Day 10: Dunkin' Donuts Watch Out!

Before I begin to tell you about how much baking I did on Friday I need to let you know that the chef was very happy with my apple turnovers on Wednesday.  I'm not sure if you could really see from the picture, but one end of your turnovers should rise up and have a solid ridge on it.  The chef said mine rose very nicely and he really liked them.  I was very proud!

On Friday my family arrived back in Paris from their trip to Vienna and Prague just in the knick of time.  When they arrived at 1pm I still had Wednesday's Palmiers and Apple Turnovers waiting for them to taste and I'd already made Chouquettes and Eclairs in the morning.  By the time my evening class was finished we had all of those sweets plus a traditional Dacquoise made of almond meringue to keep our sugar levels high.

The morning began with an 8:30am practical class on making Eclairs.  We had been told in our demo that we'd be making chocolate eclairs, but as is always the case you have to follow the directions of whatever chef you are assigned when you finally get to your practical class.  So with famous Chef Bernarde again, he announced we'd be making coffee flavored eclairs because that is his favorite flavor.

The first step in the eclair making process was to mix up the hot Choux Pastry for the dough.  We easily mixed up the dough and put it into a pastry bag to pipe the dough onto a cookie sheet.  We piped out 6 or 7 eclairs each and used the rest of the dough to make little balls called choux similar to the choux balls we made for our Saint Honore.  After piping out the choux we covered them with large sugar crystals making them chouquettes and put them in the oven.

While the pastries were cooking we made pastry cream for the eclair filling and we made liquidy fondant for icing the tops of the eclairs.  Dipping the eclairs and getting the icing to lay smoothly was a bit challenging, but when they were completed they definitely looked just like the frosted donuts you'd buy in a store.  The only difference when we tasted them was that they were even sweeter than the store bought doughnut and tasted even better!  As we'd made coffee eclairs and my family is full of chocolate lovers I swapped a few of my eclairs with a girl from another class before bringing the treats home to be devoured by my family.

My Coffee Eclairs

The Dacquoise we baked in the evening cooking session was actually a very simple cake to make, but when it was finished it looked so nice that it gave the impression it had been a ton of work.  The first thing we did was whip egg whites to make meringue.  When we'd finished doing that we added in some sugar, vanilla, and crushed almonds to add some texture and flavor to the meringue.  We baked the two rounds of cake in the oven and in the meantime started making buttercream icing.  I don't know about you, but up until now I have never really been a fan of buttercream icing.  It usually tastes kind of blah to me and is not sweet enough.  Well, I think that's because I've never truly made a buttery buttercream icing myself.  It took a long time to whip by hand, but I have to say, I could have eaten that icing on anything.  It was really tasty.

So once the cakes came out of the oven and cooled we iced one layer and assembled the cake then we learned how to make roses out of Marzipan.  I FINALLY found something that was easy!  When I'm done with school if I can't find a job anywhere else I am confident that Buddy will hire me to be one of the girls that sits in the back of his kitchen making flowers out of Marzipan and Modeling Chocolate on Cake Boss, because I was a real natural!  I was the first one done with my rose and leaves and everyone else seemed to be struggling with the task and at times starting over.  I hope someone tests me on flower making for the final exam!

My Dacquoise

So, cake assembled, the chef said he liked my rose and my cake and I got three 3.5s and one 4 out of 4 categories.  I'm not sure how to raise my scores around here as we all seem to be getting the same marks, but I'm happy with my 4 and will continue to work hard.

Until next time Au Revoir and Bon Appetit!