Week 9 -- Filling and Frosting a Cake

I was very excited for this lab. I love to decorate cakes! Pictures of the finished product are below. It looked so nice when I cut a piece that I just had to take a picture!



For our cakes, we made an Italian buttercream. I'm used to making a simple buttercream, so it was nice to learn a new type of frosting. For the buttercream, first I combined sugar and a little water in a pan and brought it to a boil. When my sugar syrup started to get close to 240 degrees, I started whipping egg whites in a mixer. When they got foamy, I added some sugar. Once, my sugar reached 240 degrees, the soft ball stage, I took it off the heat. When my egg whites reached stiff peaks, I added my sugar syrup to the meringue carefully so it wouldn't spray hot sugar everywhere. Then, I continued beating the mixture until it had cooled. Once it cooled, I started adding butter. Chef Mark had told us that this is the part where it looks like you've completed screwed up and then magically your buttercream comes together. He wasn't joking. For a while, mine looked like yellow cottage cheese and I was convinced that it was messed up. But finally, it came together. The frosting was kind of thick and definitely buttery!

I leveled the top of my cake and then cut it into layers. Then, I filled my layers with lemon curd (what was left of mine after the cryovac machine messed up, and some of Kristine's--thanks!). After my cake was assembled, I applied a thin layer of frosting, crumb coat, to make cake and put it in the blast chiller. While it was in the blast chiller, I tried to plan how I was going to decorate my cake. Then I started practicing piping. Since I've decorated cakes before, my goal was to try some new decorating techniques. Once my crumb coat had hardened in the blast chiller, I took my cake out and applied the frosting to the top and sides. Then I tinted my frosting teal and purple and started decorating. Overall, I was pretty pleased with how my cake turned out. I think I could do better next time, but I was using new techniques, so I didn't expect it to be perfect. Below are some pictures of cakes that I've decorated in the past.

Cakes from My Uncle's Welcome Home from Iraq Party

Birthday Cake for My Friend Teresa who Loves Duran Duran
(Design was loosely based on the cover of their latest CD)

Guitar Cake for my Friend Zak's Surprise 30th Birthday Party
(I'm so nice that I also made cupcakes decorated with 30s)

Week 9 -- Frosting (Lecture)

This week in class we talked about frosting. One thing that I didn't know about frosting is that there are so many different types of frosting. There are seven types of frosting:

• Buttercream
• Foam
• Fudge
• Fondant
• Glaze
• Royal Icing
• Ganache

Buttercream is buttery, light and fluffy frosting. It is made with a mixture of sugar and fat. I also learned this week that there are three types of buttercream: simple, Italian, and French. I'm used to making simple buttercream. Italian buttercream is basically an Italian meringue with butter mixed in. French butter cream is an egg yolk foam and butter, mixed with an Italian meringue.

Foam frosting is basically an Italian meringue. It is a type of frosting that does not keep and should be used immediately.

Fudge frosting, according to our book, can be vanilla or chocolate. Just by the name, I would've assumed that fudge is a type of chocolate frosting. It is a warmed mixture of sugar, butter, and water or milk. You frost a cake with this while the frosting is still warm. Then it develops a bit of a skin.

Fondant is a thick sugar paste. It isn't a frosting you spread, it is rolled out and placed on a cake. There is also poured fondant, which is used for petit fours.

A glaze is a thin coating that you pour or drizzle on cake or pastries. It is used on items that don't need or can't handle a thick coating of frosting.

Royal icing is a type of frosting that you'll see a lot on sugar cookies. It is a stiff frosting and becomes hard and brittle when it dries. It is a mixture of powdered sugar and pasteurized egg whites.

Ganache is a mixture of chocolate and cream. Ganache can be thick or thin, it just depends on the amount of cream that is added. Ganache is used as the base for truffles.

We also talked about assembling and decorating cakes. To assemble a cake, first you level the cake. Then you fill and stack the layers. Next you apply a crumb coat of frosting and chill until it has hardened. The crumb coat seals loose surface crumbs. Then you apply an even coating of frosting to the top and sides of the cake. For the sides of the cake, you can use side masking (coat the sides with sprinkles, nuts, etc) or use a cake comb to make a pattern in the frosting. Last, you pipe pretty decorations on the cake. I can't wait to decorate my cake!

Week 8 -- Lemon Chiffon Cake, Yellow Butter Cake, Lemon Curd

This week in lab I made a Lemon Chiffon Cake (technically two, since we didn't have the proper pans), Yellow Butter Cake, and Lemon Curd.

