Chocolates & Confections Week 3

This Week's projects: Madras, Rainier, and Spiked Eggnog.

Madras has white chocolate ganache with curry and coconut cream in it. Weird, yes...but surprisingly tasty. Rainier, named after a variety of cherries, has a center of dried cherry with raspberry ganache piped onto it. Spiked Eggnog, as its name implies, contains alcohol--dark rum--and freshly grated nutmeg for a nice eggnogg-y kick.

The filling for Rainier and Spiked Eggnog are both piped onto chocolate disks. To prepare the disks, we tempered some chocolate and spread it thinly onto a parchment...

We let the chocoalte set a little, but not all the way. Before it sets completely (i.e. while it's still somewhat soft), we cut out rounds of disks using the bottom of a piping tip.

While my teammate was preparing the disks, I prepared the filling for the Spiked Eggnog. We filled a piping bag with it, and piped them on...

They should be piped so they'll leave a nice, pointed tip--but the filling got too firm. Next time, we'll piped them while they're still soft.

For the Rainier, we dabbed some melted chocolate on the cherries and pressed them onto the disks to secure them.

On top of these cherries, we piped the raspberry ganache filling into a pointed tip, like a Hershey kiss.
Wanting to experiment, I switched the piping tips and piped out....

Brain Rainier! Next month will be my third anniversary since my stroke. Goodness, time flies!
Once everything is piped out and cut, we dipped them in melted chocolate. The Madras turned out messy--somehow the ganache didn't firm up. But it tasted great!

Left: Madras (with curry powder on top)

Center: Spiked Eggnog

Right: Rainier (with white dot on top)

Mom was skeptical when I told her about the Madras...until she tasted it, and declared it her favorite flavor! It's cool how chocolates are expanding the horizon and the palates of my parents.

Gastronomical Exploration: Godiva Chocolate

Apparently, Godiva has a rewards club with some cool benefits. It comes with a FREE chocolate truffle every month (who wouldn't want that?), free shipping and handling on first order, plus bonus gifts with purchase, etc....

So I visited the Godiva Shop in Fashion Place Mall to sign up. It's free, and all they needed was my email address. I got two truffles: a Chocolate Lava Cake and the new Chocolate Black Currant Truffle. The latter, according to the lady who worked at the boutique, contains chestnut cream.

The truffles are $2.50 each, but I got one for free for signing up with their rewards club.
We ate them for our dessert. The Lava Cake did indeed, had a liquid chocolate filling (the lady said it was fondant chocolate) that gushed out when I cut into it. Texturally, it was pretty good. The black currant one had the black currant filling/jam in it. I was pleased with the natural flavors of it, and just like the lady claimed, the cream did actually taste like chestnut (unlike the Le Creme Bakery's "Chestnut" Mousse cake).
They were both good. But...after tasting Valrhona truffles we made in class, and the Amedei chocolates that I recently purchased (more on that later)... these were too sweet and lacked the complexity that Amedei and Valrhona had. Oh curse them...I think they ruined the chocolates I'll ever have in future.

This week's desserts at home...

On Sunday, we had our bi-weekly Bible study with Mrs. A and her two children over.

The berries were on sale that week, so I wanted to make a dessert that will put those fresh berries to use. I've made fruit tarts before...so I decided to make flans, which I haven't made for a long time.

In Japan, the flan is called purin, a mispronunciation of "pudding". It is often served a la mode (i.e. with ice cream), and is quite popular. The kids and my Dad wolfed this down pretty quickly.

Monday Dessert: Baked Alaska. I made it to practice making Italian meringue, since I've yet to make it correctly at home. I know, I hate to admit it, but I've had the hardest time making Italian meringue. The first time, it turned out way too soft. Then I switched to using a stainless steel bowl. Lo and behold, it worked. I've been using a glass bowl the entire time, and that apparently prevented the whites from being whipped properly. This turned out pretty nicely, with the vanilla ice cream filling.

Tuesday Dessert: Peach Mousse w/Lemon curd and caramel sauce. Made with Italian meringue I made the other day. The texture was spot on--moist, smooth, and airy. Too bad the lemon curd overpowered the peach flavor. Maybe I'll just serve this with peach sauce instead.

Wednesday Dessert: Flan a la mode...? If something is served with a sorbet (in this case, peach) instead of an ice cream, is it still called a la mode? It's a mystery...

Chocolates & Confections Week 2

Chocolates & Confections Week 2

This week we made Anise sticks (contains Pernod), Dark & Stormies (white chocolate ganache flavored with ginger and vanilla bean) and Lavender Ganache (flavored with, of course, lavender flowers). For the Dark & Stormies and the Lavender Ganache, we used the "slabbing" technique, which involves spreading the ganache into a container and allowing it to set before dipping in chocolate.

