Specialty Macarons at La Bonne Vie

OMG.  September was BAD.  I'm always busy, but the hotel was "everybody-must-work-6-or-7-days-straight-no-days-off" busy.  Couple that with some stuff going on in my life outside of work left me pretty much no time/energy to update my blog.

During September, we welcomed the new Executive Pastry Chef!  He's really cool, nice guy, very knowledgeable with a LOT of experience in the industry.  I'm really excited to learn a lot of new pastry skills from this guy! :)
....Which also meant a lot of changes in the La Bonne Vie menu as well.  He first wanted to make some changes to the macarons.  He felt that ours were drab and boring...true, except people here tend to be pretty conservative (i.e. not adventurous) when it comes to food.  But it's OK, I was craving some changes too.

First up...Tiramisu macarons!

Coffee-infused shells filled with mascarpone buttercream, topped with cocoa nibs and cocoa powder.  This was an instant hit, and so far, is as popular as salted caramel macs.

The next one, I have to admit, is my least favorite to make....the Chocolate-Mint macs

  Mint green and chocolate swirled macs filled with chocolate-mint buttercream.  Pretty, yes.  But I'm just not very fond of mint-flavored desserts/candies, period (sorry New York patties and Junior Mints fans).  The flavor reminds me too much of kid's toothpaste or chewing gum, neither of which should be ingested.  Needless to say, this is our least popular flavor :(

September also marks the beginning of football season.  We have a local university football team which (at least) half the population of Utah is a fan of...and the hotel is located just a few miles away from the university.  So during the homecoming week, we had a special promotion...

Red Velvet University of Utah macarons!  These flew off the shelves during the week.

And of course, with the upcoming Halloween and to celebrate the coming of fall...

Pumpkin macarons!  The shells are lightly spiced with cinnamon and ginger.  With spiced pumpkin buttercream filling, these taste just like creamy pumpkin pie!
....But chef thought these were too drab looking.  I really hesitate to use an ungodly amount of food coloring, but if he insists....

There.  I had to add a almost 2 tablespoons of the orange powder color to achieve this hue.  But I have to admit, the Jack O' Lantern orange color make them look a lot brighter, prettier, and yes, very Halloween-y.

With addition of Halloween themed chocolate plaques, they are ready for anyone's spooky yet classy tea party!

October marks the onset of the hectic holiday season, as well as transition in the seasonality of menu items.  It's this time of the year that everything on the menu has something pumpkin.  Everything.
Thus begins the pumpkinization of La Bonne Vie...

The Macaron Tower!

Over the course of a year, La Bonne Vie pastries have changed drastically...due to our exec pastry chef changing.  One thing that remained on the menu (and probably the only thing that "survived" the change, other than the chocolate eclair and macarons) is the Lemon Chiffon.  Although it evolved quite a bit from the original, its base remains the same, as a pastry with a vanilla chiffon base, lemon curd filling, and Italian meringue waves.

With the sous chef now in charge, he added another twist to it.  He now wanted the entire thing evolved into a tartlet.

So here it is... Lemon Chiffon Tartlet.

It's a tartlet shell filled with a thin layer of vanilla chiffon, lemon curd filling, and Italian meringue waves--exactly like the previous versions.  The golden dew drops are crystal glaze dyed yellow, for a touch of color to otherwise plain pastry.

A slew of new pastries plus a wedding cake has kept me quite busy.  This was actually my first time helping at work with a wedding cake.  The bride wanted a macaron tower/tree to top her wedding cake, so the guests can pick the macs off the tree to eat them.

She wanted 400 macs, in shades of vanilla, light green, and light peach.  I can make at least 134 macs per batch, so I did three batches, which made a little over 400 macs.

The sous chef made a cone using styrofoam cone and pastillage.  I stuck the macs on using white chocolate and cold spray to instantly set the chocolate (that way, I don't have to stand there holding the mac for a while waiting for the chocolate to set).
So here it is...

Other than a few misaligned macs, turned out fine.  Some aren't angled correctly, but not bad for my first time.  If there is a next time, I at least know what to do.

New stuff at La Bonne Vie...again

Back in the middle of July, our executive pastry chef resigned....ALREADY.  He was with us for less than a year.  He had his family back in Las Vegas where he's from, and decided to go back for his family.  We supported his decision to leave--family is important.
But we are now in the process of looking for a new exec.  In the meantime, our sous chef has taken charge, bringing about a lot of changes in the La Bonne Vie pastries.

