Intro to Petit Fours

Today's class was all about little desserts that can be eaten in one or two bits (aka petit fours). We were put into new teams today to complete a full menu of 5 different desserts. The class was turned a little competitive today, since we were told that there would be a winning group who will get extra points on their practical. We had fun with it and accused other groups of "sabatoging" our desserts.

Matt, Henri, Mi, and I got started right away mis en placing our recipes for biscotti, marshmallows, macaroons, spritz cookies, and buttercrunch. I got to work on the buttercrunch by melting 1/2 pound of butter. I added in some sugar, water, and light corn syrup and brought the mixture up to a temperature of 300 degrees. I added in some toasted almonds and spread the mixture out on a sheet pan to cool and harden. Tomorrow we will be coating this candy mixture with tempered chocolate and more toasted almonds. Then, we'll break it apart into small peices like "candy bark".

After that was done I helped Matt pipe the spritz cookies onto sheet pans. These baked in the oven for a brief amount of time, until they hardened but had little-no color.

We're putting the finishing touches on all of our petit fours tomorrow and will be preparing a final presentation for judging time!

On another note, I brought a Kombucha beverage with me to class today and coincidentally Chef Chad told me about the Kombucha that he is currently making. Kombucha is a powerful probiotic that is made out of a colony of bacteria and yeast, along with fermented tea and sugar. He showed me his Kombucha and it looked a bit funky, but I'm soo curioius to try it! (I like weird healthy things!) The kombucha will be ready to drink tomorrow so he's going to let me try a bit :)

We ended the class with some skill drills, which involved making more cornets and piping "Happy Birthday, name" with melted chocolate. Here's my practice sheet.. I definitely need some practice!
I got home from school and guess what I had to eat? Leftover PIZZA from yesterday! Yup, 4th day in a row that I had pizza... not sick of it yet..