As sweet as sugar.

Well, we melted down the chocolate sculptures and moved on to sugar. Another chef at the school who seems to have quite a bit of experience with sugar was kind enough to help us out for the day. Here he is demonstrating how to make a rose under the heat lamp.


You melt down a bunch of isomalt, which is a sugar type substitute that's used a lot in decoration because it stays clear at very high temperatures. I don't think it starts to discolor until around 190ºC. Great to look at, not so great for eating though. They say it's edible, but it'll have the same effect as those stupid Olean Wow chips. Remember those? They came out a few years back with all the taste and flavor of full fat chips, but without all the fat? Only problem is the not so tasty side effect they printed on the back. Um. Ewww. So there was no snacking on sugar day.

Here's chef's rose.

You can't have flowers without ribbon. This one is stretched out all the way across the table.


He poured a few other pieces into molds and then built this. Not bad.


So then it was our turn. Ready to go with my rubber gloves and heat lamp, I just started pulling. I didn't have too much of a plan. A few petals here, a few petals there.


Pretty soon I had something that kinda resembled a tulip.


I quickly grew tired of petals and started scrunching up the sugar and just played for a while.




But eventually we had to make sense of it all. So we got out the molds and constructed our pieces. I started with a plan, but detoured almost immediately. I ended up with three different pieces that didn't really go together. But that doesn't matter. I'm sure I'll do more of this sugar, I mean isomalt stuff.

This is my zen water garden.

And my abstract blue flower rock thingy.
I guess it kinda goes with the zen garden in that they are both blue and have white flowers, and both have rocks. But they don't really fit so much to me.


And here is my space piece. I didn't intentionally set out to create a planetarium type thing, it just happened. I don't know.



Here's most of the buffet.
How cool is Aldo's bonsai tree?


The cake is actually cake. It's a hazelnut mousse in fact, with a layer of rich hazelnut crunch below. Pretty yummy. Those are hazelnuts dipped in sugar on top.


I guess I could mention the eclairs and religieuse we made as well. We did them again today. It's a French staple and will probably be on our final exam, so we've been practicing. I can honestly say after making these several times, that I'm not a fan and will not be putting these in any shop of mine. Maybe with some drastic variations, but not like this. I think chef gets exasperated sometimes when I ask about alterations or substitutions. I can't help it. Maybe it's a cultural thing? I don't know, maybe it's just me, but these don't look appetizing. Do they?

Okay well I need to get to studying. We have a health and safety test on Thursday. I have to memorize the components of ovens fridges and freezers. Not to mention all the ways to contaminate food. Check back with you later.

Bonne nuit!