He had been gone for a week for a sugar-work class in Paris.  When he returned, he was raving about the pastry shops of Paris, and excitedly reported that what we're making at La Bonne Vie is pretty much the same as those of Paris...which is pretty awesome I must say.  He now wanted to incorporate a lot of his discoveries ideas into our pastries, making them more fancy and refined.

Over the course of a week or two, he came up about a dozen new pastries, while keeping a few of our previous ones.
#1 Peanutbutter-Mousse Decadence
A block of peanutbutter-chocolate mousse, on rectangular tart shell filled with ganache and crispy chocolate pearls.

Here's the cross-section.  It's decadent, but not very sweet, which tones down the overall richness.

#2 Passionfruit Globe/Dream
A chocolate sphere filled with passionfruit mousse, on a square tart shell filled with passionfruit curd and feuilletine.  Our sous chef loves to play with textures, so I like how his pastries incorporates the full range of textural contrasts.  As for the flavor...not a big fan of this one.  While textually interesting, the flavor is predominantly just passionfruit, making it somewhat one-toned.

#3 Fruit Tarts and Red-Berry Tarts
Pretty self-explanatory.  We switched out the puff pastry for tart shells, which is readily available.  No need for us to bake off the puff strips every morning.  Filled with pastry cream and topped with mounds of fruits.

#4 Bienenstich eclairs (i.e. Bee-sting eclairs)
Bienenstich is a German dessert that consists of sweet yeast dough with caramelized almond and honey topping filled with cream.  This is chef's eclair version of that.  Filled with almond cream, Bavarian cream, then capped with a piece of honey-almond florentine wafer.

#5 New flavor of macarons
We are making peppermint (in the middle of summer, which is odd) and passionfruit-raspberry (below).
The passionfruit-raspberry is filled with passionfruit curd and a dot of raspberry jam in the middle.
I think (especially)during summer, peppermint needs to be paired with something else.  Chocolate, for example.  Or add a dot of lime curd to make it Mojito macaron. Or add bourbon whiskey to the peppermint buttercream to make it Mint Julep macaron.

The end result...The display cake looked GORGEOUS!!

 Oh, I forgot to mention...see the green glittery macaron?  It's our pistachio macaron, all glammed up with gold glitter sugar.  It's glitzy enough to be worn as a bling.

I'm sure once the new exec arrives, more changes will happen.  Stay tuned....

My friend's wedding! ...AND a birthday cake

Oh.  WOW.  The month of July was EXTREMELY busy.

The month started out with a family friend's surprise birthday party.  Her husband secretly ordered a small dessert buffet:  strawberry mini-cheesecakes and double chocolate brownies, and a decadent chocolate mousse birthday cake.

Now, the following day was my co-worker's wedding...and she had asked me to make her a three-tier wedding cake.  This will be my first time making a multi-layer cake outside of school, and I was up for the challenge!  She wanted it simple, with white buttercream frosting (she hates fondant);  and she emphasized that it has to taste good.  Of course, I am not going to argue;  most wedding cakes are known for looking pretty but not tasting as good.  I was determined to make her cake look elegant, pretty, AND tasty!

But first things first...

I got the cheesecakes and the brownies done pretty quickly (he only requested 30 pieces or so of each).  I used a cake mix for the chocolate cake, and put two layers of chocolate mousse.  The cake was finished with chocolate buttercream, chocolate decor, fresh fruits, and a few Lintz truffle balls (cuz they're cute!)

I did the piping with melted white chocolate.  As soon as I delivered all the goodies, I had to drive to Park City, (a good half-an hour drive up the mountain) to finish my friend's wedding cake.  Her wedding was held at Waldorf Astoria hotel.

There's a story behind this.  When our sous chef found out that she's getting married, and that she had asked me to make her the cake, he offered to let me use the ingredients and the equipment at our workplace.  Which meant I didn't have to bake the several batches of cakes (in my teeny oven) or make the huge batch of Swiss buttercream (in my dinky mixer) at home!  I was more than happy to accept the offer.  So up until this day, I stayed a few hours later each day assembling the cakes (I was clocked out of course).