First, I started working on the lemon chiffon cake because it takes the longest to bake. I sifted flour and some sugar with baking powder and salt. Then I mixed oil, egg yolks, water, lemon juice, and vanilla extract in a separate bowl. I combined my liquid ingredients with my dry ingredients. Next, I beat my egg whites until they got foamy, and then added sugar. When the egg whites reached stiff peaks, I stopped beating them. Then I folded my egg whites into the batter. Right before I started to pour my batter in the pans, I realized that I never added lemon zest to the cake. So I quickly zested a lemon, and folded the zest into my batter. Normally, you would bake a cake like this in an angel food cake pan, but RMC only had 3 so I had to use a normal round cake pan. That also affected the way I cooled my cake. In an angel food cake pan, you would cool the cake upsidedown, but I couldn't really do it that way. Chef Mark suggested we improvise and try to rest my cakes on the edges of three wine glasses. In theory it was a good idea, but it left little indentations on the tops of my cakes. Fortunately, they came out of the pans nicely, so I just flipped them over and made the bottom the "top" of my cakes.

Next, I made my yellow butter cake. First, I mixec egg yolks, milk, and vanilla extract. In my mixer, I combined flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt until they were blended. Then I added butter and some milk to the dry ingredients and beat it all together for about 2 minutes. Next, I added the egg mixture in three additions. About this time, Chef Mark told me that he thought the recipe he gave us was wrong. The recipe said 6 egg yolks and because other students cake batters were looking really heavy, he thought that the recipe was wrong and maybe should be 6 eggs. So since I had already added the yolks, I had to get 6 egg whites. Chef Mark told me the weight equivalent for 6, so I measured it out and added it. Shortly after, he came and told me that he gave me the wrong measurement, so I had added too many eggs. It didn't seem to affect my cake in a negative way, so it didn't bother me. My cakes rose nicely, and had a good color and texture.

The last thing I made was lemon curd. I put a tablespoon of lemon juice in a bowl and added a little bit of gelatin. Then I heated lemon juice, sugar, and salt on the stove until it was hot, but not boiling. Then I whisked eggs and egg yolks together. I whisked the hot lemon/sugar mixture into the eggs and then returned it to the stove. I cooked the curd until it reached 170 degrees and was thick. Then I stirred in butter, strained, and chilled it. After our lemon curd had chilled, we were supposed to cryovac it. That was a wonderful experience. The cryovac machine is usually my friend, but today it turned against me. It didn't seal my bag, instead it sucked the curd out into the machine and made a huge mess. It was such a pain to clean up, not to mention that I lost 3/4 of my lemon curd. Luckily, I have nice friends who offered to let me use some of theirs the following week if I didn't have enough.

At the end of the night, we put our yellow butter cakes in the freezer and our lemon curd in the fridge. In our next lab, we are going to fill and frost our cakes. I am so excited for that!

Week 8 -- Cakes (Lecture)

This week in class we talked about cakes. I love baking and decorating cakes, so I was very excited for us to talk about cakes.

It was interesting to learn how each ingredient affects the final product. The ingredients are classified in different categories:

• Tougheners (flour, milk, eggs)
• Tenderizers (sugar, fats, egg yolks)
• Moisteners (liquids, i.e. water, milk, juice, eggs)
• Driers (flour, starches, milk solids)
• Leaveners (baking powder, baking soda, eggs)
• Flavorings (extracts, cocoa, chocolate, spices, salt, sugar, butter)

Knowing how each ingredient affects the outcome of the cake is very important. Now, I'll be better at figuring out what to change if a cake doesn't turn out.

We also talked about cake mixing methods and the types of cakes that use these methods. The first method is the Creamed Fat method. Creamed fat cakes use a high fat formula and contain chemical leavening. Butter cakes and high ratio cakes are made using this method. The second mixing method is the Whipped Egg method. In general, whipped egg cakes do not require chemical leavening agents because of the air whipped ito the eggs. These types of cakes also contain little or no fat. Genoise, sponge cake, angel food cake, and chiffon cake are made using the whipped egg method.

We also talked about some cake baking tips that I thought were helpful. One of them that I had not heard before was that it is better to coat a pan with shortening than butter because shortening does not contain water. Good to know!

Week 6 -- Eclair Paste, Pastry Cream

This week in lab we made Eclair Paste, Pastry Cream, and Chantilly Cream.

First, I made pastry cream. I made it first because it needed time to cool after cooking. I heated the milk with vanilla bean in it. Then, I mixed egg yolks, sugar, and corn starch. When my milk started to bubble, I took it off the heat and whisked part of it into the egg mixture to temper it. Then I added, the rest of the milk and put it all back on the stove. I stirred the mixture until it started to thicken. Then I strained it and put it over a water bath to let it cool.


I also made palmiers this week. To make these, you take puff pastry dough and roll it out. Then you sprinkle cinnamon and sugar over it, fold the ends in, and then fold it together again. Next, you cut it into thin strips. When they bake, they puff up and make kind of a heart shape.