Once set, we flipped the ganache onto the cutting board, and spread a thin coating of tempered chocolate all over the surface.

When the chocolate has set, we flipped it back, so the chocolate-covered side was facing down. The chocolate provides a floor/footing for the ganache to keep it in shape while being cut into squares or rectangles.

After being cut, the ganache cubes are dropped into the bowl of melted chocolate (for dipping), chocolate-foot side up...

Then pushed down with a dipping fork, turned over in the chocolate, and scooped out.

I candied some ginger and sliced them to garnish the Dark & Stormies. We put a single bud of lavender on the Lavender truffles (which turned out a little too soft and started falling apart later on...but turned into the creamiest ganache filling).

The Anise Sticks are rolled around on a cooling rack after being dipped, to make those markings.

Next week, we'll be making Madras (white chocolate-curry ganache), Rainier (has cherry and Kirsch), and Spiked eggnog (with spices and rum).

Chocolates & Confections Week 1

Chocolates, Confections, & Centerpieces Week 1

School started! I'm very excited and stoked...school prevents me from getting too bored. At the same time, I'm kinda bummed that this is going to be my last quarter here. I know I'm gonna miss it. After graduation, I'll apply to a few different jobs and see what happens. As much as I would like to open my own place, I have way too little experience in this field to make it work (at least that's how I feel). Eventually, someday, somewhere, in my dreams...

Anyway, this quarter, I'll be taking a class focused on making chocolates and confections, something that every pastry chef ought to know. Chocolate can be quite temperamental; handle them incorrectly and they can turn into a nightmare.

Day 1, we spent half the class going over the syllabus, and the remaining class time was spent on chopping a HUGE quantity of chocolates...

This is just 10oz. We chopped a total of about 24 oz. My arm was getting tired and a guy in my group pulled a muscle in his forearm while chopping.

On Day 2, Chef instructor showed us how to properly temper chocolate. It must be melted to 122F (for dark chocolate), then seeded with room temp chocolate to cool it down. During this whole time, it has to be stirred constantly while monitoring its temperature.

Chocolate will set within 3 minutes when properly tempered, like the one on the right. Undertempered chocolate will take forever to set, and will not look pretty (i.e. grainy)when it does, like the one on the left.
Then we prepared liquor ganache filling to make truffles. Each of us got to choose our own liquors; I chose Bailey's, although I was hoping we had whiskey, port wine being another option I wanted to try.

Once the ganache cooled, we tabled it to smooth it out, then piped them into mounds. It's too bad they look more like a pile of turd...
We let the mounds rest for a bit more before rolling them into pretty balls.

Now they're ready to be dipped.

Chef showed us how to dip the ganache balls in the chocolate using the dipping fork. There IS a proper way to dip them...we can't just toss them into the melted chocolate and fish them out.

Excess chocolate must be dribbled off to make the truffles perfectly spherical. The one at the top is properly dipped, the one at the bottom is not--characterized by its "foot".
Another thing we got to work on is the pastillage plates. Pastillage is a mixture of gelatin, vinegar, and powdered sugar, similar in texture to fondant. They are not as flexible, and once dry, turns into a ceramic-like object. And although edible, fondant is much, much more palatable.
After being mixed, the pastillage is rolled out onto a dinner plate...

We'll allow them to dry out, which takes about 4 weeks. Once dry, they can be painted with food colors.
We finished our truffles with appropriate garnishing. Since mine was Bailey's, I just did a white chocolate drizzle.

Lovely, aren't they? The top and bottom ones are mine, the center ones are done by a classmate. She used spiced rum in hers.

Next week, we'll be making Anise sticks (which I'm not too excited about...), Dark & Stormies, and Lavender ganache.

Winter Break Part III: Panettone Evolution

I wanted to take advantage of the long winter break and make panettone. The traditional panettone is fairly involved--about a three-day process, that requires preparation of the levain (at least 12 hours, unless there's a very active starter on hand), from which the first dough is made. The first dough is then allowed to ferment for another 12 hours. More ingredients are added into the first dough to make the final dough, which will be baked into the finished product.

The "quick" version involves preparation of the sponge instead of the levain, which cuts down the time drastically to a one-day process. However, the resulting product isn't as flavorful and doesn't have the keeping quality of the natural starter version.

