Well, after the excitement of the wedding cakes, we shifted gears a little and worked with pastillage and cast/poured sugar on Thursday. The purpose of the class was just to familiarize ourselves with a couple of other techniques that we can use for our showpieces (which we will present for our final grade). I shaped some pastillage into small pieces that I'm hoping to glue together (with royal icing) to make a chalice. Once painted, I'm hoping it will look very "old world" and fancy. We also played around with the poured sugar and made a few bases and some really cool stuff we dubbed "kryptonite," because it looked like bright crystals. Then, I glued a lot of it together using heat and made it into this structure. Thursday afternoon, we took a field trip with my management class to the Brooklyn Brewery in Williamsburg, Brooklyn (a very Polish neighborhood). We took a tour of the facility, learned about the history of beer and how it's made and got to taste a lot of their beers.
The timing of the summer solstice (longest day of the year - which was Thursday) couldn't have been better, as Todd and I went to a guided chocolate tasting at Michel Cluizel (arguably the best chocolate in the world)...because what, really, would you want to do with the longest day of the year if not spend at least SOME of it enjoying some wonderful chocolate?!?! It was delicious and enlightening.
On Friday, we learned how to temper chocolate for the first time! Now, we've previously worked with chocolate A LOT, but not ever tempered it. To give a little background, most (if not all) of the chocolate that we/you buy is already tempered. It means that the molecules are all aligned properly to give the chocolate that shine and "snap" that you are used to. It helps it to hold up so that it does not melt in your hand. However, the minute you melt chocolate, it comes out of temper because the different fats melt and re-solidify at different temperatures. If you simply melt chocolate and then allow it to cool, it will no longer be tempered and anything you make (designs, shapes, bands, etc) will melt the instant you touch it with your fingers. It also lacks the shine and snap of tempered chocolate. To temper chocolate, it is necessary to melt it to the degree that ALL of the different fats are melted (about 115 degrees or so), then cool the chocolate uniformly (by stirring, mixing - which take a long time, or by spreading it on a marble and working it with spatulas) to about 85 degrees. At this point, the chocolate is tempered. (To test it, you can streak a little of it on to a plate and wait a few minutes to make sure it sets up. Non-tempered chocolate, if melted, takes a very long time to set, and usually has to stay in the refrigerator.) At this point, you usually have to reheat the chocolate ever so slightly (never past 91 degrees) so that it is not too thick to work with. We made nut clusters with our tempered chocolate, but starting on Monday, we'll be learning to do some very sophisticated and complicated things (I hope!) like make truffles, filled bon-bons, and, ultimately, construct our chocolate showpieces. The theme is "Summer in New York," so I'll have to do some thinking on that this weekend to decide what I want to do.
On Friday night, Todd (my sweetheart) and I went to see a WONDERFUL magician (Steve Cohen) in an up-close magic show in a suite at the Waldorf-Astoria. It was truly amazing. I got picked to go up on stage for this trick he did with my watch. He told me to think of a number between 10 and 20 and the hold my hand up in the air. He held his hands around mine and the "energy" made my watch run exactly 16 (the number I'd chosen) ahead!!?! It was mystifying. After the show, we had dinner at a romantic Italian restaurant called Piano Due. It was a real treat... Have a fantastic weekend.
No comments:
Post a Comment