BAKING AND PASTRY TECHNIQUES

May 14, 2013

Today was the practical exam.  I started out strong with completing my sponge cake and getting it into the oven right away.  The sponge cake I made yesterday turned out great. Unfortunately, 10 other people put there cake into the deck oven after my cake was already in the oven.  By the time it was ready to come out of the oven, the cake had completely fallen and I had to remake the cake. You would think the second time would be a great, but I was afraid to over mix it, have the foam deflate or the cake fall again, so I of course ended up not mixing the flour in enough and the cake had small chunks of flour in it when it was complete.  No time to make this one a third time.

Second up, I made the Vanilla Cream Sauce. This sauce is required to make the Bavarian Cream so it had to be completed in the beginning and slightly cooled so that the Bavarian would be mixed appropriately and have time to set.  We were required to have exactly 8 oz, have it taste good and achieve nappe (ability to coat the back of a spoon).  I completed the sauce with no problems and received 100 on this test item.

Then I made the Pizza Dough. There was no formula to follow for this item.  We were to eyeball the ingredients, 100% flour, 50% water and .25 salt.  She gave us some leeway with this item.  I had to go back to her 3 times with my dough before she said it was good.  Each time she gave me pointers on how to achieve the right dough.  A key piece with this dough is to bench rest the dough before presenting. Now I know how what the dough should look and feel like when it made properly.  

By this time, my Vanilla Sauce was a good temperature so I made the Bavarian Cream.  We had never work with or reviewed gelatin in class and this formula called for us to use gelatin.  Now I made the Bavarian Cream at home yesterday so I was confident this would turn out perfect, no problems. Boy, was I wrong!  I did not melt the gelatin after it bloomed before adding to my Vanilla Sauce and cream did not set properly. Unfortunately messing up on the Bavarian Cream there is no redo since we made just enough Vanilla Sauce for the Bavarian formula. As I waited in line in a hot kitchen with a half set Bavarian Cream, I watched my cream completely melt before my eyes into a pool of sauce on my plate, lol.  I did not want to present this to the Chef, but had no choice.  Even though it was a pool of cream with raspberry sauce blended in with a small dollop of whipped cream and sliced strawberry in the middle of the sauce, it looked good enough to eat. We tasted it and it had good flavor.  I ended with an 80 on this part of the test. No pictures were taken of my failed Bavarian, but below is a picture of the Bavarian I made at home that turned out great.

We had 20 minutes left in class to wrap up our presentations.  I scaled my pie dough, cut the butter  in, mixed the dough and kneaded in record time and put in the refrigerator to cool. After cleaning up my station, I present my dough to the Chef.  It was required to be 10 oz and needed to see the butter throughout as it was a flaky dough formula.  She examined the dough and I received 100 on this item.

In the end, even though I messed up with 2 of the 5 items, I still walked away with a good grade.  Some of the students did not complete all 5 items and received zeros for uncompleted items.  I am very relieved to be complete with this test!