chocolate souffle

Another thing I tackled while on dessert station was the classic chocolate souffle. I have never had any experience with it, but I thought it was necessary to try and eventually master, given that it's such a classic.

Classic souffle starts with making souffle cream, which is similar to pastry cream but denser. From my textbook it starts with 1/4 cup milk cooked with 2.5 oz sugar to boiling. On the side mix 3 oz flour with 2.5 oz sugar, 1 1/2 cup milk, 1 egg, and 2 egg yolks. Temper the egg mixture with 1/3 of the hot milk, then pour the egg mixture into the hot milk and cook again to a boil, then cool over an ice water bath. Once the souffle cream is cooled it's useable (I made it the day before and refrigerated it).



Souffles call for ramekins, which need to be buttered and sugared inside. The butter I wiped on with my fingers, but Chef Mark showed me the trick with sugar, which is to pour some sugar into one ramekin, turn it sideways and rotate so the sugar coats all the sides, then pour the sugar into the next ramekin, and etc. I did it for five ramekins.



Then I melted 5 oz chocolate with 1.5 oz butter and added that and 1 egg yolk to the souffle cream.



On the side I made meringue with 5 egg whites and 2.5 oz of sugar. 1/3 of the meringue went into the chocolate souffle cream to lighten it, and then the rest went in. The mixture was poured into the ramekins - they were supposed to fill the ramekins all the way up to the top but I had just shy of that. Chef Mark showed me how to even out the top with a spatula, then pinch the edge of the ramekin with your thumb and forefinger while rotating the ramekin so your thumb makes the border-space between the souffle top and the ramekin.



I was scared that prepping out the ramekins meant that the souffles would not rise as much in the oven, but it turns out this recipe allows it to sit out for awhile without affecting the rise. Taking too long between the oven to the customer is guaranteed to make the souffle fall though. So I made sure to tell the servers that they had 20 minutes between putting the dessert order in to getting the souffle to the table.

Here is the test souffle I baked off to make sure that 20 minutes was really what it took. (Look, the rise!)



Mr. Stellman warned me that I'd be lucky to get one souffle order because customers simply didn't want to wait around for a souffle. However, I got two orders, both as the customer was just starting in on their main course so they would get the souffle around the time that they finished their entree.



This was one of the ones left over at the end, baked and then served with vanilla sauce in the middle. Molten rich and decadent, but still light enough.

plated dessert project

For the plated dessert project we were tasked with coming up with a single fancy plated dessert (or alternatively, working with a partner and coming up with a mini dessert buffet). While searching for inspiration on epicurious.com I found this recipe for a buttered popcorn ice cream sundae. It was reminiscent of the popcorn/carmalized poundcake/banana/almond dessert I'd eaten not too long ago at AQ. Plus, it reminded me of the ever-popular buttered popcorn jelly belly jelly bean. And the prospect of making a savory sweet ice cream was exciting. So I decided to go for it.

The ice cream flavors I've had experience making have all been flavored with the addition of a spice/extract (cardamom, vanilla, etc.). This was the first time I would be steeping the ingredient (popcorn from the bag, buttered and salted), pureeing it, cooking it, and then straining it out at the end.



The popcorn was steeped in milk and cream, puree-ed with corn syrup and sugar, then cooked with a beaten egg yolk and sugar mixture.

Once strained and cooled, I experienced some difficulties with the school ice cream makers (both were the cheap kind where you have to pour in ice and ice cream salt and refill as necessary). One flat out didn't work and the other kept stopping mid-churn. I eventually got the latter to work by taking all the ice and salt out, letting it start to churn first and then putting ice and salt gradually back in.



The ice cream I made came out to about 10 scoops (which I prescooped and froze as half-spheres).

Next I decided to make peanut pound cupcakes, which I thought would work as a pedestal for the ice cream to sit on. Pound cake recipe is easy - known in French as "quartre quarts" or four quarters, it's four ingredients (butter, sugar, egg, flour) in equal parts. I did a half pound of each ingredient, which was enough to make 10 cupcakes. Added some roasted peanuts in the batter. They came out nicely but weren't as moist as I had hoped, so I decided to cut them up as pound cake bites so it wouldn't be this whole chunk that one would have to dig into.



Besides that the other toppings I had were caramel sauce, chocolate peanut butter halva, peanut brittle bits, and chocolate shavings.



The caramel sauce was exciting because it was my first time making it. Basically it's butter and cream added to sugar syrup cooked to the caramel stage (important to remove it from heat as soon as the sugar starts to brown so it doesn't burn).



Making peanut brittle (another epicurious recipe) was similar to making caramel sauce, except it's adding butter and peanuts to caramel sugar syrup. Oh and baking soda, which makes it foam and... helps it set?



Whatever the case, I poured the mixture out onto marble so it would cool and harden. I tasted some pretty immediately and it was delicious - crunchy and caramel-y but not too sweet. Reminded me of the sesame peanut candy I had growing up. I passed out some pieces to people around me and they liked it a lot too.



For the chocolate peanut butter halva I took the peanut brittle and puree-ed it with some melted chocolate and peanut butter. It came out like a gritty paste - hard to dispense so I mixed it with the pound cake bites. I imagine that it made the cake bites a little bit more moist.

Since I made enough for 10 portions but only had to have 4-6 portions for the plated dessert project, I sold the extra portions as a plated dessert in the PCR dining room.

