Basic Week 2: Pastry Creams, Custards and Tarts

This week was full of action!

For those who are not aware of the teaching pattern of LCB, the idea is like for all recipes or lessons involved in a module, a Chef demonstrates it to all groups in a big demo room with a big mirror on top of the Chef work counter and with 2 or more TV screens, so all can see everything properly. Students write down the method(s) in their own words as the Chef progresses, in a 3 hours long session. End of the demo session, we all get to taste the dish made by Chef (which is the best part, hehe!). Then depending on our schedules, on the given day and time slot we replicate the dish in a 3 hours practical session.

Pic Courtesy: http://www.studin.se

Last week ended with the demo of basic pastry creams and its derivatives. We started the week on Monday with making all of them - We made Basic Pastry cream, Diplomat cream, Mousseline cream, Chantilly cream and we made Swiss Meringues.
It was a novel experience for me to make all these creams at the same time, and learn different characteristics of each cream and compare them.

Swiss Meringue

Then we learnt about Custards - baked and stirred, the difference between them and how to make them correctly. Chef showed us different ways of plating them with some sugar work, and it was all awesome! I couldn't wait to try my hands on all of it. This was my favourite part as I loooove Caramel custard.
We made Creme Caramel and Creme Brûlée for our practicals, along with some basic tuile(baked wafer biscuit, generally curved) and fresh fruit coulis(pureed fruit sauce) for decorations. I've made it at home many a times before, but it was never so perfect texture and taste! Oh my god, I can still feel it's taste.

Creme Caramel

I could make both of them properly with nice decorations of fruits and sugar, and I got good comments for all components, except one, per Chef, my Cream Brûlée top was li'l over burnt at some places as the custard was directly exposed to the heat of blowtorch. Never mind! It tasted heaven :)

Creme Brûlée

We had a theory lecture by mid-week on topic - Time Management and Contribution to Effective Teamwork. It was very good and informative.

Then came the Tarts! We learnt about shortcrust and sweet pastry.
For savory, it was Lemon Tart(Tarte au Citron) and for sweet, it was Apple Tart(Tarte aux Pommes).

I enjoyed doing both. Out of which Lemon Tart was a bit tricky as we have to get the correct lemon curd consistency, correct cutting and blanching of lemon juliennes and correct sugar cooking for making Italian meringue cream to pipe on it.
It was more challenging and frustrating for many others in the group who have never done any piping. The tart top is completely covered with piping work. Chef advised them to practice piping at home as much as possible! I am actually surprised, why there is no any piping lesson included in the curriculum, as against the fact that there is no prior baking and decoration knowledge necessary to attend the course!!! :(

Tarte au Citron

Tarte aux Pommes

Chef praised my piping work and asked if I have done it before ;)
Taste-wise, I liked apple tart the most!

Wow! We learnt so many things in just one week! But we're still struggling in the kitchen :( Chefs are instructing us on organisation and efficiency, need to work hard on it. Hoping next week we'll do better! Wish me luck guys, Have a nice week ahead! :)