Sweet Treats!

Sweet Treats! , originally uploaded by FinasZ.

Okay so today was another one of my killer days, 3 classes in a row starting at noon going all the way till about 10pm. The day started out as usual, waking up, getting dressed, etc and off to school I went. Today was a pretty cool day in demo; we were doing ice cream like dishes and a soufflé glace. What was even cooler was the fact that the chef was using one of those ice cream machines, man he said that a good house hold one can cost up to 1000 dollars WOW! The dishes that the chef showed us were glace café, crème glace vanilla, sorbet, granite, soufflé glace and cigarettes aux amandes. The glace café and crème glace vanilla were quite similar, since you start both off with a crème anglais. Sorbet was pretty easy to make too, you need to first make simple syrup (water and sugar bring to a boil), add lime, add to a tourbine (ice cream machine name in French), add egg whites when almost done, freeze again and then serve. Granite was a lot simpler than the three above, all you really have to do is make simple syrup, put it into a large pan, freeze and then serve when ready. Making the dough for the cigarettes aux amandes is really easy too, but actually baking it and giving it some shape looked a bit hard. The hardest out of all of the recipes is the soufflé glace, the process is quite easy, but the actual work involved is really tiring. To make the soufflé you need to make 3 different types of crème, first a whipped crème, then a meringue, then a sabayon and mix the three of them. You also need to make some candied oranges to go along as decorating; the cigarettes aux amandes is also part of the decoration. So the ingredients in making the different crèmes are really simple, the method needed to make them is pretty simple too, the extremely hard part is constantly whisking the crèmes. Yes I know it doesn’t seem so hard right? But it strains your arm a heck of a lot, I thought ok I’m a strong guy maybe I can last quite a while before tiring. Turns out I lasted maybe 2 minutes of constant whipping with each hand before they became too tired. After finishing the 3 crème I thought my arms were going to fall off. So I mixed the 3 together and it made this nice, smooth, velvety texture. When I was done placing my soufflé into the ramekin, I tried a bit of it WOW it was sooo good!!!! After an enjoyable demonstration and practical class, we had a seminar on hygiene, some of the things they mentioned was I’m guessing common sense to some, but not to all. I did however learn a few things about what temperature cooked meat should be kept at and about dealing with leftovers.

After a long day I’m pretty spent, but I still love every minute I’m at school. These past few days of class have been great and I’m looking forward to even more great days.

Cigarettes aux Amandes

Candied Oranges