foodizm: July 2010

I've read a lot of blogs about tips and tricks to make the right macarons. I never really try making one because I'm lazy and thinks that it's going to be a hassle.

Well this week I have changed my mind and decided to make macaron shells just for the heck of it. I followed What's for lunch,honey? recipe. Pretty simple and clear.

I struggle when piping the macarons to the right size due to my batter was liquid. I'm guessing that I didn't whip the egg whites to the right consistency or I fold too much the egg whites to the dry ingredients.

For the filling, I used my leftover hazelnut praliné cream for millefeuille praliné. I know that the color of my macarons doesn't really resemble the color of praliné, but pink is a nice color for macarons.

The weather in here has been extremely hot and humid. Due to the super hot weather, lesson 5 for chocolate box had been changed to "Opera" cake. Opera cake was originally placed for lesson 16. I wasn't really looking forward to make Opera cake because I hate to make the borders. In Intermediate class, we don't really have the choice because we'll be doing a lot of chocolate. Be it decorations, piping and etc.

Yesterday, we've attended the demo class and it always looked easy when the Chefs are the one making the cake. The hardest thing about making Opera cake is the finishing. We have to pipe chocolate borders the classic way. All the pastry chefs are very strict about this particular cake because it's so French and they're French so they want us to do it the French way.

Today for practical class we have different chef from demo so they both have different techniques. In the demo, it was made clear that we're not supposed to put so much syrup on joconde biscuit (it will be too wet and soft) but in practical the chef kept yelling to all the students that we have to put more syrup. The more, the better and if you actually finished 200ml syrup for 3 layers of joconde, it's good.

I managed to finish baking joconde, preparing syrup, making ganache,french buttercream and glaze within 1h 15mins. And I spent the next 45 mins to assemble my cake. For the final layer before glazing, I have to chill the cake in the fridge for 15-20 mins so that the buttercream is firm and it will be easy for me to mask with the glaze. For the glaze we used glazing paste & oil.

While waiting for the cake to cool down in the fridge, I spent so much time on piping the border on parchment paper before actually doing it on the cake.

So the verdict for my opera cake is good. Needs more syrup on the joconde and more buttercream on the first layer. And the worse comment I got is for the Opera writing on the cake. It's too big, and far from left and.. it's just wrong.

Better luck next time.

Chef's version of Opera Cake