Days 20-24: Grind Your Bones to Make My Panna Cotta

Monday
Unfortunately, I was sick on Monday and stayed home from school. It was actually the perfect day to miss. They just made a few more cakes that we finished later in the week or kept for cake decorating next week.

Tuesday

We learned how to make and use chocolate spray on Tuesday. The spray is basically just chocolate thinned out with cocoa butter. We used a paint sprayer (that is obviously dedicated to chocolate spray) to apply it. I haven't used a paint sprayer since I used to build sets in high school, but it took me right back.

Applying chocolate spray to a mousse cake

Note: My hair is normally in a braid at school, but I wore it in a bun that day and it is falling out...

The cake I covered with chocolate spray

If you spray the chocolate onto a mousse cake that is frozen it will harden with a velvety texture. 

Close up of the velvet texture

We practiced plating desserts for the very first time. It was a lot of fun trying to think of different ways to use the elements. (The pictures I took are not representative of the different ways the dessert was plated...) This was a peanut Gianduja (chocolate and hazelnut) mousse layer with a crunchy bottom layer. It is garnished with honeycomb toffee, peanut butter powder, whipped cream, chocolate eyelashes, chocolate pearls, and gold leaf. This was my boyfriend's favorite thing that I have made so far.

Part of the day on Tuesday was a panel on entrepreneurship with the culinary students. The sparks on the panel were Jim, the owner of Bacon Bacon; Liza, the owner of Merigan Sub Shop; Matt, the organizer of Off the Grid; and Jodi, the head of my culinary school.

Wednesday
The first thing we did on Wednesday was assemble cakes that needed to sit in the freezer overnight. To be honest, I wasn't very good about taking pictures this week. I'm sorry; I'll try to be better next week!

Later in the day, we started working on doughs. The first two days of next week (dough week) are being taken up by Laci Sandoval who is coming to teach us advanced cake decorating. We made a spinach and feta pie with a katifi crust. It was completely devoured for lunch before I could take a photo of it. We also made a Greek Semolina Pie with filo pastry (aka phyllo).

It was delicious warm with cinnamon sugar on top!

At the end of the day we started a glossary of pie/tart doughs (five total). They all went directly into the freezer for later, so I didn't take any pictures of them. They were just disks of dough in saran wrap, so they weren't that interesting to look at anyway.

Thursday
We talked about gelatin for the first time on Thursday. Pastry chefs generally use sheet gelatin, rather than powdered gelatin that you usually see in people's homes. Sheet gelatin has to be softened in ice water before use, but it easily whisks into warm mixtures. We split up in teams of two to make panna cotta using the gelatin to help them set.

Hazelnut Milk Chocolate Panna Cotta

Buttermilk Panna Cotta

Coconut Panna Cotta

For lunch we made scallion pancakes. They were so tasty! I can't wait to make these at home. They are brushed with sesame oil as they are being rolled out for some pseudo lamination. They don't rise though, so it doesn't really make sense. It does however, make them delicious. 

We glazed our mousse cakes from Wednesday. This glaze had gelatin in it to help it set, because it was very thin otherwise.

Decorated with a toothbrush dipped in gold luster dust and vodka

The bristles are rubbed and released with the thumb...This is the same technique I used to simulate blood mist from a head wound when I taught forensic science... haha

Some fancy gold leaf action

 Friday
We had our first exam on Friday. Yes, there are exams in culinary school. It's not just making, decorating, and eating delicious desserts. Well, it mostly is, but anyway... We had an hour long written exam, followed by a three hour practical. I'm pretty sure it went well, but we haven't gotten any feedback yet. Keep your fingers crossed for me!