Phil's Birthday

I may have slightly overdone it this year for Phil's birthday. Ever since school ended I have been filled with a desire to bake and cook everything. And I certainly didn't skimp out on Phil's birthday. This year, it fell on a Thursday so I did a "little" something on the day of his birthday, and then a bigger deal on the Saturday.

Thursday started off with a maple pecan scone accompanied by lemon curd. The scone was filled with crunchy bits of maple sugar and topped with a scrumptious reduction of cream and maple sugar. It really didn't need any lemon curd, so we saved it for future breakfasts.

 
Dinner was a somewhat Scottish-inspired affair, as Phil had mentioned how much he was missing the comforting food. Start off with some french onion soup. Then gourmet veal sausages from the Glebe Meat Market (yum!) with veal gravy, brown-butter mashed potatoes and tomato-mozzarella salad. Those potatoes are game-changers. Nothing short of amazing. Thank you very much Chef at Home!

For dessert, we had walnut spiced cupcakes with maple french buttercream icing. The cupcakes were super fluffy and light, but the icing was the real winner. Using my new French pastry skills, I tried this recipe that I would never have even attempted before. It's French buttercream with maple syrup in place of regular sugar and simply explodes with maple flavour.

Everything was so tasty, we had to repeat it the next day!

On Saturday, or what we like to call "Brunch Day", we made hollandaise and poached eggs with applewood smoked bacon and garlicky homefries. It's a wonder I'm not waddling yet.

For dinner, I made Julia Child's Boeuf Bourgignon, which we ate with fresh baguette. It wasn't quite as delicious as hoped for... I don't think my French pastry skills are as transferrable to cuisine as I'd hoped. But still yummy.

Dessert on the other hand was a complete success. Time yet again to make the premiere dessert of Cordon Bleu: the lemon tart. And this one was as close to perfect as I've gotten yet. I really enjoy baking when it's not a mad rush to get everything done all at once. I relaxed and took the entire day to produce this masterpiece, which almost makes me a convert to pastry dough, something I usually hate to work with. On a normal day, I never leave the pastry long enough to cool in the fridge so it's a hot mess.

Intermediate Exam Prep

I may have gone a little crazy with the exam prep this time... We only get our list of possible exam recipes 2 weeks before the exam. And wouldn't you know it, my sister's bridal shower and bachelorette fell in that first weekend. With absolutely no time to spare what with juggling work, class and planning the bridal shower, I had to leave all of my exam prep until the very last minute. I took 2 days off of work and dedicated myself completely to baking every last one of those 12 cakes. Thankfully, Phil was able to find enough hungry co-workers to take every last cake off our hands, otherwise I don't think I would be able to fit through our door.

One of my first attempts was the Douceur Chocolat, which I haven't actually made before as I missed the practical class. A bottom layer of hazelnut dacquoise is spread with a praline crunch covered in milk chocolate mousse with a milk chocolate disc insert. The whole is covered in a dark chocolate glaze with white chocolate decor along the sides. Everything seemed to go along well until it came time to glaze the cake. I don't know if I added the gelatin to the glaze when it was too hot or if I tried to glaze too early, but the glaze really refused to set, as is evident by the chocolate mousse peaking out between the chocolate squares. Still delicious though!

 

This next one was a royal pain to make in the practical class. It is a triple chocolate bavarian cream, with a layer of sponge on the bottom. The trick with this is to ensure all the layers are perfectly even, which I still can't seem to master. Made for extremely tasty leftovers, though!

This is my latest Ambassadeur Exotique and one of the easiest of the term to make. It's a genoise cake with layers of pastry cream and chunks of oranges and pineapples throughout. The whole is covered in Italian Meringue and sliced almonds. 

One of my all-time favourites: the Marquise au Chocolat. Chocolate ladyfinger sponge topped with praline crisp and dark chocolate mouse, enrobed in dark chocolate glaze and decorated with macarons. I could eat a slice of this anyday of the week. Yum!

Delice Caramel - Coffee ladyfinger sponge with layers of caramel bavarian cream and pear mousse. I was out of clear glaze so just decided to drizzle the top with caramel sauce.

An assortment of chocolate candies: honey truffles, rochers and muscadines. Muscadines still remain the most difficult item for me to make in the Intermediate repertoire. I had quite a bit of leftover tempered chocolate, so I made some almond bark.

The Pacific. It should be a lot more colourful than it is here, but I ran out of food colouring mid-production. A joconde sponge coloured with cigarette paste holds together a layer of strawberry mousse and lemon mousse. It makes for a delightfully refreshing dessert!

This last one was supposed to be a strawberry-cassis tart, but I had absolutely no blackcurrants in my fridge so decided to improvise with blackberries and blueberries. It's a sweet dough with a layer of almond cream and pastry cream, covered with fresh berries.