Pumpkin Chocolate Mendiant - Happy Thanksgiving!

For Thanksgiving this year, I decided to present something along the lines of individual plated desserts versus a single cake. It was a lot more work, but a fun way to make use of my pastry school education. Plus, I needed to make up for the time that my pumpkin chocolate tiramisu failed to make it to the holiday gathering (in retrospect, that recipe I used was all sorts of wrong).

This dessert has a base disc of flourless hazelnut chocolate cake, a layer of pumpkin pastry cream, a layer of pumpkin-chocolate crème légère (basically the pumpkin pastry cream mixed with melted chocolate, frangelico and whipped cream), and a topping of mascarpone whipped cream. On the side is a cranberry compote, made with whole frozen cranberries, sugar, lemon juice, frangelico and a little corn starch to pull it together.

The dark chocolate cage was the most involved step. Fortuitously, my dad had 3" PVC pipe lying around, so we sawed that into short rings for holding the cylindrical shape while the tempered chocolate set. Family teamwork!

I'm only calling this a mendiant because that is the name of a similar dessert we made in pastry school. Obviously it is not the same as the chocolate confection also known as the mendiant, but I have yet to figure out a better name.

Pastry School Recap | Unit 1 - Tarts & Cookies

Since I’ve been so delinquent in posting about pastry school, I’ve decided that in addition to recapping the experience, I should also recreate something representative of each unit. 

Here is “Unit 1 - Tarts & Cookies”, a.k.a. learning how to multi-task and break bad habits. During this first unit, we learned three basic tart doughs (pâte brisée (flaky), pâte sucrée (sweet), pâte sablée (sandy/shortbread)), a multitude of custards and other fillings, and the basics of finishing and decorating a tart. Cookies could almost be considered a filler topic, but they were a perfect fit for this unit considering the similar techniques for mixing and baking. 

To pay homage to this unit, I decided to see what happens if I take a traditional nut tart (tarte aux noix) and convert it into empanadas. The nut tart we made in class consists of pâte brisée dough formed in a tart ring, lined with raspberry jam and sliced almonds, and baked with a nut flour filling (almond cream, hazelnut and almond flours, French meringue). This was actually the tart I received on my unit exam (on the left):

For the empanadas, I rolled and cut the dough into 4-5" circles, spread the jam and sliced almonds, and then folded and sealed the empanadas with the nut flour filling inside.

Someone should make this into the next cupcake or macaron fad and call it "Sweet 'Nadas". Just a thought! 

I baked these at 350˚F for about 30 minutes. The filling poked out on a couple empanadas, but otherwise the end result was better than I expected! The crust was flaky and buttery, the sliced almonds had a nice crunch, and the filling retained the nut tart's depth of flavor from the nut flours and tangy raspberry jam. In fact, the taste of this might have been even better than the nut tart since each bite had two layers of flaky crust and raspberry jam instead of one.

Getting back to pastry school itself, what was our crash-course introduction to pastry school like? Well, here is my vague, but I think accurate, recollection of Unit 1 - Tarts & Cookies:

Each night of Tarts & Cookies, we had to complete two, three, even four desserts, all in progress simultaneously. Accomplishing this required doing our homework (assigned reading on techniques and recipes), coming to class prepared with an understanding of the steps that would have to be accomplished during the 5-hour class period, keeping track of tasks and timing, learning to prioritize when inevitably we fell behind schedule, somehow always maintaining a clean tabletop . . . and at the same time learning about food safety and handling in order to obtain our ServSafe certification. 

Let's not forget the most important task: following Chef's instructions, or risk getting yelled at. This last part is a lot harder than you would think when you have all of the above to keep in mind and are asking yourself things like: "Does mixing on "low speed" mean speed 2 or 3? Does it matter? How exactly do I turn the bowl with my left hand while folding with my right hand? How far do I turn the bowl, 90˚ or 180˚? Do I zest a lemon by holding it on top of the microplane and moving the fruit back and forth, or the other way around? What does Chef mean to 'bake until it's done'? When is something 'done'? Am I the only person thinking this? Do I look stupid?"

The lesson I learned at the end of the day is, stop wasting time thinking about these silly things and just start doing. Chef will certainly correct me if I'm screwing up. And, at the end of the day, once I started understanding the technique and developing a "baker's instinct", what really mattered was just doing what was effective, efficient, and least likely to give me carpal tunnel syndrome ;)

A few of my favorites from Unit 1:

Apple Tart (Tarte aux Pommes): Made during the first two nights of class! Pâte Sucree crust, apple compote, sliced apples and nappage glaze.

Fresh Fruit Tart (Tarte aux Fruits Frais): pâte sucrée crust, pastry cream filling, fresh fruit and nappage glaze.

Pear and Almond Tart, Bourdaloue Style (Tarte Bourdaloue): pâte brisée crust, almond cream filling, poached pears, sliced almonds and nappage glaze.

Fig Newtons!

