Picture Happy

Here we go. I was a little snap happy yesterday. But we did some fun stuff so I thought I'd share. In the morning we worked on another plated dessert. I forget what it's called. Something about a floating meringue. It's fairly simple with its three parts. Crème anglaise, meringue and sugar dome, or nest or barrel, or ball. Whatever shape you make your caramelized sugar.

Here's my first sugar dome.


Then Chef came over. "No, no, no, no, no. You've got too much fat on the metal. And it's too thick. Let me show you..."
Gotta lift the sugar high, so the stream is thinner and lighter.


Make sure you drizzle it even and regular so you have a strong structure.

Then you whip up some egg whites with sugar and bake them in a double boiler. Not too long though! These look okay, but they taste super eggy. I put them in for 4 minutes, but I probably only needed 2.
So you take your crème anglaise, float a meringue on top and then cover it with a sugar dome. Voila!



Or put it in a cute little cup and scrunch up a ball of sugar, like so.

Here are a couple that Flo made. Pretty cool.

Croquembouche with chantilly cream.


Chantilly Swans. This one is squawking.

Minus the caramelized sugar, these things are irresistible. I have a deep, unwavering, unhealthy love for chantilly cream. If I was to make these for me, I'd skip the caramel and sift powered sugar on top instead.


Tam might kill me for putting this picture up, but I think it's cute. And it proves that I'm not the only one eating all the swans.


Raw pain au raisins. It's a croissant dough, filled with a little pastry cream and drunk raisins. I wasn't so sure about these.


Not until I tried them. And man. These are good. But it's all about the drunk raisins. The sober ones were not as good.


These are puffed pastry, almond and sugar little twisty things. Delicious.


And a peach and pear tarte on puff pastry. It's just alright.

A chocolate mousse cake with passion fruit and mango inserts. This one is Aldo's.


I covered mine in a caramel glaçage.

Simon's pretty green and pink.

Here's the inside. A little melty. Chef was not impressed. Our creams didn't hold up. Not like they should anyway. Something about overworking the mousse and not working the inserts enough. Here are Aldo's perfect croissants. He's been working as a baker for a long time so he can do these with his eyes closed. It's kind of annoying really.

Ohhh. But he's not perfect with everything. Here he forgot to take off the plastic before he dressed the cake.

These little cakes (I'm sorry I forgot the name). Chef made them. They're eggy inside (It was a very eggy day). It's a specialty of the Bordeaux region. OH and this is a sign that it's Friday. Everything gets thrown out on Fridays that can't be saved or given away. Creamy stuff can't be given away because people tend to save it too long and it becomes a health risk.


So sad.
So there you go. Now it's all about my presentation. Three days to write memorize and practice. Eek. Oh and I forgot to give credit where credit is due. Thank you Nate for typesetting my Kransekage recipe. And thanks in advance for my leave behind cards. Love you!

Okay. Gotta run.