Lesson 5 Restaurant Petits Fours

Restaurant Petits Fours was the first in a series of lessons on small and/or plated desserts that could be served in a restaurant.  Laurie was visiting on the day of this demo and tagged along.  We learned how to make Chocolate Macaroons, Green Tea Cakes with White Chocolate Ganache, Walnut and Chocolate Cookies, Jasmine Shortbread, and Chocolate Diamonds.  None of these items were too exciting or tasty, but they were pretty.  They were the sort of dessert that would come to your table complimentary after a meal at a fancy restaurant.  Since there were so many different cookies to make we worked in groups of three for our practical class.  My partners were Veronica and Maggie.

Chef Deguignet's Petit Fours

Veronica's Diamonds and Shortbread

Maggie's Macaroons

My Green Tea Cakes with White Chocolate Ganache
(I can't figure out how to rotate the photo-typical!)

Until next time Au Revoir and Bon Appetit!

Lesson 4 Chocolate and Pistachio Surprise

Amazing!  This is one of my favorites from Superior so far and I wouldn't even have said I liked pistachio flavored cakes before.  This thing was terrific.  The top and bottom cake layers were made of macaroon batter so it was like eating a huge chocolate pistachio macaroon with pistachio filling.  The chocolate mousse cream was piped along the outside to create a dam and the thinner pistachio cream was piped inside.  The pistachio was topped with more chocolate mousse and then another macaroon cake.  My April 1st visitors Laurie and Maribeth tasted it for breakfast the day they arrived and it was still good days later after they left.  The decorations on top are poached apricots, red currants, some caramelized sugar, and a dried vanilla bean pod.

My Chocolate Pistachio Macaroon Mousse Cake

Until next time Au Revoir and Bon Appetit!

Lesson 3 Mango and Raspberry Yule Log

The mango raspberry yule log looked a lot like the chocolate pistachio log cake we made just before Christmas although this was a more springy looking version.  It was beautiful when cut in slices because it was mango mousse filled with raspberry mousse and very pastel and pretty.  The entire log was covered with baked crumble which was essentially the same as shortbread cookie crumbles, very tasty!  It was decorated with raspberries and while I brought it home and it was devoured by a few of my friends.

My Mango Raspberry Log

My Mango Raspberry Log

Until next time Au Revoir and Bon Appetit!

Lesson 2 Tarte Creole

The second day of Superior we made Creole Tarts.  They were very tasty because they were covered with Italian Meringue.  I've decided I like anything covered with italian meringue.  It's like marshmallow fluff and when it's fired with a torch it is literally like eating a marshmallow fresh from a stick at Prince William Forest without having to actually be in the forest.  Speaking of which, I feel an incredible post coming on soon, as I may be going camping this weekend.  Keep your fingers crossed for me!  Oh and a little more detail about the cake.  It is a pie crust filled with coconut cream and topped with italian meringue.  The meringue has been fired with a torch and then topped (creatively if I do say so myself) with chopped up pineapple soaked with rum and some leftover pineapple leaves.  Lovely!

My Tarte Creole

Tarts from my class

Until next time Au Revoir and Bon Appetit!

Superior Begins: Lesson 1 Rum Baba

For those of you that don't know, one of my favorite things about going to the Cayman Islands always used to be getting those packaged rum cakes.  Not sure why, but they sold them everywhere and I loved them!  This cake was called a Baba with Aged Rum and was flavored with rum just like the old rum cake, but even better because it was filled with cream.  Delicious, if you like that sort of thing, which I do.  I was so excited about my Baba that I completely forgot to take a picture of it.  This is a picture of the Chef's Baba decorated with fresh raspberries dipped in powdered sugar and a dried vanilla bean pod sticking out of the top.  A good start even though I forgot to take a picture.

Chef Deguignet's Baba Au Vieux Rhum

Until next time Au Revoir and Bon Appetit!

Intermediate Pastry is OVER!!!

The last day of Intermediate Pastry was technically March 14th when I completed my exam at 8:30pm, but I had my last demonstration class on March 11th attended by my two visitors Suzanne and Taylor Jackson.  They were in Paris from March 7th to the 11th and we had a great time.  They were fortunate to be in town for the last demonstration class of Intermediate Pastry.  Our Chef, lovely as he is, told us how disappointed he was by our inferior performance in Intermediate and wished us luck in Superior starting on March 22nd.  He then made a delicious Millefeuille which was served with Champagne.

Chef Deguignet's Millefeuille

A piece of beautifully plated Millefeuille

This Millefeuille was made out of layers of praline mousse cream and puff pastry.  While it is traditionally a dessert and made of cream and puff pastry it is now being served in fancy restaurants made out of layers of anything you can think of.  Layers range from anything as savory as a vegetable puree and slice of cucumber or zucchini to sliced apples with cheese layered in between them.

My exam for Intermediate Pastry went well, but not as well as my exam for Basic.  In any case I passed the class to go on to Superior, but I didn't break any records or show up in the top 5 this term.  For my exam I made a Triple Chocolate Bavarian Mousse Cake and I had to write "Opera" in chocolate as it would be on top of an Opera Cake.  I definitely improved with my chocolate writing at least!

My Opera from January

My Opera writing for the exam

My Triple Chocolate Bavarian Mousse Cake for the exam

My Exam

Until next time Au Revoir and Bon Appetit!