Milo | The Tahoe Adventurer

Milo has always been a great travel dog. He loves road trips, sticking his head out the window, and pretty much just going wherever I go because it sure beats bumming around on the couch. And I've always known he enjoys the outdoors (in his must-sniff-every-nook-and-cranny sort of way). But usually dirt hikes end up with burrs or pine needles stuck in his fluffy paws and plaintive looks up at me to spare him the discomfort and carry him the rest of the way.

So, I knew he would be enjoy a recent trip to South Lake Tahoe, but I was pleasantly surprised at the ease with which he jumped up and down rocks on a steep hike and eagerly splish-splashed into Eagle Lake. His cotton hair sure soaked up that water.

He couldn't wait to explore and his big black eyes weren't pleading with me to pick him up—no, those accusing eyes looked back at me like I was holding him back from his adventure!

I'm proud of this pup and look forward to many more adventures ahead.

Pastry School - I'm a graduate!

On August 27, 2013, I received my diploma for completing the Classical Pastry Arts program at the International Culinary Center in Campbell, CA. In other words, I graduated from pastry school!

Over the course of 10 months, we learned the fundamentals, techniques and creativity that go into tarts, cookies, pâte à choux, puff pastry, viennoiserie and certain breads, cakes, petit fours, chocolate, sugar sculptures and plated desserts. I hoped to document the experience as I went, but life and work got in the way. Instead, I now hope to reflect back and recap the challenges and triumphs throughout the experience, and ultimately share the joy of it all.

The experience was a dream come true for me, the sort of thing where I used to say “man, if money didn’t matter, if social and parental expectations didn’t matter, and I pursued what I was passionate about, I’d go be a pastry chef.” Eventually, I got to the point where I asked myself, “why not?” Life is too short to watch days, months, years go by wishing you were doing something else. And as some of you know, when I choose to commit to something, I like to do it right and do it well. That is what brought me to ICC.

I knew that I would have to manage my own expectations. It was hard enough to be an attorney at a big law firm, with very little control over my workflow and schedule. Sometimes I would work more at night and over the weekends than I did during the day. Sometimes the long hours meant I didn’t sleep, and other times I twiddled my thumbs. I hadn’t taken a vacation in 2 years. Adding on ~20 hours a week of school (MWF 6-11pm, plus some reading and studying and the rush hour commute) was insanity. But as I learned in college, sometimes the more you have on your plate, the more focused and efficient you become. I just crossed my fingers, reminded myself that my happiness was just as or more important than year-end bonuses or perfect grades, and committed.

Crazy or not, this was the most personal and meaningful diploma of the 4 I now have (I do plan to stop . . . 4 is quite enough). I feel lucky and grateful to have been at a place in life where I could afford myself this opportunity. Was it worth it? Unconditionally, yes! Stay tuned folks, I look forward to telling you more about these past 10 months.

A Wedding Croquembouche - Congrats Stephandy!

A croquembouche is a traditional French dessert found at celebrations such as weddings. The name of the dessert comes from the French words, croque en bouche, meaning 'crunch in the mouth'. The dessert is basically a conical tower of profiteroles (choux pastry filled with pastry cream or crème légère), held together by caramel. A traditional base for the presentation is nougatine (caramel and sliced almonds), and decorations can include caramel, sprinkles, ganache, flowers, and more.

When my friend Stephanie saw the photo of a croquembouche we made in class, she asked if I would make one for her wedding in April. I was honored, but intimidated! After some careful planning and a little bit of practice, I'm happy to share some photos of what I hope was a generally successful attempt. My only regret is that I made this purely for decorative purposes (in part because I don't have a commercial kitchen and in part because I had to do a red-eye drive to transport the components from NorCal to SoCal) and thus only filled the bottom two rows of cream puffs. Had I known there would be so much interest in actually eating this, and had I known that caramelized isomalt would hold up so effectively and not soften like caramelized granulated sugar often does, I might have been brave enough to fill every cream puff.

The base was the most challenging piece. After nougatine is cooked and poured, you literally have a matter of seconds or minutes to cut and shape (less when using isomalt as in my case). Once it hardens, it would have to be reheated in the oven to soften enough for molding. And unfortunately, the standard home oven is not large enough for a full sheet pan or the length of nougatine that is necessary to form the ring. Fortunately I stocked up on isomalt and almonds and got this right after a couple attempts. I also used nougatine for the decoration on top.

The flowers are a mix of hand-painted (but pre-made, store-bought) gumpaste flowers, and hand-made fondant-gumpaste roses and carnations. The color scheme for the wedding was pomegranate, citron and gold, which I think I captured in these flowers. I hope to learn how to make the wired gumpaste flowers from scratch in the near future, but given the limited time I had, these ones from Michael's worked well.

Isomalt does caramelize but does not darken in color as much as granulated sugar does. I liked the lighter, clearer color for coating the cream puffs and gluing the pieces together, as you can worry less about drips and uniformity (just don't eat too much of it). Isomalt is also more stable in that it absorbs less moisture and is less likely to get sticky and "melt" when sitting out. Adding a small amount of granulated sugar provides color (and control over the color). For the spun sugar, I used a greater amount of granulated sugar to get a more golden color.

This was a beast to make, but I am so glad I took on the challenge and was thrilled to share in the celebration of a beautiful young couple.