Confections Ahoy!
Hi! Intro post: I'm a Chef School student in Toronto, Canada, in my final year of a Baking and Pastry Arts Management diploma. I usually post all my baking successes (and failures) in my personal blog, but I was asked to x-post here, since I'm doing confections work at school right now and it makes sense to post here too! :o)
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Since it's near the end of the semester, we've been working on non-cake stuff lately; what you might call the "higher" level/quality goods that elevate a "mere" Baker to Pastry Chef/Chocolatier/Cake Decorator Extraordinaire! ;oD
We had a Lindt-sponsored Chocolate Showpiece Competition last week (which virtually all of us hated, but hey whatayagunnado...), so here are some pictures of my entry:
Japanese Fan made with white, dark and milk chocolate, with a plaque at the base showing the kanji symbol for "happiness" (at least I hope it sez that...!). The plaque is a little hard to see since I didn't have a flash on my wee little cellphone camera; you'll have to enlarge the photo to see it I think.
Four types of hand-made truffles around the base: Dark chocolate turtles (inner ring); white-chocolate-lime filled truffles (outer ring), Ginger "pops" (bottom row); Rum-caramel filled dark chocolate hearts (right column) - those were my favourite...yum!
There were some crazy-amazing showpieces done by my fellow students - mine didn't even make the first cut...not that I expected it to. I was just thrilled that I finally managed to get and keep my chocolate in temper fairly consistently, as the week before (making and enrobing the different types of truffles) gave me and my partner fits (of INSANITY). So, I wouldn't say that I "phoned it in" for the competition, but I definitely wasn't going to do anything overly challenging in case I slipped into a catatonic fugue state if/when it failed....lol...
The pics below are from this week's fun; we finally got to play with pastillage (the box, base, and lid), do floodwork with royal icing (the candy canes on the box top), Australian stringwork (around the edges of the box), and make marzipan fruits by hand, and best of all, play with a food grade airbrush on the little marzi fruits (so cute!)
I was really nervous to use the airbrush at first, but I got the hang of it pretty quickly. The strawberries are a little "nuclear pinky-red", but I'm loving the peaches and the pears - so pretty! :o)
Many of my classmates got a little overly-happy with the airbrush, and their fruits were looking a bit diseased (lol), so I'm pretty happy with the way mine turned out. Now I want Santa to bring me an airbrush for Christmas!!! (hehe)
As for the stringwork, it was my very first attempt, and I admit it looks amateurish, though not terrible for a first try. I expect to be doing this over and over until I get better at it, which may take years, I know, but considering the difference between a $500 wedding cake and a $1,500 wedding cake is a little time on your knees (snerk) with a piping bag full of royal icing, I think it's worth it! :oD
==========================================
Since it's near the end of the semester, we've been working on non-cake stuff lately; what you might call the "higher" level/quality goods that elevate a "mere" Baker to Pastry Chef/Chocolatier/Cake Decorator Extraordinaire! ;oD
We had a Lindt-sponsored Chocolate Showpiece Competition last week (which virtually all of us hated, but hey whatayagunnado...), so here are some pictures of my entry:
Japanese Fan made with white, dark and milk chocolate, with a plaque at the base showing the kanji symbol for "happiness" (at least I hope it sez that...!). The plaque is a little hard to see since I didn't have a flash on my wee little cellphone camera; you'll have to enlarge the photo to see it I think.
Four types of hand-made truffles around the base: Dark chocolate turtles (inner ring); white-chocolate-lime filled truffles (outer ring), Ginger "pops" (bottom row); Rum-caramel filled dark chocolate hearts (right column) - those were my favourite...yum!
There were some crazy-amazing showpieces done by my fellow students - mine didn't even make the first cut...not that I expected it to. I was just thrilled that I finally managed to get and keep my chocolate in temper fairly consistently, as the week before (making and enrobing the different types of truffles) gave me and my partner fits (of INSANITY). So, I wouldn't say that I "phoned it in" for the competition, but I definitely wasn't going to do anything overly challenging in case I slipped into a catatonic fugue state if/when it failed....lol...
The pics below are from this week's fun; we finally got to play with pastillage (the box, base, and lid), do floodwork with royal icing (the candy canes on the box top), Australian stringwork (around the edges of the box), and make marzipan fruits by hand, and best of all, play with a food grade airbrush on the little marzi fruits (so cute!)
I was really nervous to use the airbrush at first, but I got the hang of it pretty quickly. The strawberries are a little "nuclear pinky-red", but I'm loving the peaches and the pears - so pretty! :o)
Many of my classmates got a little overly-happy with the airbrush, and their fruits were looking a bit diseased (lol), so I'm pretty happy with the way mine turned out. Now I want Santa to bring me an airbrush for Christmas!!! (hehe)
As for the stringwork, it was my very first attempt, and I admit it looks amateurish, though not terrible for a first try. I expect to be doing this over and over until I get better at it, which may take years, I know, but considering the difference between a $500 wedding cake and a $1,500 wedding cake is a little time on your knees (snerk) with a piping bag full of royal icing, I think it's worth it! :oD