Da New Executive Pastry Chef...

Our Executive Pastry Chef resigned a month or two ago.  He had accepted a position somewhere in Napa Valley as a group pastry chef.  All of us were pretty sad to see him go.  Then a few weeks later, the new exec arrived...and things have been quite interesting since then.

Definitely a lot of changes in the menu.  He pretty much wiped out everything the previous chef had implemented, replacing the pastries with his own creations.

First up, replacing the Black & White Berry Tart, is the Fruit Strip.  Sounds kinda sexy...
A big strip of puff pastry is baked off, then shmeared with pastry cream.  It then gets loaded with fruits.  And our new chef likes to emphasize the "loaded" part of this pastry.  I'll get into that later...

After finishing with apricot glaze, the rims are dusted with snow sugar, then cut.

Very pretty and colorful.
He then redid the previous chef's eclairs.  He first baked them off topped with what's called a craquelin--something very similar to a shortbread dough, sheeted out to 1.5mm thickness.  After filling them with cream, he finished by glazing them with--*GROAN*--fondant.

I honestly don't know of anyone who actually likes fondant.  As a matter of fact, most people I know don't like fondant at all.  Just sayin'...

This is our brand new pastry item, da Raspberry Cream Puff.  A choux puff (again baked with craquelin) filled with pastry cream, raspberries, whipped cream.

Our amenity cakes got a makeover as well.  Instead of the buttercream frosting, we are now glazing the chocolate mousse cake with black glaze and garnishing with crapload of chocolate decor.

 

The anniversary cakes got a similar makeover;  glazed on top, garnished with (again) crapload of chocolate decor.

There are still more new things, more changes.  It's gonna be a bit tough adjusting to all these changes and new things...

My first Utah State Fair...

All these years I've lived in Utah...I've never been to the state fair.  Or any state fair for that matter.  I've heard stories about it, how there are lots of farm animals, contests, crafts, and fried everything.  So when my friend invited me to go with her family (her dad had entered some vegetables in the contest), I was more than happy to join them to check it out.
We first stopped at a building that held all the crafts and culinary (...!!!) contests.

I. WANT.THIS. QUILT. This is the most creative quilt design I've ever seen!
There were also baked goods entries.  Some of the categories included yeast breads, quick breads, cookies, sourdough breads, etc...

 

What kinda bugged me was the judging criteria.  I mean, look at this banana bread--it totally collapsed!  And yet it won second place???  ...Well, as much as I would love to enter something in next year, I feel like I would be cheating for some reason...

We went outside to a light drizzle;  the glitzy, blingy ferris wheel jutting out into a grey, dingy sky.  There were plenty of games and rides typical of amusement parks.

But we couldn't forget why we were there to begin with.  My friend's dad had entered a vegetable (an Asian eggplant) so we had to see how he did...

Tomatoes after tomatoes after tomatoes. The entire place were filled with tables strewn with vegetables of all sorts...

...including this mutant carrot. This particular one won first place in the "Oddity" category.

 

Giant pumpkin contest.  The winner weighed 620 lbs.

 



Then we spotted her dad's eggplant...which had won first place!  Congrats!

We then ventured into the farm animal section.  Some were on sale, including this adorable bunny.

 

 

 

The barn had your usual farm animals; cows, pigs, sheep, goats, etc. 

 

The piglets were just so cute. And curious. One was so curious that it pressed its snout up against my phone right when I was about to snap a photo.

Every year, a local sculptor makes a sculpture...using a solid block of butter.  Impressive isn't it?

State fair was fun!  My friend encouraged me to enter some baked goods next year but...that's a definitive maybe.



High Tea at the Grand America

Hello all...nice to be back to blogging after two months of break.  Sorry, life has been hectic, with 8~12 hour shift workdays.  Man, we are busy!

 

Anyway, my last post (way back in August...) was about amenities for VIP guests.  After I'm done preparing for those, I prepare for the afternoon high tea.

 

During the High Tea, the guests are offered several selection of teas, tea sandwiches, strawberries with whipped cream, and assorted pastries.  The banquet kitchen prepares the sandwiches so I don't know what's being served.  But here are the tea pastries that we make...

 

We serve three kinds of baked goods, three kinds of pate de fruit (fruit pectin jellies), and three kinds of cold desserts.
In this picture--from the back, three flavors of pate de fruit: passionfruit, sour apple, and strawberry flavors.  The raspberry-filled linzer cookies are one of the baked goods.

The other two baked goods are scones and madeleines.  The scones are served with Devonshire cream, which is made with mascarpone and cream whipped together.

Our cold desserts.  From the back, Strawberry-Pistachio Bars, Praline bars, and Lemon-Meringue tartlets.  The Strawberry-Pistachio bars are alternating layers of strawberry mousse and pistachio dacquoise.  Praline bars are layers of crispy feuilletine-praline and chocolate mousse. My mom fell in love with these guys.  The Lemon-meringue tartlets are mini tartlet shells filled with raspberry jam and lemon cream.  We have to make all these from scratch--as in , bake off the dacquoise base, then make the mousse to assemble.  My pastry skills have improved significantly over the past few months.  With the upcoming holiday season, things are sure to get even busier...