She wanted one tier chocolate cake w/chocolate mousse and another tier vanilla cake w/strawberry mousse.  I didn't stack the tiers, just filled and frosted it.  All I had to do was take the three cakes to Waldorf-Astoria and finish the cake there.  There was NO WAY I was going to transport the assembled three-tier cake up the swervy canyon road to Park City!

Once there, I stacked the cakes and finished decorating.

Very simple but elegant.  I put the cake away in the hotel's walk-in fridge and left for the night.
The next day, (the big day!) I arrived early to do some finishing touches...

I

 The florist gave me some flowers and the cake topper.  I stood back and thought, "...THAT. IS. CUTE."
Indeed, it turned out to be a very cute wedding cake, enough for about 70 people.

 After the ceremony, all of us congratulated the bride and the groom with some cocktails.  I didn't drink, since I'm a major lightweight and I'd prefer not to be tipsy while driving down a canyon road on the way home.
The next day, she texted me, telling me that the cake was delicious and the perfect amount!  *phew* Despite a few mishaps (yes, the cake ended up with a few scratches and dents during transit that I had to fix), the cake turned out awesome!

Happy Graduation!!

Ah June.  The month of June is also known as the "wedding season"--when there's a greater (if not the greatest) number of weddings occuring compared to other times of the year.  It is also the month when high school seniors take their first step to REAL adulthood--yes, graduation.

Graduation marks the official transition from being that "high school kid" to a full-fledged young adult. By this time, those who are planning on going to college/universities already know where they're going, and have a general idea of what they want to do--and hopefully, finally get to fulfill that "when-I-grow-up" dreams they had as children.

Two years ago, a family friend of ours had asked me to make a fancy dessert buffet for their second daughter's graduation.  Well, now their youngest is graduating and they asked me to do the same, just a bit smaller.

For the menu, she wanted to do something completely different from her sister's (of course!).  She opted for mini vanilla cupcakes, caramel brownies, tiramisu bites, and lemon meringue tartlets.
The vanilla cupcakes will look kinda plain, I thought...so I decided to hand make graduation themed decorations just for the cupcakes.

I wanted to devote my entire energy for this...so I requested three days off work.  I haven't taken a single vacation since I started working at the hotel, so they can't say no. :P

Here's how my three days went:
Day 1:
Make and bake the tart shells for the tartlets
Bake off the cupcakes
Bake off the brownies and make the caramel topping
Bake off the cake base for the tiramisu
Make the cake syrup for the tiramisu

Day 2:
Make the lemon curd, fill the tart shells, then freeze
Make the marshmallow fondant decorations for the cupcakes
Assemble the caramel brownies (i.e. put the topping on the brownies) and freeze
Make the mascarpone (I substituted cream cheese) mousse for the tiramisu, pipe it onto the base, then freeze

Day 3 (the day of):
Top the tarts with meringue
Make the buttercream and decorate cupcakes
Cut the frozen brownies and decorate
Cut the frozen tiramisu bites and finish with a chocolate coffee bean on each piece

This was my first time using marshmallow fondant, but the decorations turned out adorable!

Graduation caps and diploma fondant decorations.  The dark color of the caps was a bit tricky.  I ended up using a LOT of blue and some black coloring.

For the caramel brownies, I did a ganache drizzle and the graduation year on some.

For the tiramisu, I used the St. Honore tip to pipe out the mousse.  It created some cool "waves" of mousse.

To me, the scariest part of catering is...the dreaded transportation of the desserts.  Seriously, the desserts could be absolutely beautiful when made, then get totally wrecked during transportation.  Jarring motions, bumps, swerves, and everything in-between can wreak havoc on perfectly piped mousse.  Not to mention the warmer weather.
Fortunately, I managed to pack and transport everything without a whole lot of mishaps (well, a few of the tartlets got a little messed up, but not too badly).
The whole family came and helped me plate up the desserts amid all the ooh's and aah's.

Everyone loved them!  I was so glad that they loved it...and it was good for me too, since I got to practice with fondant and utilize the skills I acquired at work.

Treats for the Prayer Ministry Team

On Easter Sunday, the leader of the Prayer Ministry Team at my church told me that they're having a prayer time/meeting the following Sunday...and was wondering if I could make some treats for all the participants?

Of course I would!