I also made eclair paste, which is also called pate a choux. First I melted butter in some water. Then I brought that to a boil and mixed in flour. After that, I realized that for some reason I had measured the full amounts of water and butter, but measured half the amount of flour. So I quickly measured the other half of the flour and added that to the rest. I cooked the flour mixture for 4 minutes, and then put it into a mixer. I ran the mixer on high speed for a little while, until the flour mixture stopped steaming. Then I mixed in eggs one at a time until the mixture was the right consistency. Next, I piped the dough into circles and necks for my swans and thick lines for eclairs and baked them. To make the swans, pictured above, I cut the round pieces of dough in half, and then cut one half in half again. I used the half as a base and spread some pastry cream on it. Next, I stuck the swan's neck in the pastry cream. Then, I piped some chantilly cream (heavy cream whipped with sugar and vanilla) and put the two quartered pastry pieces sideways on it for the wings.


For the eclairs, I piped pastry cream into them from the bottom and then dipped them in chocolate.

Week 6 -- Classic Pastries (Lecture)

This week we talked about classic pastries, such as puff pastry, eclair paste (pate a choux), meringue, and phyllo dough.

Puff pastry is a buttery dough that bakes up into hundreds of layers. Puff pastry is time consuming to make. You have to roll fat into the dough and chill the dough each time you roll the dough out. Classic pastries made out of puff pastry include bouchees, vol-au-vents, and feuilletees.

Eclair paste is a cooked dough that is used to make cream puffs, eclairs, paris-brest, beignets, churros, and gougeres. To make it, you add flour to boiling water, milk, and butter. After you cook the mixture, you mix in eggs. You want the product to have large pockets of air inside when it bakes. This makes the product lighter and allos for you to fill the inside.

Meringue is egg whites whipped with sugar. It is also the term used when referring to a confection/cake baked from egg whites whipped with sugar. The texture of the meringue depends on the ratio of sugar to egg whites. If you have a low sugar content, your meringue will be softer. A high sugar content will produce a harder meringue. I did not know that there were different types of meringue. The three types are common, Swiss, and Italian. Common meringue is made by beating the egg whites to a soft foam and then gradually adding sugar. Swiss meringue is more complicated than common meringue. It is made by warming unwhipped egg whites with sugar over a bain marie. After the egg whites/sugar reach 100 degrees F, they are whipped until cool and stiff. To make Italian meringue, you pour hot sugar syrup into soft peak egg whites.

Phyllo dough is the last of the classic pastries we discussed in class this week. When you use phyllo dough, you brush it with melted butter and stack it together. Phyllo dough is made of flour, water, oil, and eggs. The dough is spread super thin. It is really hard to make, so it is much easier to buy than to make.

Week 5 -- Flan, Creme Brulee, and Creme Anglaise

This week in lab, we made Flan (Creme Caramel), Creme Brulee, and Creme Anglaise.


In making the Flan (pictured above), I started by caramelizing sugar. I cooked the sugar with some water until it turned an amber color. Then I put the caramel in the bottom of my ramekins. Next I made the custard for the flan. First I boiled milk with a cinnamon stick and half a vanilla bean. While that was heating up, I whisked eggs, egg yolks, brown sugar, molasses, and amaretto together. I tempered the egg mixture with some of the hot milk, then I incorporated the rest of the milk into the egg mixture. After straining the custard, I filled my ramekins, put them in a half hotel pan with a water bath, and put them in the oven to bake. My flan turned out pretty well. The custard had a creamy consistency. I've never had flan before, and I didn't really like the way it tasted.

Next I made the creme brulee. It is made using pretty much the same method as the flan. First, I put heavy cream and half a vanilla bean on the stove to boil. While that was heating, I mixed egg yolks and sugar. Once my cream started to boil, I added some of it to the egg mixture to temper it. Then I incorporated all of the milk into the egg mixture. I strained the custard, and then put it into ramekins. Then I baked the creme brulee in a water bath. After they came out of the oven, I put them in the blast chiller to cool them down and let them firm up a little bit. Normally, you're supposed to let creme brulee chill for at least 4 hours, but we didn't have that much time. They probably only got to chill for an hour, maybe less. When it was time for grading, I took them out the blast chiller, sprinkled some sugar on top and torched the sugar. I was pretty used to the torching part of it. At Courtright's, when I work the garde manger/dessert station, I torch a lot of creme brulees! My creme brulees turned out well, unfortunately I forgot to take a picture of them. I guess we'll all just have to imagine how beautiful they were! :-P


Next we made Floating Islands and Creme Anglaise. I think you're going to get bored with this blog I explain the process of the creme anglaise. It is the same as the creme brulee and the flan (except this used half and half instead of milk or heavy cream). Boil the half and half with vanilla bean, mix egg yolks and sugar, temper egg mixture, combine half and half with egg mixture. After the custard is combined, you cook it on the stove until it is nappe (the consistency that it will coat the back of a spoon). It is different from the other two desserts, because you don't bake creme anglaise, it is a dessert sauce. The floating islands, and poached meringues. I took some of the egg whites I had left over and mixed them with some sugar until they had stiff peaks. While the half and half and vanilla bean were simmering, I put some of the meringue in it and poached it. Then I plated my floating islands with the creme anglaise (pictured above).