Recipe tips: Opéra

Hello fork musketeers!

Today we'll be taking a look at the elegant Opéra.

(No I didn't forget to pipe the name on it. I ran out of time and the chocolate was already hard and put away, so I simply omitted it)

So let's look at the anatomy of an Opéra cake. It consists of three or four different parts: joconde sponge cake; chocolate ganache; coffee flavoured buttercream and pâte à glacer (frosting paste). The last is optional and you could totally use chocolate ganache instead.

Your opéra components

So joconde cake is exactly like making lady fingers, except you're incorporating the almond powder with the eggs. When that's whipped, reserve and make meringue and incorporate the meringue into the batter. You'll want to incorporate the meringue as best you can in as little turns as possible. Chunks of meringue will make your joconde rise unevenly.

At school we lined small trays with parchment paper and poured the batter into the trays. Parchment paper will really help with the assembly, so I highly recommend you use it. Once you bake it, take it off the tray (thanks to the parchment paper) and put a towel on top. The steam will help make the sponge more moist and soft.

In the mean time, you can make your ganache and buttercream. Let's take a closer look at the ganache.

Ganache troubleshooting tips

Ganache. So simple and delicious, but it's not the most beautiful food to watch while it's being made. In fact, if you just decide to jump into making ganache without knowing, you would think you screwed it up. Don't fret; just keep mixing and it will come togther.

That being said, sometimes your ganache will "break" even if you've done all the right things.

Notice the clumpy bits.

It's really discouraging when you've made ganache before and, because the stars and the moon aligned on the night of a red moon in summer, your ganache breaks. It totally sucks... but it can be fixed! Yay!

The reason why a ganache breaks is usually because there's not enough fat; either from the lack of fat in the chocolate and/or the lack of fat in the cream/milk. So check this out: all you need is some cold cream and...

Top part is the broken ganache.
The bottom is the ganache with added cream.

... look at the world of difference! You show that ganache who's boss!

Assembling your Opéra

Opéra cake is a layered cake. So you have to cut your joconde into three, more-or-less, similar pieces and your layers need to go like this:

Going from the bottom to the top:

1. Joconde (+coffee syrup)
2. Coffee buttercream
3. Joconde (+coffee syrup)
4. Ganache
5. Joconde (+coffee syrup)
6. Coffee buttercream
7. Frosting paste or chocolate ganache.

The slight exception is the bottom. If you want, you can apply some frosting paste on the crust-side of your joconde before flipping it over. I know on my very first Opéra cake I didn't put anything; so it's up to you.

Protip: you should assemble this cake crust side down. In other words, you're going to be flipping your joconde so the golden and delicious part is always facing the ground. You should be using the parchment paper as a way to grab your slightly tacky joconde and peeling off the parchment paper before you put the syrup. You assemble it this way so the coffee syrup can penetrate the joconde more easily.

When you're applying the syrup, be very liberal with it. You don't have to be super liberal with the layer on the very bottom but for the middle and the top layer you shouldn't be afraid to use your syrup. You know you're done when the coffee syrup is not immediately absorbed into the sponge or you can cut small slits to see if the joconde is brown from the syrup.

As a rule of thumb, opéra is a very, very flat cake. Chef said the cake shouldn't be more than 2-3cm or 0.75"- 1 1/8"~ high, so be careful not to make your joconde too thick. When you're done, pop your opéra in the fridge and let the buttercream firm up before you apply the top layer.

Protip: Take special care to put a bit more buttercream/ganache in the corners and edges of the cake. Those areas tend to be overlooked. Also, make sure the top buttercream layer is very smooth; any obvious bumps and/or imperfections are going to show through the chocolate layer on top. Don't fret if you have minor spatula streaking though.

The trickiest part about this is when you need to put the frosting paste on top. You can add a bit of vegetable oil to make it more runny. If you're using chocolate ganache, I popped mine in the microwave to warm up so it was runny. This step has to be done quickly and with the least amount of fiddling as possible; the more you touch it, the uglier your top will be. As you pour, don't be afraid if it dripples off the side. You're going to be cutting the edges anyway!

Protip: When you put your ganache/frosting paste on top, make sure your cake isn't super cold. It'll cause your ganache/paste to set much more quickly and make it harder to get a smooth finish.

The next step is cutting your opéra. 

Chef's Opéra being used as a demo.

Whether you used chocolate ganache or frosting paste, you need a hot knife to effectively cut it. You want the hot knife to melt the chocolate on top, then when the knife melts through the chocolate, you may apply pressure to cut the rest of it. This is more crucial if you used frosting paste; when it sets it becomes hard so it will snap if you apply too much pressure. And that will make us both upset. So! Remember to use a hot knife to melt the chocolate and be patient.

Dat cutting action.

What you do with the extra bits is up to you.

In general, Opéra is an extremely rich dessert that is best eaten in small quantities. The exact proportion of the square/rectangle is up to you. If you're more into numbers, Chef told me the general serving size is between 80-120grams.

The width on the right pieces bothered me so much that
I ended up cutting them into squares. I have no regrets.

If you notice on the bottom row, 5th piece to the left:

... That piece cracked because I didn't let the knife melt the chocolate and that area was a little thin. So when you're cutting you must have a super hot knife and patience, patience, patience! Plus wipe your knife between each cut.

Protip: I found continuously diving your cake into halves (half/quarter/eighth etc) will help you get more even pieces.

Just for fun, let's do a bit of comparing:

My very first opera cake.

Opéra I made at school

Which do you think is better?

Day 14: Surprise cupcake day?!! All about buttercreams

Hello fork musketeers!

So on Thursday, I tried out this recipe with pretty good results.

Pandan cupcakes with gula melaka butter cream and salt gula melaka drizzles.

So we were originally told that we would present our cupcakes on Friday but Chef came in and told us, "Ok, you will make your cupcakes and show them to me this afternoon." Yikes! Good thing I brought all the things I needed.

The reason why Chef wanted us to do cupcakes is because it was a good exercise to do that summarizes the things we learned this month. We dealt with buttercreams; making batters and other basics.

Buttercream basics

Most people know what buttercreams are. Butter and sugar, amirite!?

Adding gula melaka syrup to swiss buttercream

The final colour

What you probably didn't know is there are different styles. They are all slightly different from each other but some are more suited to different things.

French buttercream

This is the most rich buttercream. It involves either whipped egg yolks or whole eggs that is cooked with piping hot sugar (about 120˚C) and whipped until gloriously fluffy. Then the butter is added in for... well, buttery goodness. This is a really enriched buttercream that is best eaten in smaller quantities.

Italian buttercream

While French buttercream uses egg yolks, Italian buttercream will use egg whites. It's otherwise the same method; whip egg whites and drizzle in the piping hot sugar while whisking. Then when it's cool you add the butter.

Swiss buttercream

Swiss buttercream also uses egg whites but instead of drizzling in hot sugar, the egg whites and sugar are cooked over a bain-marie/double boiler. This one will require some arm-power since you need to whip this over the bain-marie to prevent getting scrambled eggs. After the sugar's dissolved, whip it up to stiff peaks in your mixer and, once it's cooled, put in your butter.

Wait, so what about American buttercream?

I think, in general, when people think of buttercream they tend to think of American buttercream. If you've ever made buttercream that just used softened butter and icing sugar, you've made American buttercream. I think it tends to be the more common version in recipes since it's fairly fail-proof. That being said, Chef was pretty adamant that we were not allowed to make it ever and doesn't consider this style to be "real" buttercream.

In my opinion, I think it's a good option if you or someone you know is allergic to eggs. If we compare the American-style buttercream with the ones with egg, there is definitively more complexity in the texture and overall they have a better taste. Here's a handy article that talks more in depth about buttercreams if you're interested.

Whatever style you decide to make, the rule of thumb for buttercream is to keep beating it. Seriously. Unless your eggs scrambled, it can be fixed by identifying the problem (fat/water not coming together; clumps of butter; etc), addressing it and beating it some more. Generally speaking, buttercreams are an emulsion of water and fats. You just need to bring them together!

Here are some troubleshooting guidelines that may help you on your next buttercream adventure.

My buttercream looks super clumpy!
Take some of your buttercream between your fingers and feel the texture. Unless it's scrambled eggs, you can probably fix it. If it's small chunks of butter - and you'll see the small chunks melt on your fingers - your butter is probably a little too cold. Gently warm up your mixer and keep beating. The butter should incorporate.

If it's scrambled eggs it means you didn't whisk the sugar in fast enough or your heat was too high. Just try again.

My buttercream looks watery with clumps of fat floating on top.
If you see this kind of texture, it means your buttercream didn't emulsify properly. Don't fret though, it can be fixed in one of two ways: 1) you can try swapping the beater with a whisk and whisking the mixture together; the incorporated air will help them emulsify or 2) you don't have enough fat in your buttercream. Try adding a bit more butter and keep beating. Just make sure your butter is room-temperature, otherwise it'll have a hard time getting incorporated and you'll get even more stressed out!

My buttercream is super soupy.
This can mean one of two things. If you're making swiss buttercream, just keep beating it. If you're not, it probably means your mix was too warm when you added the buttercream. Either way, keep beating it and if it still doesn't firm up, put your mixing bowl in the fridge for 5-10 minutes. Remember, you just want to chill the butter enough so it's not soupy; if you leave your cream in the fridge for too long it'll just be a hard, buttery thing and you'll have to let it warm up to beat it properly.

Final notes

So I tweaked this recipe by adding some toasted desiccated coconut on top and toasted almonds. While the flavours are obviously there, I wanted to make it a bit more exciting with some textural contrast.

I think the original recipe was a little too sweet for some; Chef and some of my friends noted the sweetness. I did this recipe again by decreasing the amount of sugar in the cupcake by half. Since sugar not only adds sweetness but moisture as well (remember that for the next time you decrease sugar in your next cooking adventure), the cupcake came out a bit drier. However, since the buttercream and caramel was so moist and sugary, the overall experience is balanced out. I had Chef and a few people tell me the reduced sugar version was better, but YMMV.

I hope you guys give this a try. Next week we'll be starting breads and viennoiseries. I'm pretty excited to make my own croissants!

Day 13: Preparation for Friday cupcakes

Hello fork musketeers!

We didn't do a lot today. Chef lectured about sugar, Baume, and refractometers today. If you're interested, I'll put that information at the bottom. Just search for the heading, "Today's lecture".

So the remainder of the week is dedicated to making cupcakes. Not necessarily doing a lot of cupcake batters; but on Friday we're going to present 10 cupcakes. We were given the freedom to choose whatever recipe we want - it doesn't have to be from our recipe book - and we can decorate it however we want.

I was quite unsure about what I wanted to do. At first I thought I would do something with Minecraft but then I'd be spending 3/4s of my time cutting out small squares. That would be no fun! Then I thought, oh I could do something with pandan and gula melaka.

Pandan

Gula melaka

For those who are unfamiliar, pandan and gula melaka are widely used in southeastern Asia. Pandan is a very fragrant, almost sweet, herb that is used in a lot of desserts. In Montreal, fresh pandan is easily accessible at your local Asian supermarket. It's extremely fibrous, so it's normally used as a herb to add and later remove, or the juices are extracted.

Gula melaka is a palm sugar made from the coconut tree and it has such a rich, complex flavour. It's fairly solid when it's chilled but as it warms up it starts to have the texture of wet brown sugar. It's honestly really tasty to eat by itself.

I want to do a pandan cupcake with gula melaka buttercream on top. I'm still working out the details but I'll most likely use this recipe as a base. I will post pictures of my experiments tomorrow. In the mean time, I wanted to prepare some pandan extract for tomorrow; or hopefully it will be ready for tomorrow. Cross your fingers for me! (I know I will be)

Extracting the pandan extract

This part will take you max 15 minutes to do. You'll need:

1. Fresh pandan
2. Water
3. A good food processor or blender
4. a fine strainer and/or cheese cloth.

The method

1. Separate your pandan leaves and wash well. Cut into small-ish pieces and discard the white bits. 
2. Place into your blender and add some water.
3. Blitz until it's well blended. You might have to push down some of your pandan leaves.
4. Once done, strain it through your sift or cheese cloth and squeeze squeeze squeeze the juices out.

You should end up with something like this:

You could, hypothetically, use this right away. However your pandan extract is watered down since you needed water to blitz it properly. Keep your watered-down pandan extract and in a few hours/days, the water and the pandan extract should separate. When it does, discard the water layer and keep the dark green sediment.

I did find a pretty useful blog post talking about this in more depth. Check it out if you're interested in trying this out.

So, hopefully, it should be ready by the time I go to school tomorrow. In a pinch, you can go to your local Asian supermarket and buy pandan extract. Which I will be doing if this isn't ready by then. Yeah...

Anyway, thanks for reading. Leave a comment down below if you have any questions or something. Don't be shy!

Today's lecture

Onto the more technical part of today: talking about syrups, almonds and proportions.

We covered some of sugar's properties. Have you ever thought about why jams don't really expire? You'd think, "yeah 'cause there's so much sugar in them!" But it's not simply because there's sugar in it - it's because sugar is an antiseptic.

Personally, it's really weird to think of sugar as an antiseptic. It's very easy for me to think that salt is an antiseptic, but sugar? Mind is blown. This is why you can leave jams and marzipan on the counter without worrying about it rotting. There's enough sugar to ward off bacteria.

Sugar also increases the density of water, just like salt. Check it out.

Looks like I was shakey here. My bad!

The container on the right has 1:1 ratio of water and sugar - otherwise known as 30˚ Baume syrup. It's dense enough to make the egg float. You can add water to decrease the density and suspend the egg in the syrup.

The container with the egg would be close to 15˚ Baume (2:1 ratio of water and sugar). A 60˚ Baume syrup is pretty much safe to keep on the counter without refirgeration.

Sugar density was originally measured with this method, but it's now illegal due to sanitation reasons (e.coli on the shells). Thanks to late 1700s modern technology though, we have a handy tool called the Baumé syrup density meter.

Tadaaaaaa!

You stick this in your syrup and it'll tell you how dense your syrup is. Neat! There's also an equivalent for more solid foods - a refractometer, measured in Brix.

Solid tadaaaaa!

You place a sample of your food/thing into the refractometer and point it at a light source (usually a window) and it will tell you how much sugar is in your food. Super neat! These proportions are handy because certain recipes call for a certain sugar density in the syrup. 

Another thing Chef told us - and wanted to make sure we understood - was the proportions of sugar and almond powder and what they make. For example, most people think almond croissants are filled with almond cream or paste - this is misleading since it's actually filled with frangipane. Marzipan and almond paste are only sugar and almonds - so what's the difference?!

So confusing! Don't fret though; here's a comprehensive list of these four very similar things:

1. Almond paste: AKA temps-pour-temps. It's a 60:40 ratio of almond powder and sugar. This is used to make almond cream.
2. Marzipan: A 40:60 ratio of almond powder and sugar. These can stay on the counter because they have a high sugar content.
3. Almond cream: made from almond paste but enriched with egg and a dash of rum. This was used in the pithivier I made a few days ago.
4. Frangipane: This is almond cream mixed with pastry cream. This is the filling you find in almond criossants.

It can be a little confusing but for a pastry chef (in-training) it's crucial to remember and know the differences between these similar ingredients.

Day 11: Choux pastry (experiment day)

Hello fork musketeers!

So yesterday we had a free day to practice recipes. So I decided to take this opportunity and try something with choux pastry.

In preparation for Monday, I made kaya on Sunday; otherwise known as coconut jam. It's a Malaysian breakfast condiment usually spread on toast. It has a really creamy texture and it has a caramel/coconut taste to it. I thought it would go really well with choux pastry and a little something I really liked.

Home made kaya jam. Delicious!

While we did do choux pastry at an earlier date, I didn't have very detailed pictures. This time I took some pictures, so I decided to write about choux pastry on this entry.

The basics

Choux pastry, Chef C told us, is like bread. While the recipe will always have a certain volume/grams of ingredients, you might have to tweak it depending on the weather that day.

You'll heat up your liquids - water/milk/butter - until it begins to boil. You can sift your sugar/salt/flour in the mean time and mix well. When it boils, take your pot off the heat and dump your dry ingredients in and mix until the flour has absorbed everything. Then back onto the heat and mix mix mix! Mix with a spatula or a wooden spoon until it starts to coat the bottom. Then off the heat again and transfer the dough into a bowl/mixing bowl to slightly cool.

While it cools, crack all of your eggs into a separate container and lightly beat them. In fact, if your dough is still a little too warm, go ahead and get a small container of water. I'll explain this later.

Chef C told us that choux pastry is a very simple recipe to learn but hard to master. Everyone has their own version and, while it's important to understand what you're doing, it's equally important to understand the recipe itself. This is because choux pastry is like making bread - you can't expect to blindly dump all of your eggs in and expect it to be the same each and every time. What you're looking for a certain consistency, not the fact that it has X eggs.

So what's the consistency? Well, take a big dollop of dough onto your spatula/wooden spoon...

.... and let the bass it drop.

When the bass dough drops, this V shape is exactly what you're looking for. If you don't have a V shape, it means your dough is still too dry. Keep adding your eggs!

If you add all of your eggs and you still don't have the V shape, do not add any more eggs. Instead of adding eggs, now you'll be adding water. The reason why you don't add anymore eggs is because eggs will toughen up the outside; the entire reason why choux pastry expands is because of the steam. If the skin/crust is too tough, the steam won't be able to push the pastry and gloriously expand and you'll be super upset. And so would I, on your behalf.

When your dough is done, you can continue in one of two ways. You can either go old-school and use a spoon to shape your pastry or use a pastry bag. It's really up to you. Obviously the advantage of using a pastry bag is your choux pastries are super consistent. Just remember to oil your tray (oil spray); parchment paper or a silicon mat.

The consistent shapes are strong in this one

If you wanted to do éclairs, I highly recommend a pastry bag or a zipbloc bag with the tip cut. They have a very specific shape that's not as forgiving with a spoon and you'll probably be very frustrated and disappointed.

Protips: If you have circular metal rings, dip them in flour and form templates on your tray. This way, if you're looking for consistency, you know exactly how much to put on. If you're making éclairs, take a metal rack and place it upside-down on your tray (so flat surface on the tray). Then grab some flour and dust the surface with flour. When you take off your rack, it'll leave a bunch of horizontal and vertical lines. Use these lines to make your éclairs all the same length.

Whatever method you choose, you'll want to brush some egg wash on these puppies. If you have any undesirable pointy details, you can use your brush to fix those. Just be careful not to get egg wash on the bottom; Chef C said it prevents the pastry from rising, although I think mine all came out pretty good despite egg wash getting on the tray.

Dat egg wash totally touching the tray

The 2nd and 3rd to the left had egg wash on the bottom.
Notice how they still rose but their shape is flatter on the bottom

You be the judge

When you're baking your choux pastry, resist the urge to peek and open the door. No, you're not allowed to open the door to rotate either. You want to keep the steam in. You can only open the oven after the crust has browned.

Now we get to the exciting part: filling it!

You can either cut them in half or pipe in the filling. Since I'm in pastry school, I piped in the kaya. If you want to pipe it in, it's a lot easier to pierce it with something sharp first than muscling your piping tip into the pastry. 

So far it's looking like normal cream puffs... but wait! There's more! My experiment wasn't only trying the coconut jam - it was also glazing them with caramel.

So shiny...

I got this idea from the croquembouche we helped Chef assemble two weeks ago. I really liked the textural difference between the crunchy caramel and the soft, creamy filling in the choux pastry and just had to try it with kaya.

I forgot to put shredded coconut on them, so here they are as they should be:

Perfection

The left is the batch I forgot; the right is one where I dipped the choux pastry into a container of shredded coconut after the caramel dip; and the bottom is one where I tried to sprinkle the coconut on top. Let's just say I'm going to be dipping them from now on.

For this filling in particular, I did notice it couldn't help but slowly leak out from the bottom. So I ended up sealing the hole with a bit of caramel.

Hopefully your filling shouldn't be leaking out, but as long as you're using something a little thick like pastry cream or whipped cream you should be OK. Kaya, while thick, doesn't have that same consistency as pastry cream.

I also noticed that my caramel, despite being solid, was still tacky to the touch. This is because it didn't have glucose. So if you want to have a caramel glaze like this, you'll want to add some glucose to make the caramel dry to the touch and not tacky like mine.

Anyway, I hope this was interesting. For the rest of the week we'll be covering cupcakes, so I'm expecting a lot of piping tips on how to do cool designs.

Also: don't be shy and leave a comment down below. I fixed the comment settings so it isn't exclusively for Google users. I'd like to know what you guys think. I'll see you next time!

Recipe tips: Decorating puff pastries and baking tips

Hello fork musketeers!

Today we'll be looking at some tips and tricks to making your puff pastry look even more amazing.

Pithivier

Let's start with some decorating basics.

The basics

So you've made your puff pastry, shaped it, stuffed it, did your eggwash and you're just about to put it in the oven - but hold on a second! There's a few more things to be done before you put it in.

In general, you want to do a decorative pattern on the top of your product. The decoration not makes your pastry beautiful but it also helps the pastry puff more. I mentioned on thursday that you need to cut the edges on all puff pastries. I didn't have a picture of it, but here is exactly what I mean:

Here is the pithivier. If you look closely are the edges, it's been cut on a diagonal. In this case, it helps create a nice pattern on the edges and will also help the pastry rise.

The pattern you do will depend on the overall shape of your pastry. For example, for pithivier the most common pattern is the swirl or a kind of "leaf" pattern.

The leaf pattern

Before you do the pattern, you want to do it after a coat of egg wash. Give it 15-30 seconds to dry a bit before cutting, otherwise your egg wash will just seep into your cuts and you won't see the pattern when it bakes.

Protip: Be careful not to brush egg wash where your dough meets. The egg wash acts like glue and it's hard to puff up if you're stuck onto something!

Just remember the "bottom" will become the top since it's going to be flipped. Fingerprints are not very attractive and it'll be harder to do the pattern with all those bumps and valleys.

 

As you do the pattern, use the blunt end of the knife and hold your knife at a very shallow angle. This will help you glide more easily through the dough. 

Protip: Mark the perimeter of your pattern. This helps you know when and where to stop.

In general, you'll want to do a few guidelines. In this case, do a swirly lines then fill in the gaps with more swirled lines until the pattern looks full. Then dock the entire pastry.

When you're done your pattern, now you can put it in the oven! Phew! Now we just wait until it's golden brown and delicious!

... Except not really.

Why "golden brown and delicious" isn't always a good indication of doneness

Well, it sometimes can be, but in general you need to look for more than golden brown. This is especially important in puff pastry where complete doneness will give you optimal buttery taste and texture vs. being under/over-baked. 

In the case with puff pastry, you've applied an egg wash to the top. In the oven, the egg wash is going to cook faster than the rest of your pastry. This means, in most cases, it's going to look golden brown and delicious before the actual dough is fully cooked through.

When you're baking puff pastries, you'll need to look at the bottom as well as how it feels. The bottom should be closer to golden brown and your pastry should feel solid and not smooshie. Depending on how you rolled out your pastry; whether the butter got too warm or the evenness of your dough will all play a factor into how long (or short!) your pastry will bake for. It might go beyond golden brown and almost dark brown in some cases, so just keep an eye on it as it bakes. In this case, mine was actually slightly undercooked and still needed another 5-10 minutes in the oven.

I hope this helps you guys make even tastier and beautiful puff pastry. Tomorrow is a free day at school and I will be doing some experiments with some of the recipes we've done so far.

Day 8 - Puff pastry

Hello fork musketeers!

Today we'll be covering puff pastry basics. Whooaa!

From this...

To these!

There are a lot of suggestions to make this show-stopping dough easier to make. What I'll be talking about today is some tips and know-hows to help you make better and tastier puff pastry.

Puff pastry has two main parts: the détrempe - the basic dough before the cold butter - and the actual, cold butter. Détrempe is basically flour; water; salt; vinegar and melted butter. The vinegar will prevent gluten from developing and it will prevent the pastry from graying (who knew?!). The melted butter will give the pastry a more intense butter flavour than cold butter.

The dough should be very soft and slightly sticky. When it's done, put it in the fridge for a minimum of 20 minutes. You can leave the détrempe in the fridge for about 4-6 days due to the vinegar.

Now the butter. It's important to know the kind of butter you have available. Ideally, when you're making pastries, you want butter with a low water content. Chef uses butter from New Zealand and suggested to not use our local butter (Quebec/Canada). A higher water content butter can contribute to your dough tearing during the rolling process.

Now, alternatively, if you only have a high-water content butter, you can lessen the amount of flour in your détrempe and put it in your butter. It will absorb some of the water, although Chef says it gives the pastry a stronger flour-y taste.

The butter should be formed in a square while it's soft; then placed in the fridge to firm up. Once it's firm, the butter needs to be folded in - an act called beurrer.

When you're ready to make puff pastry, you can fold it in different ways. One way is to roll it out into a four-star shape. You can also roll it out in a square and just fold it over the sides. Whatever method you decide, you'll have to roll it out so that the length of your dough is about three times the width. Also, when you're working the dough, you want the seam to be facing you and opening up like a book.

Since the butter is cold, it'll help to give it a few whacks before rolling. When rolling, you'll have to press down then roll; rinse and repeat until the dough is at the desired length. Don't be shy with the flour but each time you fold the dough brush off the excess flour; you don't want pockets of flour folded into your dough, after all.