To assemble the sundae I put a handful of the cake bite mixture at the bottom, a few popcorn kernels, then the pre-scooped ice cream, then piped whipped cream, drizzled caramel sauce, then topped everything with peanut brittle bits, chocolate shavings, and a few extra popcorn kernels. (This display dessert that I had to make was difficult because instead of meltable ice cream I had to use shortening, and that was sticky/oily and messy.)



For the project version of the dessert I went a bit further and added bananas brulee. I also decided to practice my plating skills and go beyond the sundae glass to the more traditional flat plate. This version had a whipped cream quenelle on it, which I had to practice making.



This version is a more modernist take, more landscape-y and scattered, with the ice cream even cut in half.



I liked the sundae glass the best though. One of the most gratifying moment ever was me watching this girl in the PCR digging her spoon into the glass and scooping everything out from the bottom, so clearly enjoying her dessert.

To see my classmates' plated dessert projects, click here and then on the "<-- Newer" button for more.

dessert station

After Tableside I rotated to the Dessert station, where Clarisse and I took turns either manning the dessert cart in the dining room or plating desserts in the back.

The desserts we presented/plated all came out of first semester Plated Desserts station. I was in that station once (making things like lemon panna cotta and green tea creme brulee). It was kind of like coming around full circle.

On the day where I got to be in the back, these were the desserts I had to be ready to plate:

Mini apple pie, with dried apple chip, vanilla ice cream and caramel sauce:



Flourless chocolate cake with chocolate sauce, chocolate pieces and cocoa powder:



Strawberry napolean with strawberry sauce and garnish:



Banana bread pudding with whipped cream quenelle, caramel sauce and bananas brulee:



Given the options I decided to be very organized and lay out all the different ingredients I needed to plate each dish. I even make a list:



Sadly very little orders came in, but I was able to use the time to work on my plated dessert project for Advanced Baking - buttered popcorn ice cream sundae.



Don't worry, I'll talk about it in my next post!

san francisco baking institute

For Advanced Baking one day we had the honor of visiting the San Francisco Baking Institute. The facility started as a showroom for professional baking equipment. People would come from all over to test out the high capacity mixers, ovens, etc. But then there's was a lot of interest in the baking side of things (as opposed to the equipment side), so classes were formed. Nowadays the institute is a combination of education and production facility, though it still serves as a showroom. But also the masters of baking there get flown around the world to troubleshoot baking/equipment issues.

So first of all, the workrooms are giant and immaculate. This room is filled just with dough sheeters.



True the nature of it being a production facility, we got our hands dirty (well, just floured) rolling baguette.



Andy, tour guide and baking master, showed us around. After rolling baguettes we were shown to the wood-fired oven, which regularly sustains temperatures above 800 degrees Fahrenheit. It was no wonder that this naan bread he inserted into the oven (on a long wooden paddle) bubbled up pretty much immediately.



It was done in less than a minute (and devoured in roughly the same amount of time).



Then he inserted a rolled out piece of pita dough, which poofed up like magic after it went in. After he took it out we got to try our hand at rolling out and baking naan/pita.



Here's the pita I put in, burnt because of the extra seconds it spent the oven (too much traffic around the oven for me to take it out on time!).



After that we went back to the baguettes, which had proofed, and laid them out on the deck oven belt. We scored them (cut slits) and sent them into the oven.



They came out nice and crispy-crusted, and as an extra surprise we got to take all of it home :)



I signed up to volunteer with the bread-making class this summer, and hopefully there will be more opportunities down the road!

condiments

In Garde Manger we had a session on flavored oils and vinegars, many of which were simple to make, such as this chili oil - just chili flakes in olive oil. However, it was very spicy and would be very effective if drizzled over, let's say, dumplings (as opposed to just dumping some chili flakes on dumplings - not as effective).



The thing about flavored oils is that you can't keep them very long, especially if you are immersing fresh ingredients (like garlic) in it. There is the danger of botulism, that gnarly toxin that grows under anaerobic (oxygen-less) conditions. I would say a week tops. Good thing is that you don't need to marinate ingredients for a long time for the flavored to come out in the oil, as long as you mince/puree them and heat the oil a bit.

Flavored vinaigrettes though, you can keep for a long long time because the acidic environment isn't conducive to bacterial growth. Have to make sure what you're marinating doesn't stick out the top like the tarragon in this champagne vinegar though:



Some of my favorites that Chef made was the basil oil (with the basil chopped superfine and blanched/patted dry so it would stay green) and the fig balsamic puree (that over some goat cheese, or a salad... mmm!).

After that we tackled making some of our own condiments. I wanted to try making hoisin and sriracha, two Asian condiments that I tend to take for granted.

This recipe came out a bit like hoisin peanut sauce.



After that I tackled sriracha... except there weren't red fresno chiles or red jalapenos in house, so I substituted thai chilies instead. I roughly followed the fresh (not fermented) recipe here, though I pureed the ingredients before I boiled them.



Here's the puree. When I uncapped the food processor and breathed in I almost died. If you ever puree chilies... be careful.



The sauce that I eventually got was green and watery, but probably the spiciest green watery thing you'll ever find. Julius and I paired these sauces with Vietnamese meatballs. I love the crunchy meatballs found in pho, but unfortunately the recipe I found yielded the soft regular kind of meatball. (Upon Googling now, however, I've found this alternate recipe, which contains potato starch and sounds closer to the real deal.)

To make up for the lackluster sauces and meatballs I plated the meatballs nicely with special dishware, toothpicks and cilantro stalks.



Here are some of my classmates presenting what they made. To see some of the dishes, click on the meatball photo above and then the "<- Newer" button above the photo on Flickr.



My favorite was the strawberry basil jam. Strawberry + basil = a match made in heaven.