This week focused on using fruits as the main ingredient. Both cakes were assembled with two thin cake discs entrapping a mousse or cream filling with fruit pieces in the center. As it usually is with mousses and creams, there was a lot of whisking.
Lesson 03: Jamaïque (Jamaica). Where this name originated, I'm not so sure. I can, however, tell you that it is made with a chocolate joconde biscuit that is decorated with grated coconut, sliced almonds, and coarse pistachio. In between is a coconut mousse with poached pineapples. On top is a thin layer of mango-passion fruit mousse (Mine was too thin because my strip of joconde was cut out too high)
After class, we took a field trip to Angelina, a well known restaurant on Rue de Rivoli. They're famously known for their incredulously rich hot chocolate and Mont Blanc (not the pen, but the chestnut/Chantilly cream dessert). Anyhow, we were able to take a quick tour of their kitchen through the guidance of the sous chef. We were shown the various machinery utilized to make production more quick and efficient. Sure beats whisking and piping everything by hand! By the end of the tour, they shared some deletable sweets with us.
Lesson 04: Fraisier. Many of you are probably familiar with this one. It's a genoise cake with mousseline cream lined with strawberries. My mom and I actually made this cake together in Hong Kong at those one-day culinary courses some while back. Of course ingredients and procedures were somewhat different. It had red beans in the mousseline cream and it used whipped (Chantilly) cream instead of Italian meringue, etc.
A weekend off! I will be seeing some school friends tomorrow night for a housewarming party so that will be fun. Before that, I hope I'd have the chance to buy some dried anchovies to make my soondooboo soup sometime this week. Attempt #2!
I'm also currently in the process of figuring out which destination should be next on my 4-5 day breaks in the coming months. Athens is quite tempting as the airfare is around $200 roundtrip. There is also the option of Italy (Florence + Venice or Rome + Venice). Any picks or suggestions?
Love your pics! Hope to see more of them as you progress.
ReplyDeleteHow did your first soondooboo turn out?
It was okay. There wasn't enough tofu and too much water. I still haven't bought the anchovies yet. I am thinking that I might be lazy enough to just use beef stock instead haha.
ReplyDeleteyesterday i drove by chantilly and i thought of you. and i'm watching a movie and there's a scene in the pasteur station. stop following me!
ReplyDeletehah What movie is that? You're just surrounding yourself with Paris that's all.
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