Day Four

So tonight was a good night, let me tell you why. Waffles, that’s right I said Waffles. Can I get and amen? Got to class and found out that I had come to school without a hat. How can that be you ask? Well I was in a rush to get out today, no one in my class had a spare hat on them, and so it looked like I might have to buy one in the boutique. So I went to ask if I could get into the boutique, but they just loaned me a hat instead. W00T.

I get up to class and on the board is written the three recipes we needed to prepare that day; Waffles, Crepes, Sponge Cake for a Roulade. So I prepared the first two, very similar recipes prepared in a blender. First you add wet ingredients like milk eggs and butter, and then dry like flour, baking powder. The crepes had a cool thing in them, Grand Marnier. Grand Marnier is a liqueur made from a blend of true cognacs and distilled essence of bitter orange. We then cover and set aside those to rest and get started on our Sponge Cake.

The sponge cake is of course lots of egg. 50 grams yokes, 86 grams whites and 130 grams just plain egg. The whites are of course whipped up with some sugar till soft peaks, and then the rest of the eggs are mixed up with some sugar and Trimoline. What? You don’t know what Trimoline is? Well silly it is inverted sugar syrup of course. Need more of and explanation, go to Wikipedia, what do I look like, a dictionary? Trimoline is sweeter then sugar and we use it to make things Softer, Moister, and Last Longer. Chef kept saying that and all I could think of is this. What if you do not inverted sugar syrup? Use honey in the same proportions. Once this is mixed up fold in the egg whites and get ready with a sheet pan lined with parchment paper and a metal frame in it. pour it onto the sheet pan and use your off set spatula to spread it then inside the frame, then remove the frame and cook. When it comes out you have a thin layer of sponge cake on parchment paper that can be turned upside down, spread with Jam, and rolled up into a Roulard. Ours are sitting in the fridge over night, mine has blueberry jam.

Chef Ruddy putting Jam on his sponge cake.

Chef Ruddy Rolling his Cake.

My cake with Blueberry Jam.

I must admit that I burnt my cake some and did not like working with it, but I did enjoy spreading the jam, it was quite a cool technique

After that some of the class went to another kitchen to work with Chef Sebastian on Crepes while some of us stayed and mad Waffles! Chef busted out the Waffle Iron and we went to town, as much as one can go to town watching a waffle iron. It actually gave me some time to talk with some of the other students. Some of you have asked about the other students and how we get on and I am glad to say that we get on very well. We laugh and joke easily and help each other out, and no one seems to want to kill each other. Also today chef and I talked about how much we both like French Onion Soup. I said the key is to have the right amount to go with the bread and cheese you have and he said the key is to remember to ask for some more.

After that we cleaned up because it was dinner time. One of the advanced cuisine classes had made some food for dinner and we went to eat it. it turned out to be mostly fish and gelatin stuff, so I did not indulge much but the presentation was excellent. There was this orange colored sauce smattered on the plates that was amazing, see exhibit A. after that I came home watching the lighting and blown about by all the wind. When I got home I eat some Chinese food and came up stairs to type this. Oh look we caught up, better stop typing then.