Day 6: Custards

Today was all about custards: stirred custard, baked custard, boiled custard. The Crème Anglaise from yesterday was a stirred custard. I didn't take any photos of the different kinds, because they basically all looked the same despite the color differences I mentioned yesterday. It tasted like melted vanilla ice cream. The one I made was extremely gritty from tiny pieces of cooked egg. It was extremely unpleasant.

Maple flan still in the ramekins and bain marie (water bath)

We started baked custards after we tasted the different Crème Anglaise variations. Once again, everyone make a different recipe. Other students made leche flan,white wine flan, orange cardamom flan, vanilla crème brûlée, coffee caramel custards, and butterscotch pot de crème. I made a maple flan. In the photo you can tell that one is slightly undercooked and the one above it is starting to develop a "skin" (thick layer on the top). This is because I accidentally tore the tin foil when I was checking to see if they were done which allowed steam to escape during the rest of the baking process. We aren't going to flip them over until Thursday, so I will report back.

Pastry cream: Original Recipe

Pastry Cream: All Cornstarch

After lunch everyone made pastry cream which is a boiled custard that has a multitude of uses. It is often used as a filling for cakes, eclairs, doughnuts, lobster tails, etc. Today we made a basic pastry cream without any extra flavoring, but usually it would have something, such as vanilla bean, alcohol, nut paste, or coffee extract.

Each student made a pastry cream with a different starch, so we could look at the different effects, as we have been doing with everything. The original recipe for pastry cream has both cornstarch and cake flour. I made a version that was all cornstarch. The taste wasn't effected, but it looked extremely unappetizing. The only reason we could ever think that an all cornstarch recipe would be to trick someone into thinking they were eating scrambled eggs until they tasted it.

The other starches used were all cake flour, potato starch, tapioca, arrowroot, and all purpose flour. None of the other versions were quite as inedible as mine and they could work nicely depending on the final purpose for the pastry cream.

Chopped orange pieces after sitting out all night

Over the course of the day I finished the sweet orange marmalade. The sugar syrup that the orange slices were cooked in had to be drained out. Over the course of the night (and when the oranges were cooked) some of the orange flavor seeped into the sugar syrup making orange syrup. Justin wants to try to use this or other citrus syrup to brew beer. I also chopped the orange slices into more manageable pieces to spread on toast.

Orange syrup removed from the pot that the orange slices were in overnight

 Then, I made another sugar syrup and boiled it to 230°F before adding in the orange pieces. The marmalade needed to be brought back to a boil before removing it from the heat and letting it cool.

Sugar Syrup Beginning to Boil

Thickening Sweet Orange Marmalade

We tried all of the jams that were made yesterday over toasted brioche. The only thing we haven't been able to try yet is the candied orange peel, because more sugar needs to be added to it every day for ten days.

Finished Sweet Orange Marmalade

 At the very end of the day we made a French meringue with egg whites and sugar. We took the egg whites all the way from frothy, to soft peaks, to semi-stiff peaks, to stiff peaks, and finally to over whipped. Once the meringue has been over whipped there is no way to save it, because the egg starts to break and get chunky. The egg whites will also start to smell off and eventually rancid if they are beaten too much.

Tomorrow we are having a tasting workshop with the culinary students! It should be really interesting, but I'm not sure how many pictures I'll be able to take. I guess we'll all find out tomorrow!