Cake Class

Okay, I have to admit I haven't been pouring a ton of time into the blog recently. I do apologize about that, but in my defense we've done nothing but genois cake these first 2 weeks of class. Genois is a low-fat cake that takes 4 years of whipping egg yolks and sugar over a double boiler until really foamy and then folded with cake flour. That's it and that's all. There is nothing in this cake. Not surprising, it's a tad try and doesn't so much thrill the taste buds. It is, however good as a practice cake for frosting correctly. Some of you may not know that there is a right way and a wrong way to frost a cake. Example:
Right way

Wrong way
(actually I just made an error and added a half batch amount of butter to a full batch of butter cream oops, but it gets the point across.)

Edges like shoulders. Sides and top smooth as a baby's butt! This is what I've been doing for the past two weeks. I can show you different pictures, but you'll swear they're all the same cake, so I'm not going to. I have been improving on my smoothing skills. And, as my sister reminded me, this is where all those years of meticulously spreading of the cream cheese onto the bagel until it's perfectly even come in handy. THE CHEESE HAS TO BE EVEN! I WON'T EAT THE BAGEL UNTIL IT'S EVEN! (everybody has there weird food thing)
So, things aren't so exciting right now, but I'll try to keep an update. We may get a lesson on boarders tomorrow, perhaps I'll have more pidazzle then.

Another Ending

We finished with our Custards class last Friday. I have to say, I'm pretty excited to be done with it. Some of you may remember my previous rant on hating eggs with a passion few people even know they have. Well, had I still felt that way when I entered this class....well, lets just say dimensions would have imploded. I can't even begin to explain the number of cases of eggs we went through over the past weeks. The amount of poultry in general this school goes through must keep at least five chicken farms in business. It boggles the mind.
So! We had our final practical on Friday and I'm happy to say, despite some annoying classmates, it turned out well! I did a parody of the famous Black and White New York Cookie. I don't know where this idea came from, but it's done well. It's a fairly simple Chocolate and Vanilla Bavarian Cream Charlotte. The sponge was adjusted to have more of a shortbread flavor, as the cookie does. I used brown sugar for part of the recipe and folded in 2 ounces of butter to give it an additional creaminess. It turned out really nicely. The presentation was fun as well. I just made a chocolate sauce for the bottom and spread the top with white and dark melted chocolate. I was very pleased with the end product. My instructor was as well, because I got 100%! Woo! A good ending to a slightly discomforting lesson involving being elbow deep in egg yolks every morning!

Strange Cake

L'Exotique.This cake here. She may look impressive and she may act impressive, but her taste. Her taste is totally something I've never experienced before and not particularly in a good way. This is basically an example of Hawaiian frilly drink in cake form. The colorful outer layer is a sponge that has been dyed. Those crazy designs you see are my fingers meandering through the batter. It's filled with a mousse consisting of tropical flavors including passion fruit, mango, and coconut. While this may sound exciting and wonderful to some of you, I must confess that my taste buds fulling rejected this as something of a dessert with a personality crisis.
There are just too many flavors packed into this thing. Did I mention the top is smooth because it's been covered in passion fruit flavored ganache. Two great tastes that taste great together!? No. No no no no. No no. You don't understand how contrary the tartness of the fruit is with the creaminess of the chocolate. The moment this cake hit my tongue, my taste buds message to the brain was (and I quote) " Ummm. Well gosh. I, uhh. I, uhh.... You know what I quit. This just isn't working out for me." And off they went to find some Coffee and a sugar cookie.
This cake is, out of this world, strange.
That's all I have to say about that.