Advanced Patisserie Techniques

Hello, my name is Adriana Magallon and I want to be YOUR next Pastry Chef! haha. I finally took a headshot of myself.

This week was the start of our 4th class! Wow! We are almost done! This is our Advanced Patisserie Techniques Class. We are doing plated desserts. If ever you felt like you have no creativity, this is the class where it will really show. It's so difficult for me to come up with a concept to plate a dessert. I am a very simplistic "artist". I like a little sauce, a whipped cream quenelle perhaps, and that's about all. So thinking of some amazing, breath-taking concept is extremely difficult for me. We plated a creme brulee and a creme caramel this week. 

Also, I might note that it has been brought to my attention that someone has been downloading my baking photos. I do take this as a compliment, however, I hope that this person doesn't decide to use my work and claim that it's their own. Therefore, with the help of my amazing boyfriend, he has added a simple watermark to my photos.

First plate: Creme Brulee.

Creme Brulee

My concept for this plate was supposed to be a lot less "juvenile" than it looks. The Blueberry Coulis used to make the flower was too loose and didn't hold the shape that I wanted. I made a mistake by placing my pretty flower, that I so carefully made by piping scorching hot sugar, on top of the whipped cream quenelle. On top of that, why did I put whipped cream on top of my beautifully brulee'ed top?

So, Chef gave me this idea to try. He suggested I make a triangular shaped tuile and have it wrap around my ramekin and end with the peak facing down into the creme brulee and attach a butterfly there. Well, I got what he was saying but didn't exactly know how to execute it properly. So I looked at some of my tuile cookies I made the day before and I came up with this:

Creme Brulee

The product sitting on the ramekin is a tuile cookie made by piping squiggles of vanilla and chocolate tuile on a baking sheet then wrapping it around a wooden spoon to shape it. I put some pieces of sugar work down the middle and added some chocolate sauce garnish on the side. At first, the tuile cookie was sitting on the plate but Chef moved it up to add some height. I think I like it. 

Next plated dessert was our creme caramel. 

Creme Caramel

This is the plate that I presented for my grade. I improved by .5 from my last grade. Hey, I'll take it! 

I presented my concept sketch to chef and he liked my idea. I wanted to do something simple so I am glad that it worked out. On the left is an Orange Compound encased by a sugar cage and the Creme Caramel on the right.  Chef liked the fact that it was monochromatic. I really like this plate. The only complaint I have is that there is WAY too much syrup around the Creme Caramel.

After being graded I realized I forgot to add our candied orange zest to my creme caramel. Here is what it looked like (I didn't get graded for this). 

Creme Caramel

Tomorrow we plate cheesecakes, this should be interesting. 

With Love,

Adriana