Petit Fours

Petit fours can be classified into many different categories but the most common form of petit four is a small bit sized cake filled with jam which is then covered in fondant. The most common type of cake used to make these petit fours is frangipane but pound cake or sponge cake would work as well. You start by taking a layer of the cake and then putting a tiny bit of jam on top. Now I seriously mean a tiny bit, you don’t want there to be too much that the jam will squeeze out; you only want a taste of the jam. Now on top of the jam you will place another layer of frangipane or cake on top. At this point you will roll out a thin layer of marzipan and place that on the very top. Marzipan has a consistency of

play dough and is often used for decorations on petit fours or bigger cakes.  Once everything is stacked you will then proceed to cut it into 1 inch by 1 inch pieces. It is very small but this is traditionally how they are made. These small cakes are then covered in fondant which is just a glaze. All that is left is to decorate them. You can make small marzipan fruit or pipe chocolate on top. They have a lot of little pieces and but they turn out really nice. They look very fancy and will be impressive to everyone.

  

Decorated Cookies

We have many different kinds of cookies but this was the only cookie that we got to decorate. You start by making a simple dough. We used a 1-2-3 dough and a gingerbread dough. A 1-2-3 dough means that there is 1 part water, 2 parts fat and 3 parts flour. So it doesn't matter how much of an ingredient you use as long as the other ingredients are related through this recipe. Once you make this dough you then need to chill it to make sure that it stays together. Once it is chilled for a few hours you can then roll it out and cut different shapes using cookie cutters. If you have extra dough then you can ball it up and re-roll it. When you have them all cut, put them on a sheet tray and bake. When they are done let them cool so you can ice them. We use royal icing because it dries very quickly and gets really hard. So then for the fun part you can use different techniques to decorate these cookies. You can pipe different designs, you can add egg whites to the icing which will make it thinner so you can dip the cookies in it, or you can outline the cookie with one color and fill it with another. There are many possibilities so you can be as creative as you want. These are just a few examples of what we came up with.

Blond Brownies

The new class that I am in now is Cookies and Petit Fours. We have made lots of cookies but these brownies are delicious. My group put chocolate chips and peanut butter chips in them but you could add whatever ingredients you wanted. Below is the recipe:

Blond Brownie 

15oz Butter

3# Brown Sugar

9 Each Eggs

2# Pastry Flour 

1.5oz Baking Powder

¼oz Salt

½oz Vanilla

2# Chocolate chips, Semi-sweet (Can also put peanut butter chips, white chocolate chips, or butterscotch chips)

Method of Preparation (MOP):

1.      Melt butter and add brown sugar.

2.      Sift flour with salt and baking powder.

3.      Put in a bowl and mix in flour, salt and baking powder mixture.

4.      Mix in ½ nuts and chips.

5.      Put in prepared pan buttered and floured sprayed or sprayed with pan spray, lined with foil overlapping for easy removal.

6.      Sprinkle rest of chips and nuts on the top.

7.      Bake at 350 until skewer comes out clean. DO NOT OVERBAKE.

8.      Cool and cut.

Blueberry Buckle

This was one of the "hot" dessert we made in this course and it was really good.

Blueberry Buckle

Ingredients

For the cake:                   

• 9 ounces cake flour,
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
• 2 ounces unsalted butter, room temperature
• 5 1/4 ounces sugar,
• 1 large egg
• 1/2 cup whole milk
• 15 ounces fresh whole blueberries, approximately 3 cups (other fruit can be used

For the topping: -YOU CAN SUBSTITUTE YOUR STRUSSEL

• 3 1/2 ounces sugar, approximately 1/2 cup
• 1 1/2 ounces cake flour, approximately 1/3 cup
• 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground nutmeg
• 2 ounces unsalted butter, chilled and cubed

Directions

For the cake:

In a medium mixing bowl whisk together the flour, baking powder, salt and ground ginger. Set aside.

In the bowl of mixer, with the paddle attachment, cream the butter and sugar on medium speed until light and fluffy. Add the egg and mix. Add 1/3 of the flour mixture and beat on low speed just until incorporated and then add 1/3 of the milk and beat until incorporated. Repeat, alternating flour and milk until everything has combined. Gently stir in the blueberries and pour the mixture into the prepared cake pan

For the topping:

In a small bowl combine the sugar, flour and nutmeg. Add the butter and work into the dry ingredients using a fork to combine. Continue until the mixture has a crumb-like texture. Sprinkle the mixture on top of the cake. Bake on the middle rack of the oven for 35 minutes or until golden in color. Cool for at least 10 minutes before serving. 

Baked Alaska

One of the coolest things we have learned to make in this class is Baked Alaska. This is basically layers of ice cream covered in meringue and then torched. You first need to decide what kind of flavors of ice cream you want and then start to churn them. As the first kind of ice cream is done churning, you let it fall into a large bowl about 2/3 of the way full. You then take another smaller bowl and push into the ice cream, then place it into the freezer. As the ice cream freezes it will take the shape of the bowl. When it is firm you can start to churn the next type of ice cream. You can take the first bowl of ice cream out of the freezer and take the smaller bowl out. When the second ice cream is finished churning you can let it fall right into the first ice cream. This will be the center of the Baked Alaska. You can then smooth it and place a layer of cake on the very top. This cake just gives the ice cream something to sit on, then you can put it bake into the freezer. At this time you will make your meringue and get everything ready to pipe the meringue. To take the ice cream out of the bowl you can place it into a hot water bath for a few seconds just to melt it enough to release it from the bowl. If it is too melted then it needs to go back into the freezer immediately, but if not then you can start piping the meringue onto the ice cream. This can be done in any design just as long as the whole thing is covered. This meringue is used to protect the ice cream and to make sure that it doesn't melt. Once all of the meringue is on then you can torch the whole thing but not burning it. Now you are finished and it needs to be served immediately.

Hot and Cold Desserts

The new class that I am in is called Hot and Cold Desserts. We are mainly making ice cream in this class and it is delicious. The other day my group made an ice cream called Full of Cropper. It is an espresso ice cream with brownie pieces and salted pecans. This is the recipe below:

“Full of Cropper”

4 lbs                Cream

4 lbs                Milk

2 lbs 4 oz         Sugar

2 lbs                Yolks

2(ea.)              Vanilla Bean

12 oz               Espresso Beans

Anglaise method: Heat cream and milk and vanilla beans, then take off the burner and poor into the yolks and sugar, whisk. Once everything is incorporated put back on the heat for a few minutes.

After making base and while still hot, place espresso beans in base and let steep for 10 minutes. Strain and then age for a few hours.

After churning add in brownie pieces and salted pecans. Swirl in caramel sauce. 

If you like coffee then you will love this ice cream!!

Fundamentals Final

Today was our last day in Fundamentals. For our final exam we had to make pastry cream, cream anglaise, cookies, diplomat cups, saute apples and julienne carrots. We accomplished all of this last Friday which was day eight, that way all we had left to do was build our tower out of royal icing. Our chef gave us a template of what the tower was supposed to look like. Throughout the week, we piped each piece out of royal icing and let them dry so that they were really hard. After all of the pieces were piped we used more icing to stick them together and to build our tower. These pieces are very fragile and will break very easily if you are too hard or clumsy with them. We eventually got out whole tower built and this is the final product.