This week I switched to morning labs - had to be in the kitchen at 6 am...that was a little bit of a schock to my system, I must admit. Woke early this week to snow, although it's hard to see when it's that dark out...luckily I don't have far to go - just have to scurry from the Chateau to the kitchens in the next building...
Here's the view from our kitchen window...as it gets a little later in the morning and a little lighter, we watch Yssingeaux get blanketed with snow while we work!
This week we learned multiple techiniques for making a variety of sugars, candies, confections and bonbons. Chef Pierre was a great guy - easy going and full of great tips and tricks, including some interesting details on the science of why things work the way they do in confectionary.
We worked each day to make trays of confections, working with sugar, cream, nuts, dried fruits, chocolate, fruit purees, gelatin and many other tasty ingredients.
We made some very traditional French confections such Pralines Rouges - almonds surrounded by a crunchy, sugared coating....
...nougat (almonds and pistachios embedded in a chewy, sugary white base)...
...and fruit deguises (flavored almond paste, or marzipan) which is surrounded by dried/candied fruits and nuts)...
...and then dipped into a hot sugar mix, leaving it with a glistening, crunchy coating.
To contrast with these very traditional confections, we tried our hand at some more modern and whimisical treats...
...such as bonbons gelifies - a cross between a Gummi Bear and a Sour Patch kid - a flavored gel cast in a mold and then covered in a sugar (sweet) and citric acid (tart) mix...
...and lollipops...seriously, how can you have a bad day when you get to make lollipops in class?
And, of course, we worked with chocolate - instead of focusing on tempering chocolate, this week we learned how to craft different types of chocolate treats and learned various techniques for decorating them (that's means we go to use the chocolate machine - YIPPEE!!).
We made molded chocolate bonbons - bonbons moules framboise - an amazing chocolate delight -- a rich, deep chocolate-raspberry ganache center surrounded by a milk chocolate coating...
We also learned to dip chocolate...first we made a pistachio/almond paste, which we rolled out and then dipped in milk chocolate...
...next we made a second dipped-chocolate treat - this time it was a roasted almond and hazelnut paste that was rolled out, dipped in dark chocolate and finished off with an applique consisting of our ENSP logo.
There is alot of science behind making confections - and one of the most important things is cooking your candy to the correct temperature...
If you hit just the right temperature, your caramel is soft, smooth and easy to cut into pieces...
...unfortunately, I learned the hard way that just one or two degrees too hot can leave you with a hard, brittle caramel! Oh well!
One of the other great things about this week is that it was fun...you got to play with fun shapes, colors and cool gadgets! We made one of my husbands favorites - Pate de fruits - or fruit pastes. These are yummy little squares of fruit flavor - they're quite simple to make using fruit purees, sugar, pectin and citric acid. You cast the fruit mix into a square mold - and, when it has gelled, you cut it into squares using this nifty gadget called a guitar - it uses wires to slice through all sorts of candies and sweets......
...leaving you with nice, even squares that you then toss in sugar.
Our other super-fun adventure was making marshmellows -- or guimauves, in French - in bright colors and fun flavors such as lavender, cassis, and absinthe...big, fluffy clouds of sugar and egg whites that turned into light, airy, spongy treats...
...these delicate masses were then cut on the guitar and tossed in a mixture of powdered sugar and cornstarch.
So, finally it was the end of the week and we started getting ready for our buffet. We had an entire rack full of trays and trays of confections - the job now was to get them ready for viewing (and tasting) by our peers and chef instructors. It was a team effort, with everyone working to put together a beautiful display...assembling tray after tray of colorful sweet treats...
Chef Pierre even made us a chocolate display stand for our lollipops...
And finally, the buffet was ready. Quite frankly, we were thrilled - our class loved it! It was fun, colorful, tasty - a mix of traditonal flavors and colors, with some new, modern and fun elements thrown in...we were pretty proud!
Well -- don't say I didn't warn you - I told you this was going to be a long post! But, now you see why I couldn't help myself - these pictures, these confections and this week deserved it's due! It was a great week - I feel like I really learned alot, mastered some basic confectionary techniques and had a blast! Our confiserie were pretty, tasty and fun - what more could you want?
