#89 - Death by tuiles...

Replating the desserts... 
I keep thinking it's Friday night but it's not.  My lattice stencil arrived yesterday and I picked it up from a friend today so that I could have a practice run at my plating with all the decorations.  Yech - another try tomorrow...it's a pain because I don't feel like I have a natural talent for putting the shapes and things together.    Nothing came out quite the way I imagined or hoped except for the white chocolate twirls.  I had to make my own blackberry puree so I had to guess a bit.  It turned my tuile mix purple instead of a dark pink or deep red.  I know part of it is the the tuile batter but still...lavender?  And the pretty tuiles broke because I overcooked them so I had to use the crappy one for the plating.

Had to be kind of ruthless with the chocolate twirls.  Hopefully I'll get the same shape or be able to snap it around the same place during the exam - it's hard to get the angles exactly right and depending on the acetate you get, sometimes it's easier than others to get the twirls to be around the same circumference/curve as what you're aiming for.  Got lucky today with the twirl, but still ended up breaking the long twirls into a better height to go on the plate.

Have been having trouble coming up with a design on the plate where I would have enough sauce and still have something that looks clean and interesting.  This still isn't quite what I was looking for, but it's an improvement over what happened during the exam skills class with our plated dessert earlier in the week.  I've been lucky enough to get some suggestions from friends who did this exam two terms ago.  They had a couple of ideas which I think I can try tomorrow so that I can put photos in the portfolio.  At this point if it takes too much time, I'm not doing it for the exam (except for piping the poppyseed tuile and even that has me whining that it sucks when the batter is melting).

The Anglaise came out this time but the coulis is still really thick even though I didn't boil the sugar as hot as the other day.  The coulis gets this weird skin on top - I think blackberries must have some kind of pectin because the coulis looked like it might set if I left it to its own devices for a while.  In any case, the Anglaise wasn't as runny today and the coulis not as lumpy so I think I've fixed my technical difficulties.  Hopefully there will be time to do them again tomorrow - just in case, and also to try out the suggested platings with the sauces.  We've got a few ideas on the go so hopefully one of them will look good.  I don't want to try anything fancy because I know my hands will be shaking by the time I get to plating the dessert and wobbly hands don't do good piping or other fine, delicate work.

JB has been a very good sport and tasted each of the components I made today - a bit of a feat given he was trying to eat dinner and go out while I was plying him with the Anglaise (he wanted to know what it was.  I could only explain it by saying it's kind of like a custard), the coulis and tuile.  He declined the white chocolate - probably just as well, I need the twirls after all so that I can try a couple of more alternative platings.

Dinner

Then it was time for dinner.  I was really craving the goat's cheese and the baby beets I bought last night.  Also the mac 'n cheese.  And I bought some chicken today - baked it wrapped in Serrano ham.  It sounded good in theory but not good in practice.  The bottom part of the chicken  / ham roll kind got steamed / boiled so it wasn't crispy like I had thought it would.  Super classy dinner, non?  I think the best part of dinner was the salad though - the chicken was boring and the mac 'n cheese stopped being nice right around when the breadcrumbs started to go a bit soggy.

Tempering is really taking it out of me.  Somehow managed to get the white chocolate twirls done but my hand has started to peel.  Have decided that I will not cook again before finals after I've turned in my portfolio (well, except to cook dinner or something).  I want to rest everything as much as possible for the big days.

Anyway, it's time to go to sleep.  I've been sitting here trying to formulate a sentence for quite a while now and am afraid I have said something silly further up.  Thank goodness for artistic friends who can make a judgment call as to whether something is pretty or not.  Or clean looking or not.  So until next time, may the suggestions you get from your friends be as good and useful as the ones I have received from mine.