Sweet Tooth...Anyone?

Hi there.

It's been too long since my last post. Things have been crazy lately. So slight recap: my friends and I went to Amsterdam and Munich and came back just in time to celebrate a birthday and welcome back our other friend. School started once again last Wednesday and to be honest, it felt like a cold bucket of water. 

Reality hit us square in the face when 8:00 AM Wednesday we were plunged back into the kitchens for some hands on work. The Pastry course has now 4 groups, two of which are working with chocolate and the remaining two working with sugar. I am in one of the latter groups. Let me tell you it's been fun.

If you recall in my previous posts, one of our very last demonstrations involved a sugar centerpiece. Well, that's what we did Wednesday morning, each cooking a kilo of sugar with glucose. 

Forgetting to shock  the sugar to stop the cooking, my sugar turned a lovely caramel color. It didn't help when I tried to make the sugar purple. Still, the end result was lovely and quite appealing to the eye.

Lovely shades of brown

The chef informed us that a sugar centerpiece, as well as a pulled sugar rose (can be seen in the above centerpiece) will be part of one of the assessments in order to obtain our Superior Patisserie Diploma. To pass this assessment, the sugar centerpiece must show 5 different techniques. If you look carefully, the centerpiece base has both foil underneath to create a different texture, as well as a marbled effect. That's two different techniques; next, we see a bubbled effect in the ruffled fan and a frosted coral-like structure, on which the rose sits. That's two other techniques; lastly, the main piece has a window pane effect summing up to five techniques. 

The chef said it was appealing to the eye and it was a job well done. I just need to be careful with the glueing of the pieces. If you observe, the small square on the left has a drop of sugar. It's a minor detail but I need to work on it. This week, we will produce two more in order to practice for the final.

We then proceeded to make the rose. This time, we cooked isomalt (there was a shortage of glucose in the school). Isomalt is an inverted sugar and worked equally well. We cooked the isomalt, working in pairs, to divide the sugar. It was poured on two silicon mats and we colored the sugar brown. Then we proceeded to fold and pull the sugar, making the color more opaque and glossy. The effect is quite extraordinary. The end results look like glass.  I had a bit of trouble managing to form petals. It may not look like a rose precisely but the chef said as long as it looked like a pretty flower, I'd do fine.

The following day we made another centerpiece. This time I changed the design. The result was interesting. I don't think the chef liked it too much. He said I should stick to pastel colors, although my classmates liked it. What do you think?

The base could have been a bit larger

Still, the chef said overall it was ok. I think I'll be sticking to the original design and just play around with the colors. Thursday evening, I met up with my friends whom I hadn't seen in a long time. We had dinner at The Opera Tavern, quite a lovely place for some spanish tapas. The food was great actually. We ordered ham and cheese and peppers for starters, while we waited for our table to be ready. It gave us time to look at the varied menu properly. By the time we got to our table, we still hadn't made up our minds and I think we ended up ordering half the entire menu hahaha. A dish to point out: the lovely mini burgers. We each had one and it was AMAZING. Definitely gonna go back just to eat it.

My friend Youssef and all the burgers

Check it out:

The Opera Tavern 

23 Catherine ST 

London WC2B 5JS 

0207 836 3680

Friday morning it was back to class. After a short night's sleep I thought I would die in class and thankfully it was just one. However, I found myself more energetic and very much interested in the project of the day. Once more we worked with pulled sugar, this time making a ribbon/bow out of it. Honestly, it's not the easiest thing to make but we sure had fun and I was amazed at myself with the result. I think I need to be more careful working with it, as the sugar snaps with little force. My friends outside school mentioned it looked like real ribbon. I was happy when the chef said good work.

Lovely sugar ribbon

I've been coping with a cold that just won't go away: a gift of this lovely London weather. Thankfully, the weekend came and I have class until Wednesday. Feeling much better at the moment, I cannot wait to get back into the kitchens and practice my work with sugar. I hope you all had a lovely Monday, despite the rain.

Until next time.

xx