COVERED IN FARINE: marathon week

biscuits + cream + chocolate + fruit = entremets (again!)

Monday (April 12) could be renamed biscuit day. We made about 7 types of "biscuits" for the different cakes that week... I guess you can say I practiced that technique quite a bit!

Throughout the week, we made the fillings and creams and assembled each entremet... I'd like to say we made one per day, but it didn't really seem as organized as that. Oh well, as long as Chef was keeping track of which cake we were working on!

Soleil Indien: a biscuit with a dome of pineapple, topped with two layers of different creams: crème saint-honoré and crème patissière (pastry cream).

We then caramelized it with granulated sugar (it gives a better color than if you use powdered sugar).

... and voilà, there's the sun (soleil = sun)!

Equateur: layer of crème caramel (or was it crème

brûlée?) surrounded by a coffee-flavored cream (I think it was crème patissière... it's been too long!) and topped with coffee dacquoise.

We caramelized the top and garnished the sides with dacquoise crumbles.

Macaron d'Ananas: a Szechuan pepper-flavored meringue filled with pastry cream and tarragon-infused pineapples... covered with caramelized almond bits on the sides.

Mogador: chocolate genoise soaked in raspberry sauce and covered with chocolate mousse, raspberry jam, and raspberries. We spread a thin layer of raspberry jam on top and coated the sides with crumbles of the genoise.

Framboisie: a pistachio joconde filled with bavarois (or cream of some sort...) dotted with raspberries and covered with a layer of pistachio buttercream and clear glaze.

San Marco: although we only had an hour left in the scheduled day to start and finish this cake, we went overtime and didn't finish until about 8:30pm, after we had started with catering class at 8am that Thursday morning...

There is a pistachio biscuit resting on the bottom, a layer of chocolate cream, with a layer of pistachio bavarois on top. We then thinly spread another type of chocolate mousse on top and combed lines through half of it... the other half was enrobed in a chocolate glaze, while the sides of the cake were wrapped in a chocolate belt. Unfortunately in the haste to assemble the cake, my combed lines did not turn out and so I modified it by covering the whole thing in chocolate glaze...

Earlier that day, we had traiteur (catering) class. With the goal of creating a buffet display, we were each in charge of our own recipe, mine being herb-rolled chicken cooked in a steam oven... it was better than it sounds!

I made a "carpet" of herbs and lay filleted chicken breasts on top... then I tightly rolled them in saran wrap and then in aluminum foil, before "steaming" them until they had an internal temperature of 58-60°C.

My classmates made scallops (4 different façons), spinach soup, red pepper soup, cute pattypan squash filled with goat cheese, caviar-topped filo pastry bites, and white/green asparagus scallop triangles. Below are some close-ups: