a couple of weeks ago, we had a catering event. We spent most of may testing and making stuff for it, such as puff pastry straws, strawberry tuxedoes, and cake pops. I had a lot of fun and got some experience making lots of macarons. I also helped Mikayla decorate her cake pops.

Catering Event

On May 29 Vern Riemer had a retirement party. We got to cater for it. We made so many desserts. We thought we wouldn't have enough desserts but we had more than enough. I made the cream puffs. I was going to make swans but they weren't elegant enough. So we just filled them with whipped cream and drizzled with chocolate.

Other people made macaroons, mini tarts, cake pops, strawberry tuxedos, parmasean straws, chocolate truffles and apple roses. We had sooooooo many parmasean straws leftover we had to throw them out. All the desserts were delicious.

Photo Challenge

 After spring break we did a photo challenge where we had to pick a photo and try to recreate it. this is what I chose:

It looked like a chocolate mousse with a tempered chocolate disk, chocolate ganache rosette and a chocolate curl. This is what I created: 

I got to temper chocolate for the first time. It wasn't really that hard. I had made mousse before so it was much easier this time. I really enjoyed making this.

Frozen Choc. Hazelnut Mousse

                For the frozen dessert practical I made chocolate, hazelnut frozen mousse. I made the mousse and a chocolate cage to surround it, added some whipped cream and toasted hazelnuts on top and I was done.  The mousse took longer to freeze then I expected but it was just frozen enough to handle when I added the chocolate cage.

                A requirement  for the practical was that we make just enough for two desserts,  so the amount of hazelnuts I needed was very small, too small  to use the food processor. I thought if I used a knife and tried to chop the hazelnuts into small pieces it would work, it didn't. Most of the nuts sunk to the bottom before the mousse froze. Next time I would try using a coffee grinder,  and maybe find a faster way to freeze the mousse. The good thing about making such a small portion was that I could use couverture chocolate, which was great because when I tried making the mousse with regular chocolate chips it was grainy and not as smooth. All in all I think I did okay. 

Retirement Party

            For the retirement party I helped to make cake pops and truffles. It was lots of fun working with all that chocolate. The cake pops were easy, Jasmine made them beforehand, and I had lots of help dipping and decorating them!

Several people help me coat the cake pops in tempered chocolate, while Jane and Violetta helped with the delicate bows and flowers. The decorations took the longest, every flower was cut out one at a time then thinned out and finally shaped and left to dry. Once they were dry a little bit of chocolate was piped into center.

 The bows were made from ribbon, Violetta taught me how to make them. The process was time consuming but I enjoyed making them. Jane made the pretzel, caramel ganache used for the truffles. We flicked gold dust into the molds and poured dark chocolate on top. They turned out nice.

Sugar free sweet potato cake

I made this cake for my practical I replaced the sugar with stevia. I would have need a little bit more in the icing, though cause it is a little bitter.

And this is the final torte I made... I had to practice for my practical and that's how I decorated it. The cake itself is a genoise cake and in the middle is a baked meringue and then the filling and the decoration is Whipped whipping cream and Dulce de leche. The hardest part was making the Dulce de leche, I think I had to redo it 3 times because it had burnt. but this is the end project. 

And this is the last blog for ever... so everyone else have fun in the following years.