If your dough gets rolled out like this:

Then you can cut the weird part and put it on the other side like so:

And place the triangle onto the other part of the edge. The idea is to even out the edge so you have end up with an even product.

Each time you roll out your dough, it should be done in two turns - rolling and folding - and refrigerated between two turns. Fold for a total of six times; five times when you do palmiers. It's really important to refrigerate the dough after two turns to keep the butter firm. Once you're done, you can cut and roll out whatever you want!

Protips

1. You can mark the dough with indentations to remember how many turns you've done.
2. When you "recycle" scrap pieces, don't smoosh them together into a ball. The entire point of puffy pastry is to keep the layers. Smooshing them together will ruin it. Remember to keep the layers in the same orientation at all times!
3. Puff pastry freezes very well.
4. When you're making it by hand, it's very normal to have a few small tears and to see chunks of butter. There might be some melted butter on your tray when you bake; this is very normal.
5. Try to use a low-gluten flour for this. Gluten will not only make it harder to roll out but it will also make the final product hard. It will also help reduce tearing.
6. All puff pastries need to be cut on the ends to help the pastry develop.
7. If you're selling puff pastry, customers tend to like their puff pastries a bit on the larger side.

That's it for today. This weekend I will be posting the recipes we covered this week!

Day 7 - Black Forest cake

Hello fork musketeers!

While we did cover black forest cake and puff pastry basics, this post is already hefty enough with stuff about black forest cake alone. Tomorrow I'll be writing more in-depth about making puff pastry.

So, without further ado: Black Forest Cake!

So a black forest cake uses chocolate genoise. When the chocolate genoise is cooled, cut it into three layers. You'll want to cut the domed part of the cake and the bottom, depending on whether the bottom is dry.

For the filling, you need to prepare some cherries soaked in alcohol, a cherry alcohol syrup, plain whipped cream and chocolate whipped cream. The chocolate whipped cream can be a bit tricky to make if you're not sure what you're doing. You'll want to prepare this last so everything else is good to go.

To prepare chocolate whipped cream, you'll need:

1. 35% cream.
2. some chocolate for melting (chocolate chips will be fine)
3. a bain-marie/double boiler.

Instructions:

1. Whip up your cream until it forms stiff peaks.
• Your whipped cream can't be too soft since you'll be using it to coat the cake. Just be careful not to over-whip, otherwise it'll turn out lumpy. If you do, add some more cream and rewhip.
2. Heat up your chocolate in a bain-marie until melted.
3. Take the chocolate off the bain-marie and incorporate the whipped cream into the chocolate.
• Make sure the chocolate is warm when you do this; otherwise the whipped cream will cool down the chocolate too much and cause it to solidify into small bits. If this happens to you, you can put the bowl back onto the bain-marie and rewarm until the chocolate melts.

Now, to assemble the cake you'll need to layer it like this:

1. Sponge
2. Syrup
3. Chocolate whipped cream.
4. Fruits
5. Sponge
6. Syrup
7. Plain whipped cream
8. Fruits
9. Sponge
10. Syrup
11. Whipped cream coating

Tip: Since the cake is going to have a coating, you'll want to use a cake table or use a cake board. If you don't have either, you essentially want something that will help you or allow you to turn the cake. In a pinch, you could probably use a very flat plate.

To coat the cake, I highly recommend using an icing spatula. So...

Use this!

Use this if you want a challenge

For those who don't know, an icing spatula's long edge helps you have a consistent surface. Using a regular spatula will give you a more rustic look and you'll probably have a harder time getting a cleaner looking coat.

So just start with a huge dollop of whipped cream on top. Spread it around and don't worry too much about how even it is. Just get a rough coating all over the cake. Don't worry too much if you still see some of the cake - that will be covered with chocolate shavings.

Once the cake is covered, you'll clean up by smoothing out the top; then the sides; then the edges of the top. When you're all done, put it in the fridge to chill. In general, for decorating you want to include: chocolate shavings; whipped cream and some cherries. How you want to decorate it is completely up to you!

Tip: For these shavings, my classmate found that applying the shavings with a scraper helps create a nicer and more even layer. Wish I figured that one out.

Serving tip: Black forest cake is best eaten a day or two after it's made. This allows the flavours to meld together, so prepare this in advanced for maximum flavour.

I hope you guys found this informative. Stay tuned for puff pastry!