Baking Class finals:

So here are the finals that my baking class did. I am honestly so proud, I can barely even express it.

The three cakes

These three cakes (elaborated below) all were made for a party in which I was in charge of desserts. They include the Tiramisu, the Julianna, and the Triple Chocolate Terrine.

Tiramisu

I'd say this is a pretty standard cake. It looks better once the acetate paper is taken off the outside and the plate is cleaned up a bit.

Julianna

Of course, the reason for doing this cake was the fact that its name so closely resembles my own, but its very complicated. The outside is a tempered milk/white chocolate marbled shell, the inside is genoise sponge brushed with coffee dessert syrup and layered with a praline/nougatine filling and a vanilla pastry cream filling. The top is a marbled coffee gelatin and some blackberries for decoration. The recipe is just too long and involved to post, so if you'd like it, once again feel free to email me for that.

Triple Chocolate Terrine

So this is my pride and joy, my favorite dessert to make, the tastiest chocolate cake in existence, the honest to goodness pride of my life-- the triple chocolate terrine. (look above at the three cakes photos for what it looks like on the inside. So the basic gist of this is a chocolate cake layered with white, milk, and dark chocolate fillings, with ultra shiny chocolate glaze and strawberries on top. The recipes are not actually all that hard, it just requires some patience. If you want the recipe for this one, comment on the post and I'll send it to you.

Strawberry Napoleon

So here is the strawberry napoleon, which has only 3 components. The first is puff pastry, which I chose to make chocolate, the second is Diplomat Cream, in this case flavored with Grand Marnier, and finally the actual strawberries. The top is done with a lattice cutter, but you could just as easily put some cross woven puff pastry strips in the oven. My tips: If you want to make this be sure you have a VERY good serrated knife to get through the puff pastry layers and the strawberries without pushing down the whole structure and squeezing out the diplomat cream. Also, Be sure you plan for some lost cake, you will probably end up trimming a lot of it off for a good appearance, so make sure you're making more than your even requires. Here are the recipes for the Diplomat Cream and Puff Pastry:

Chocolate Puff Pastry must be made first and way in advance.

Dough:
Bread flour 12 oz
Cake flour 4 oz
Butter 2 oz (soft)
Water 10 fl. oz
salt: 3/8 oz

Lock-in:
Butter (soft) 1 lb 2 oz
Bread flour 1 oz
Cake flour 1 oz
Cocoa Powder 1 oz

Sift together the flours, blend in the butter until it starts to form small pebbles. Combine the water and salt and add all at once to the mix by hand for about 5 minutes. Shape this into a rectangle and refrigerate about an hour until it is harder but still pliable.
For the lock in you'll need to blend the flours and cocoa powder with the softened butter until very smooth, transfer it to a sheet pan lined with parchment paper to go in the fridge and cover it with more parchment paper. Roll out into an even layer about 1/2 the size of your dough and refrigerate.
When they are about the same level of hardness (but not completely solid) take them both out, wrap the butter rectangle in the twice as large dough rectangle and seal it on all the edges, taking care to avoid incorporating air. Then roll it out to a long rectangle on a heavily floured surface to avoid tearing the dough and exposing the butter. After it is rolled out administer a four fold or a book fold (folding both sides into the center and then in half again) and roll out again. Refrigerate until cool and repeat 3 times.
Finally, roll out the dough, cut, and bake at 375 for 10 to 15 minutes with another sheet pan covering the dough for both the bottom and middle portions. This bakes the dough without letting it rise too much so that it can hold the strawberries well at the bottom. The lattice can be baked separately.
To assemble, create 3 long slices of puff pastry the same size-- two that are flat and solid, one that is latticed or woven. Now slice the strawberries to that they have flat bottoms and assemble on the bottom puff pastry.

Diplomat Cream:

Diplomat cream is a mix of pastry cream (the stuff inside éclairs and cream puffs), whipped heavy cream, and gelatin. This makes it much lighter than the pastry cream and mellower in flavor (not to mention healthier by the ounce). For a grand marnier diplomat cream the alcohol must be added to the warm pastry cream when it is initially made. If you use another recipe for this, be sure not to cool the pastry cream like you normally would when making eclairs, the cream needs to be cooled down but not refrigerated when the gelatin and the whipped cream are added.

First you want to make sure that you are completely ready with the puff pastry and strawberries. Once the diplomat cream is made it should be used and refrigerated right away.

Whip 16 fl. oz. of heavy cream until it reaches the soft peak stage (a whip put in a taken out will result in a soft ice-cream like peak). Cover and refrigerate.

Pastry Cream:
Milk 10.5 fl oz
Sugar 66 g
Salt pinch
Cornstarch 24 g
Eggs 4 oz
Vanilla extract 1 tsp
Butter 2/3 oz
Grand Marnier 4/3 oz

Combine 9 fl. oz of the milk with 40 ounces of the sugar and all of the salt and bring to a biol over medium heat while stirring.
Whip the cornstarch and remaining milk until very smooth and add in the remaining sugar and eggs. Whip again until a perfectly smooth mixture is formed.
Add about one third of the hot milk mixture in a thin stream to the egg mixture while whipping vigorously to temper the eggs (heat them without cooking them).
Pour this mixture into the remaining milk and put over medium heat, wisking until the mixture thickens noticeably.
Remove from heat and add the butter, vanilla, and grand marnier.

Now bloom the 7 oz of gelatin needed in 5 times its weight in water. After letting it sit for 5 minutes melt over hot water on the stove and add to the warm pastry cream, whipping. Finally, fold the reserved whipped cream into the rest of the pastry cream mixture 1/3 at a time.

Pipe this very thick cream over the strawberry peaks so that it fills in all gaps and covers strawberries by about 1/2 inch. Then place the next layer of puff pastry on top. Pipe another 1/2 inch of diplomat cream, and smooth the top. My recommendation is to NOT do what I did and add the latticed puff pastry at this point. Instead, refrigerate this whole thing and add the lattice in protion sized strips once the whole thing is finished.

Once you take it out of refrigeration you can trim down the sides so that you can see the strawberry slices.