More Cakes, Our Anniversary, Trapeze School and the James Beard Awards

Well, I have had a busy week, and I know it's been a while since I last posted. Since Module 3 is all about cakes, guess what we've been making all week? CAKES! (You are so smart!) The first photo is the first of our genoise cakes, mine was mocha flavored and is the one with the coffee cup on it. Genoise is an egg foam cake, make with no butter, lots of eggs and really not too much sugar. It's spongy and usually a little dry and relies upon the flavorings to "make the cake." The Mocha cake is a plain genoise (yellow), soaked with a rum syrup, filled with rich chocolate ganache and iced with mocha buttercream. It was good, but I liked our butter cakes (from last week) better. On Tuesday, we finished the chocolate genoise - mine was chocolate cake, soaked in a syrup made from framboise (a clear raspberry brandy, or "eau-de-vie"), filled with whipped cream and fresh raspberries and iced with more whipped cream. I decorated it using a really contemporary design - chocolate and raspberry sauce criss-crossed on the top and sides. My partner and I also made a simple and quick lemon meringue cake using another genoise that we had "extra." On Wednesday, we made roulades (roll cakes) using genoise that we'd made in sheet pans. Basically the same as the previous genoise, but instead you soak the sheet cake, fill it and roll it up long ways, then ice it or finish it in some way. My group was assigned the Bouche de Noel (Yule Log), which was perfect because I've made this before and it wasn't nearly as cute as ours came out this time! We learned to make the marzipan mushrooms, pinecones and holly leaves. The picture also shows the other roulades in our class.










On Thursday and Friday we made Miroirs and they were so much FUN! I think I liked this more than anything else we've made (although it's been close on SO MANY other days). The miroir (means "mirror" in French) is made using a cake called "Genoise Mousseline", which is almost the same as the basic genoise, but with butter added. (Mousseline is a tricky term because it sounds so "light," but really all it means is that there is MORE BUTTER in it!) The cake is cut a little smaller than your ring mold, then laid inside, soaked with syrup and topped with bavarian cream (ours was raspberry so the syrup and the bavarian were made with raspberries) and glazed with a nappage (jelly, fruit puree, gelatin mixture that gives the cake a shimmery top). When the bavarian cream is spread on top of the cake, it also goes on the sides, so that it completely covers it all. The whole thing goes in the fridge to "set," and then the glaze is poured on, then in the freezer to set again, when unmolded, it looks like THIS.



On Friday, we made more miroirs (this time passion fruit), but we did it in PRODUCTION mode, meaning we made a ton of them as a group.



Outside of class, my week was just great! On Monday afternoon and evening, I volunteered for the James Beard Awards (equivalent to the Oscars of the culinary world). I got to meet and work with some great chefs! Tuesday was our 3 year anniversary and Todd and I went to a very special dinner out at Restaurant Daniel. It was an amazing experience, probably the best dinner I've ever had. We had a very romantic evening and were taken GREAT care of by the staff there. On Wednesday, I took a trapeze class at the NY Trapeze School. WOW! What a rush. Their slogan is "Forget Fear, Worry about the Addiction." How true. I will definitely be back for lesson 2. My dad said, "So are you joining the circus??" No. This is for fun ONLY!



Todd and I have had a wonderful weekend here in NYC. The weather's been great and we did a ton of walking around. We've had a few snags lately in the dog care area, but we're optimistic that we'll have a solution really soon. Have a great week, EVERYONE!