As a matter of fact, there was this one cookie that I've always wanted to try making--a prayer cookie.  I was envisioning hand-shaped shortbread cookies encasing a buttercream filling.  It will look like praying hands with creamy filling--or a hand-shaped Oreo.  And it was the perfect opportunity to try this out.

I made the basic chocolate shortbread dough, rolled it out and used the hand-shaped cookie cutter to cut these out.  I had to flip the cutter on the other side to make the opposite hand (since they're mirror-images of each other).

I made a peanut butter cream filling for these.  The result?

It tasted good, just like your regular chocolate-peanut butter sandwich cookie.  The fingers on the cutter is shorter (in proportion) than the average human hand, so it looked a bit funny/unnatural.  I was a bit disappointed (being the perfectionist that I am...) but the Prayer Ministry Team loved it!  They said the treats made the meeting/prayer time very much memorable.  As long as they're happy, I'm happy :)
Guess I'll just call these... Prayer-eos?

Marzipan class at La Bonne Vie...and Happy Easter!!

On Wednesdays before Easter, we (well, it was mostly just me) held a marzipan-modeling class for children.  I've never worked with marzipan before (because #1 I don't like them and #2 they're expensive), so Chef gave me some marzipan for me to practice with.

Marzipan is basically a mixture of fondant and almond paste.  The result is a mass very much like Play-Doh.

Since it's Easter, I made a bunny and a chick....

Not too shabby for my first time playing with them.  But then again, I've worked with Play-Doh in the past so this was a no-brainer.

An hour before the class started, I made a big batch of white marzipan, separated a few chunks and dyed those in several colors.

I carted the blobs of colored marzipan, a few sample pictures, and gold boards for the kids to La Bonne Vie.
The kids had a blast playing with the marzipan!  Some made a caterpillar...

Some made an orange panda (I didn't make a whole lot of black marzipan).

Some were pretty detailed and elaborate, like this owl here.

I was told that this whole event is a set of two classes, with maximum of four kids (must be 6 to 12 years old) per session.  At least that what it's supposed to be.  Well, the first class went fine, four kids showed up, just as planned.  At the second class, however, four families showed, bringing their six kids.  And we only allowed six kids because two more mothers showed up, bringing their three kids...and any more than six would've turned the dainty little French pastry shop into a chaotic preschool.  So we had to ask the two mothers to wait another 45 minutes for the second class to be over...and I ended up teaching a third class, with two mothers and three 3-yr. olds (note the age requirement mentioned earlier).  I was exhausted...but everyone had so much fun they asked if we're doing this again next year.

For my private Easter fun, I made chocolate moai monoliths using a silicone mold.

They're statues from the Easter Island...get it??  I made two kinds, one is filled with oozy brandy-caramel, and the other is rum-raisin ganache, upon Mom's request.  They were pretty delish.  So that was how I spent the Holy Week.  Happy Easter everyone!

Macaron Help

A few weeks ago, a friend of mine (a former classmate from culinary school) whom I haven't seen or talked to in a while, contacted me--she needed help with the macarons.

She is now a chef instructor at a local grocery megastore, and had wanted to have a macaron making class...except apparently, she has NEVER been able to successfully make macarons in the past.  After many failed attempts, she had quit making them six months ago, out of sheer frustration.  But she finally decided to give the macarons a try--and enlisted my help to do it.

We set up a macaron-baking date at her workplace.  When I got there, I was mesmerized by all the shiny, fancy equipment she had. 

This is what the classroom looked like.  The glass door on the far end is the entrance/exit.

A huge, industrial fridge on the left side...

The back end, where the chef instructor stands.  The shelves contain spices, herbs, about four Cuisinart stand mixers.

What's really cool about these cabinets is that the doors open upward instead of sideways.  Unlike those with doors that swing out sideways, these hatchback cabinets will definitely prevent someone from banging their heads on the doors--as I myself have done before, and ended up with a nasty bump on my skull.

Anyway, back to the real issue at hand--the macarons.  We used the recipe from our textbook, which involves making a French meringue--the easiest, the least intensive method.  Since she wants to teach this class to people with (probably) no culinary background, we decided to opt for this recipe.

I asked her what was exactly wrong with her macarons.  She said that they "just didn't look right".

...All righty then. Guess we'll follow the recipe step-by-step and see how they turn out.  

