DAY 44

OFFICAL COUNTDOWN TILL MY BIRTHDAY: 6 days
The desserts that were making today are Moelleux chaud au chocolat, (which is one of my favorite desserts) but this one also has Thyme ice cream, Roasted Figs stuffed with amaretti macaroons, and fruit salad with sauternes wine. We started with the figs dessert, we first had to take out the meat of the figs and mixed it with the amaretti macaroons and some other things and then piped it back into the figs. Here we put the figs into a pan sprinkled them with sugar, to give it a crunch (culinary tip: every well done dessert has more than one texture) and then put some butter all around (so the figs would stay soft) put it in the oven and then went onto the other desserts. The next was the chocolate cake aka. Moelleux chaud au chocolat, but this is no ordinary chocolate cake, this is the one that has the chocolate sauce inside. The secret to the recipe is the eggs, it says to whisk them for 10min straight, which I did, by hand, my arm literally fell off, lol not really but you get the point. They reason how I now that the eggs (and how lond you whisk them) is we were put into two groups and the other one didn't beat the eggs for 10min and theirs was more liquidy and lighter in color. We then put the molds on the tray and got the pre-cut parchment paper put some beaten eggs (like when making scrambled eggs) on with a paint brush and then laid them on the sugar. We put the parchment paper in the molds with the egg/sugar on the inside. Then put the chocolate mixture in pastry bags into the molds and into the oven. The last recipe was simple, and fast so we made it to eat on our tea and coffee We took all the different fruits and made a pretty design with them and then poured the white wine so there was about a 1/4 in of wine, then put it into the fridge for a moment. We cleaned up the kitchen and then took out the stuff for tea and coffee. After everyone had gotten their drink we took the fruit plates out of the fridge and added a scoop of milk ice cream, and no it wasn't vanilla ice cream it was MILK ice cream. This is beacuse we want the ice cream for the dessert but we don't want to take away from the tastes of the fruits and wine. After the break we took the chocolate cake out of the oven and then decorated the plate put a scoop of thyme ice cream on and then put the cake on. Now this may sound easy, but moving the cake was sort of tricky and also very hot. See we can't take the mold off till the cake is on the plate (otherwise the cake will fall apart) You take a metal spatuala and slide it underneath the cake making sure that you don't puncture the bottom, then, while burning your fingers, hold the top of the mold put it onto the plate and then slide the mold off the cake. The trick to this cake is that you have to serve it right away otherwise the inside (were the liquid is) will keep cooking and will congile and then when you cut into it there will be no sauce, but a solid cake. Finishing eating the cake we take the figs out of the oven and place them in another pan will we let the sauce on the bottom of the original pan keep cooking a bit (we want it to reduce a little bit). A couple of minutes later we take the, now, sauce out of the oven. We put a couple of figs in out plate and some sauce and ice cream and then eat eat, which of course is the best part, lol.

The Thursday Evening Class:
Since today is a Thursday we also have the evening class as well. Todays topic was flour, if your wondering how we could talk about flour for a little over 2 hours and not repeat our selves, well you can. It's much easier than you think, there are so many different things to talk about. In the class we covered what flour is, the composition of flour, wheat flour (which is the only true flour), and the different types of flour. The introduction to flour is basically what most people know about flour. You know stuff like what things flour is used in, and why we use flour (what qualities help us in cooking a certain item), etc... Then the compostion of flour; which is 1.Startch 2.Water 3.Gluten 4.Sugar 5.Fat Content 6.Minerals 7.Vitamins. Then we talked about Wheat Flour concentrating on the different types of wheat flour (yes there are different types of wheat flour, not just different types of flour) Just to name a few: type 545, type 150, type 80, type 55 (tart dough, pastries, minced meat), type 45 (puff pastry, brioche, risen dough), fluid/strained (creams, pancakes or crepes), extra fluid (sauces, thickening), and pastry (pizzas, brownies). The next was how flour is made. How it goes from the fields to your kitchen for cooking. First we talked about how it was done at first, you know with horses or a water mill, then how they do it now a days, with machines. The last thing we talked about was the different types of flour, now there are numorous kinds, but we focused on ten different kinds, they are: 1.Barley Flour 2.Oatmeal Flour 3.Corn Flour 4.Buckwheat Flour 5.Rice Flour 6.Rye Flour 7.Soy Flour 8.Potato Flour 9.Gluten Four 10.Millet


Warm Desserts Always Welcome!!