I tried my hand at the sponge method, and was quite successful in producing one of the fluffiest sweet breads I've ever made (I used a recipe from On Baking textbook). Encouraged by this, I tried the natural starter method...only to fail miserably. Even though I baked it for the length of time called for in the recipe, the bread turned out totally underbaked and doughy.

So I went back to using the sponge method. Except when I did it the second time, the dough failed to rise properly. After several hours, I decided to just bake the bread anyway. The result...

A stunted, dense bread, not at all like the one that I baked before. It still tasted good, so I gave it to our family friend, who thought it was one of the best sweet bread that she'd ever had.

Upon reflection, I realized that the water I used was probably too hot and ended up killing the yeast.

So I tried again. This time I remembered to use warm, not hot, water to dissolve the yeast in. Lo and behold...

See the difference?? The second loaf is twice the height of the first one. It tasted great! But it still wasn't as soft and fluffy as I had hoped.

So I tried using a different recipe, from the Advanced Baking&Pastry. The recipe called for a 10-minute fermentation and 30~40-minute resting time. I just let it ferment for an hour. After I punched it down, I divided it into two, and put them into a 6" coffee can. Panettone is traditionally baked in a tall, round pan. I let it proof until it looked almost over-proofed. Maybe that's why it turned out....

...SO tall! I think it was even taller than the On Baking recipe. Granted I baked this in our family friend's gas oven (ours is electric), so that may have made a difference.

And the bread turned out oh-so-soft and fluffy. Exactly like the way I wanted it! Maybe I'll try my hand at the natural starter method next time...

School starts this week--Chocolates and confections. Pretty excited!

New Year's Dessert

While shopping to buy ingredients for our New Year's feast, we came across a lovely basketful of Okinawan purple yams. I believe they're called 'ube' in the Philippines...It's been years since we've had a dessert using these special tubers, so we bought one. We would've gotten more, but we weren't sure about their quality. The ones we've gotten in the past didn't taste like anything, unfortunately.

At home, I steamed the potatoes until very tender. Took maybe 40 minutes...

Broken open. Check out the deep, violet hue!

The potato is sieved instead of pureed in a food processor. I don't know, but somehow, sieving them results in uber smooth texture that a food processor doesn't quite match. This purple yam was very stiff and dry, indicating its high starch content.

Once sieved, it turned into a very thick, stiff paste. Which meant that it's a great vehicle for cream and sugar :)

I whipped some heavy cream and sugar into the paste to make the purple yam cream. From this, I made two kinds of desserts...

New Year's Dessert I: Purple Yam Choux Cream. Golden choux pastry shell filled with purple yam, garnished with whipped cream and chestnut compote. The chestnuts btw, were given to us by sister when she came to visit. I turned them into compote and they turned out quite tasty.

New Year's Dessert II: Mont Violet. A variation of Mont Blanc. For the base, vanilla chiffon nestled in the tuile cup; whipped cream center; finished with ropes of the purple yam cream, more whipped cream and chestnut compote. Turned out quite delicious!

I'm starting to get bored...I can't wait til school starts next week!

Happy New Year!!

Happy New Year!

Mom and I prepared a traditional Japanese New Year's feast (called osechi), few days before the Eve. It's a great way to keep and maintain the traditions.

First off, I decided to try my hand at making datemaki, an egg omelett roulade. Mom's recipe involved making a meringue with one egg white and folding that into the rest of the batter to give it a fluffy texture. The whole thing is baked in 360F for about 20 minutes.

In the process of rolling it into a roulade. The omelett is first rolled loosely to gradually ease it into a rolled shape. That way, it's less likely to break.

Finished roulade. Rolled nice and tightly.

We spent the entire day of the New Year's Eve on making the rest of the feast. The finished food is arranged in a pretty lacquered box, called ju-bako.

First Tier: kuromame(black soy beans), kinton(sweet yam pate), datemaki(egg omelett roulade), nishiki-tamago(bi-color egg), kamaboko(fish cake)

Second Tier: kohaku-namasu(carrots and daikon slaw), tako-sunomono(octopus-seaweed salad), suzuke (red cabbage pickle)

Third Tier: nishime(braised taro roots), iri-dori(braised chicken & veggies), kombu-maki(salmon wrapped with kombu)

The tiers are then stacked neatly.

The year 2011 has been an eventful year. Many people died from the earthquake and tsunami in Japan. My cat died. My uncle passed away. We finally got to visit my sister and her fam.

I had a bittersweet Christmas. And another bittersweet experience followed the day after, which I'm not going to mention.

I have a feeling that this year, 2012, is going to be the year of redemption and reconciliation. The year that I/we make amends for the past and tie up loose ends. Who knows? Maybe the world will really end on December 21 of this coming year.