After I piped them out, I told her that we now have to let them rest for at least 20 minutes, to which she asked why.  When I explained to her that it's the resting that gives macs their characteristic smooth shell/domes, she...looked a bit aghast.  Turned out she never did that, which totally explained why her macs never turned out right!

After the resting period, we popped them into the ovens.  By habit, I am wary of ovens I've never used before, since every oven is different.  We ended up with two sheet pans, so as an experiment, we put one in a non-convection oven and the other in a convection oven.

Halfway through the baking time, we took a peek...

It's working!  We both (almost) squealed in delight.  We compared the results between the convection vs. non-convection oven.  The convection oven had better results;  the non-convection oven caused the bottom to cook faster, and the macs ended up with dark foot.

The feet got a little big, but the texture was spot on.  The meringue would've been a bit more stable if we had used fresh egg whites instead of from the carton, but it's OK.
We whipped up a small batch of vanilla buttercream and filled them.

My friend was very happy that her macs finally turned out good!  Her daughter loves them, so she was more than happy to take home the vast majority of them--I took only one, to give to my mom.  It is kind of unfortunate that my family is not a huge fan of macarons... :P

Valentine's Day Recap

Once Christmas is over, Valentine's Day comes in with vengeance.  These are the Valentine's Day themed treats we made for La Bonne Vie.

First up, Blackberry Macarons (which I lovingly refer to as "the Big Macs")

Giant macarons filled with cream cheese filling and blackberries.
Next, the Chocolate Mousse Domes....

Chocolate mousse, with vanilla creme center, chocolate chiffon cake base, finished with an uber-shiny chocolate glaze.  If you look closely, you can actually see my reflection on one of the domes.
The usual chocolate-dipped strawberries got dressed up with pink hearts.  I gave the other design a modern and classy/chic look.

And of course, a Valentine's Day inspired flavor macarons--Red Velvet.  A bit of cocoa powder and lots of red powder dye gave it the intense color it needed.  These are then filled with cream cheese filling.  The pink hearts are separate batter dyed pink then piped on before baking.

These are our members for now--Raspberry cream puffs, Lemon Chiffon, Strawberry tarts, Red Velvet cupcakes, and Fruit Strips.  Our menu is constantly shifting and changing according to season.  In a sense, it's annoying, but at the same time challenging and keeps everything interesting.

Holiday Recap--Christmas goodies at La Bonne Vie

During the holiday season, we had a special limited-edition Christmas pastries at La Bonne Vie.

We had vanilla and chocolate eclairs decorated with cute spun sugar toadstool.

And what's Christmas without a Buche du Noel? These are filled with rich praline creme, slathered with hazelnut buttercream and cut into individual portions.

 On top of the insane amount of macarons--of our usual flavors--that we had to make, we also had the holiday limited-edition macaron flavors.  These are the Eggnog macarons, filled with eggnog buttercream and sprinkled with a bit of nutmeg.  I used eggnog compound and *ahem* dark rum to make it extra noggy.

And these are bicolored Peppermint macarons;  both the shells and the filling contains peppermint flavoring.  These were for a special order--and hopefully I won't have to make them any more.  This flavor requires a double-batch batter, with one white and the other colored pink.  The batters are placed separately in two small pastry bags, then placed in a large one--so you get two different colored bags together in one bag.
This results in bicolored macs.  Unfortunately, this also resulted in an overstuffed pastry bag that my tiny hands had to strain to squeeze and pipe.

I was pretty certain that I'll be getting arthritis or carpal tunnel after I was done...
But they turned out absolutely beautiful!

Peppeminty pink-and-white swirly perfection!  The customers were very happy!
Other new pastries includes these Raspberry Financiers.  The base is hazelnut financiers filled with pastry cream, then topped with raspberries.  The whole thing is glazed with apricot gel (it helps "glue" everything together and also prevents the fruits from drying out), and finished with snow sugar and pistachios.

When chef made these first, they looked awfully familiar...then upon some Google search, I found some Parisian pastry shops that sell something very similar.  Not only that, these types of pastries are actually quite common in Paris.  It's been a few months since we started selling these, and they are kinda-sorta-maybe popular.  There are days when these disappear pretty quickly, and then other days when they don't sell at all;  it's really hard to predict.  The only that has been constantly selling really well are the macarons. :P