Mystery Box!

I appologize again for not posting daily this week. I've been so burnt out! Gah! but I have loads to dish about! First, lets go over what i did this week:

Tuesday: We made the base for ice cream and sorbet last week and we needed to present them on tuesday. We were given free reign over the flavors. So i made a hazlenut chocolate ice cream swirled in with almond butter. For the sorbet, i made an orange/pomogrante with some balsamic vinegar! We had to bake the approptiate "vessels" for each. For the ice cream we made a tuile cookie in any shape we wanted to contain our single scoop of ice cream. We also had to present two sauces so i made an almond creme anglaise and an almond gastrique (a reduction of sugar and vinegar, its kind of like syrup, its used in sweet and savory dishes). As far as presentation, we could have done whatever we wanted. I admit, my plate looked so so, but when the chef tastes my ice cream, she flipped. She was like, "Wow, this is so good, bring this to chef so and so next door, i want him to taste this!". I was so happy!!! Most of the class did fruit based ice creams, the know-it-all who works next to my station made a wasabi and seaweed one with soy sauce. It pissed me off because it smalled like a sushi resturant alley annd he was doing it for the sake of being "unconventional". Trust me, he's that type of guy.

Wednsday: pretty boring day, we made crepe batter and flourless chocolate cake for friday

Thurday: this was the Mystery Box plated dessert practical quiz. We could make ANY well blananced plated dessert that had ti have a financier cake (a basic french almond cake) somewhere in the main item and a seasonal fruit which since its winter, was either a pear or apple. Its actually not much of a mystery but there will be more of these types of quizes next week where it really WILL be a mystery fruit. It was so exciting but my creative mind was running a mile a minute and i had so many ideas and concepts that i kinda went a little haywire and couldn't decide on what to actually do. I ended up making a small cranberry ginger financier round with a ginger lemon poached pear (visit nutritious junk for the recipe. I had an almond sabayon and cranberry cooked fruit sauce as my two sauces (also a requirement), and i made some brittle which i added crystalized ginger and dried cranberries in for my "crunch" component. I got a great score for flavor, but it was overbaked so i got an 88. o well, now i am doing resereach to get inspired for new ideas to cook fruit desserts until next monday (btw, feel free to give me ideas!)

Friday: we had a super busy day, we made crepe suzzet, baked alaskas (yay for the blowtorch!), and 2 10 in sponge cakes which I hate to make beacause they state like scoth brite and involve separating 16 eggs!

anyhow this week we do chocolate truffles and sugar pulling. at the end of the week we are doing a themed fondant cake. my sister is having a baby show next week so i'll make it baby shower themed!