Chef de Partie Tasting

Way back in August, my boss (the Exec Pastry Chef) told me and two of my coworkers that he needed two Chef de Partie to replace the former sous chef (who had been fired...apparently he blew up on one of the banquet staff in front of our guests), to help him run the kitchen.  There were three candidates, but he could only pick two--so we were to have a tasting (basically a culinary competition) to decide the two people who will get the position.

We were all pretty stoked!  But I didn't want to this be like a "competition" of any sorts.  To me, it was a fun challenge that allows us to utilize EVERY skill that we have learned so far.

Our agenda--prep and make a tiered cake, a plated dessert, and and a banquet dessert.

He let us know about a month in advance, so all of us had plenty of time to think and come up with whatever we wanted.

I first started by making a list of flavors that I wanted to incorporate: chocolates, nuts, fruits, etc.

Then I consulted the Flavor Bible (pretty much my go-to reference book for flavor combos) and grouped the flavors that go well together.

For the tiered cake, I wanted to pay respect to my heritage by incorporating Japanese flavors and elements to the cake:  green tea and yuzu.  I came up with a sakura cherry blossom design for the cake--pink, flowery, and very Japanese.  This is the result...

Three-tier fondant cake.  Top tier is vanilla cake with green tea bavarian cream filling, bottom tier is vanilla cake with yuzu cremeux filling. I made origami fondant cranes and isomalt sugar heart decor for the cake topper.  Everything is made by hand.

For the banquet dessert, I made a miniature version of the Whiskey Hazelnut Dome that I made way, way back in culinary school.  That was an entremet that I actually liked...and so did most people that sampled it.

The actual dome itself consisted of chocolate biscuit base with crispy praline feuilletine, and milk chocolate-hazelnut mousse spiked with whiskey, with layers of salted dark chocolate discs inside.  I tweaked mine a bit, by substituting hazelnut dacquoise for the biscuit and caramelized hazelnut for the feuilletine.  I omitted the chocolate discs, instead making a salted caramel cremeux insert inside the mousse. I wanted sort of this "galactic" feel to the dessert, so I molded it in a silicone cone mold.

Here is the "Galaxy", in all its glory.  Finished with dark chocolate glaze, gold and silver edible glitter sprayed on for the "milky way" effect.  Caramel sauce, almond-cream filled cherry and fresh fruits for garnish.  

And that's right...because I substituted the biscuit with dacquoise and feuilletine with hazelnuts, this very decadent beauty is gluten-free!

For my plated dessert, I wanted a contrasting flavor to the Galaxy.  Something a little lighter, something fruity.  Also, I knew that my boss will be one of the judges for the tasting, so I figured using a flavor that he likes will definitely get his attention :)  His favorite flavor?  Blood orange.  Or anything citrus really.  I also wanted to use this bag of Valrhona Dulcey, the blonde chocolate, that has been sitting in the dry storage, ignored, for quite some time.  Blood orange and the caramel-y flavor profile of Dulcey goes very well together.  With these flavors, an almond-flavor base will bring them both together.

So this is what I came up with...

 "Sanguine".  Valrhone Dulcey chocolate mousse with red cocoa butter spray for that velvety texture, with a pool of salted blood orange cremeux adorning its crown, all atop a disc of moist almond financier.  Coconut sorbet added a refreshing accent to the desserts...along with four different kinds of sauce.  Yep, four kinds of sauce.  Caramel, basil-lime, yuzu, and lychee.  It was very fruity indeed.

All of us prepped the entire for the big presentation day.  On the day, we plated everything we had prepped, and took them to the Oak Room, a dining hall usually reserved for VIP guests and special events.  We were told that there will be three judges--the Exec Pastry Chef, Executive Chef, and the Director of Food and Beverage.  So we were quite surprised when, after we set the plates down, the Chef de Cuisine, his sous chef, and several other food and beverage managers showed up!  Granted, they were probably just there to sample the desserts, not judge/make any decisions on who gets the Chef de Partie position.  But all in all, there were maybe about eight people (instead of the original three) tasting our desserts...
Everyone did an awesome job!  Unfortunately, one of my coworker's mousse cake dessert apparently didn't have enough gelatin in it...and started melting even before the tasting started.

As for the result? Well...

...pretty much five out of the six plates that I prepared had been licked clean.
And I ended up getting the position!  :D

As far as the position, I now have a bit more responsibility, to make sure that everything at the pastry shop is stocked (to the best of my ability), everything is prepped for the High tea, and the pastry for the VIP amenities.

Gotta admit, I definitely didn't mind the raise either.

OMGanache!!!

Seriously, has it been freakin' almost a YEAR since I wrote something in my blog???
I gotta say though, this year has been...very eventful.

Last year's Christmas/holidays were insanely busy, and I was doing around 10~12 hours per day at work.  Things have finally settled down (or so I thought) and I remember actually going home on time the day I last updated the blog.  Then the Valentine's Day hit, and right after that was Easter and Mother's Day.... while my (now former) partner/coworker took--not one, but TWO--2-week long vacation during this time, one of the busiest time of the year.  Which meant extra overtime for me.

Things settled down after Mother's Day.  I took some well-deserved time off to go on a weekend trip with my (then) boyfriend to Lava Hot Springs.  We went hiking up a trail, but hit a dead-end half way up the mountain.  Too bad I didn't have my phone with me--the view was breathtaking!  The valley was covered with velvety carpet of green dotted with farmhouses and stores, with blocks of farm land here and there, spooned by lightly snow-capped mountain ranges on the opposite side.  It was a scenery straight out of children's story book.  We stood there and talked about random things...when all of a sudden, my boyfriend blurts out, "So...this dating thing?  It's not working out."

....Judging from his facial expression, I figured he was just kidding.  At the same time, I thought to myself,

"...OK, the punchline had better be DAMN good or I may have to smack him."

That's when he got down on his knee and proposed to me!! :D

Of course I said yes!

Once we got back from the trip, most of the time was spent planning on the wedding.

I decided to have the wedding at my work, a luxurious 5-star hotel;  of course, I was putting my employee discount to a full use. ;)  I also kept it a secret from my coworkers;  right after the ceremony/reception, my plan was to have the banquet captain call the kitchen to announce that the bride would like to personally thank the staff for their hospitality, go down to the kitchen, and surprise the crap out of everybody.  Besides, I would avoid all the annoying questions and drama (when's the date?  Did you pick a dress?? Flowers??? How many people??? Planning on kids?? Lemme see the RING!!!)

So I kept it a secret during the entire 5 months of our engagement...and it was well worth it.
My boss's face when I showed up in my wedding dress along with my guests (we had an immediate family-only ceremony, which turned out to be an intimate group of 17 people) was...priceless.  For the first few minutes, he stood there dumbfounded with "WTF" face!

Then pretty much right after the wedding...I found out that I'm pregnant.  I'm now about 12 weeks along!

Here's a shot of my belly at 12 weeks.  There is a bit of a pooch developing in my lower abdomen...

So as you can see, it has been a busy, eventful year.  We haven't gone on a honeymoon yet, so we're planning on a honeymoon/babymoon very, very soon.