that I think it is a fun story and of course I learned my obvious lesson--correct the components as much as possible, especially the sauce, before plating and presentation.