That being said, I was really dreading this practical. Chef H made it seem so easy in demo, but I made the big mistake of looking online for some inspiration after class. It just seemed to make me even more nervous and realize just how much of a rookie I am. I tried searching for Cordon Bleu chocolate showpieces and some of the results I got were astounding. Absolutely stunning! One picture almost triggered a panic attack until I realized that it was from a competition with experienced pastry chefs. I am definitely not at that level, yet.
The theme I decided on for my showpiece was birds. I wanted to incorporate a few different techniques that we'd learned in the last few months as well as challenge myself a bit. And it was quite challenging. Focussed for an entire 5 hours straight, I didn't realize how tense I was until the next morning when I could barely bend my legs for all the pain. Man, do I feel old! The actual chocolate molding part of the workshop wasn't too difficult or stressful. It was the assembly that really had me sweating. Working against the clock and with no time to remake anything, you better pray that you don't break anything or shake too hard when placing a leaf.
This is the front of my piece. The bottom round is a block of granite - a mixture of broken white, milk and dark chocolate held together by cocoa butter. It really looks like granite. The middle rectangle is mold chocolate with a couple of gelatine leaf inserts, a white chocolate piped vine and a white chocolate flower attached. The top branch was molded from a PVC pipe (pastry chefs use the oddest materials sometimes), with a dark chocolate flower and white chocolate leaves. The whole was covered with little bird silhouettes and a couple of bird's nests made using aluminum muffin cups.
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