A group of people from my house are about to go out to eat in a few minutes to celebrate American Thanksgiving :) Rafi and I will be the only Americans, but I thought it was so nice that everyone wanted to go celebrate with us. We were having trouble deciding where to go - we're a pretty big group of people, so we wanted to pick a place that would have lots of options and wasn't too expensive, and even though we knew we wouldn't be getting a "traditional" Thanksgiving meal with turkey, stuffing, green bean casserole, etc., we thought it would be cool if we found *some* way to incorporate at least turkey into the meal. However, after a little bit of pondering, we came up with a great idea: The Works! Do you remember The Works? It was that burger place I went to a few weekends ago. They have *tons* of options so everyone should be able to find something they like, and they even have TURKEY burgers!! haha It's perfect - I'm soo excited! I'll probably have to stick to something on the plain side, just to continue my "easing" back into regular food, but a turkey burger sounds wonderful for an American Thanksgiving in Canada :)
Anyway, today in class, we made a miroir au cassis cake which is a blackcurrant mousse cake. It a layer of sponge cake on the bottom with blackcurrant mousse in the middle, and a blackcurrant glaze on top. You can modify the recipe any way you would like, however - i.e. you could make a lemon mousse, an orange mousse, a chocolate mousse, a chocolate *and* orange mousse - so you don't necessarily have to use blackcurrants for this cake, and the possibilities are endless!
Today in class, Chef also taught us how to make little candies out of lemon and orange peel. There is a technique where you basically cook the strips of peel in sugar/water, bring it to a boil, strain it, and let the pieces of peel sit out at room temperature which allows the sugar on the peel to crystallize. After that, you can eat them as such or you can go a step further and dip them in chocolate! Yum! :)
Here are some pictures from today:
Remember the chocolate displays I took a picture of a few weeks ago? The advanced pastry class did sugar displays this week, and I took a picture before going into class - aren't they incredible? I can't believe they are entirely made out of sugar!
Chef putting a layer of blackcurrants inside the cake before topping it with more mousse. As I said, there is a layer of spongecake on the bottom (and sides), mousse in the middle, blackcurrants, more mousse, and then a glaze on top. There were a ton of steps in this whole process, and Chef told us that we had to have "perfect" organization today because of all the steps and possibilities for error. The most difficult part was making the actual mousse - I wrote 2 pages front and back with instructions on how to do the mousse! I know I usually write a lot anyway, but that's a lot even for me!
Chef's final presentation! The writing and design is done in white chocolate. I like how we've been writing the names of the cakes on top! I think it looks so pretty :)
Now here are some pictures of my cassis cake :))
Now here are some pictures of my cassis cake :))
See all the layers? I think it looks so cool ;)
Ok, well I'm off to dinner! I hope everyone is having a good holiday! :)
Thanksgiving at the Fernandes house was good. Relatives brought a three layer trifle that was absoluteness delicious. My moms cooking was also good as usual.
ReplyDeleteTURKEY BURGERS ARE AMAZING! I loved the ones we used to get at Alice Cook House and now I get them at the hospital and they are great.
The sugar display is ridiculous! Do people actually eat those. Aren't they pure sugar.
Your cake looks delicious. :D Your posts always make me so hungry.
Wow, your cake is amazing!
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