Day Twenty-Three

This week we still are working on plated desserts and have the same instructor.  I’m not sure if I mentioned that to you or not.  Anyway, we’ve been cruising right along with everything.  That’s chocolate streusel pictured above.  It doesn’t look that good – but it is good.  Trust me.  It’s drying overnight and tomorrow we’ll bake it.  I can’t even wrap my mind around the idea of chocolate streusel… think of how many things things you could put this on.

We’re working on a rhubarb dessert.  Yesss.  I love rhubarb.  This is rhubarb we poached in sugar, water, lemon peel and vanilla bean.  It’s so ugly.  It is – let’s be honest with one another.  I’m interested to see how we make this pretty for plating.  I did taste the rhubarb and it was good.



We baked a spiced tuile just for practice. 


This is our baked biscotti before we sliced it.  I’ve never baked a biscotti that spread this much before.  The dough was wetter than what I’m used to. 

Guess what?  I’ve never baked a biscotti this light and tender before.  It was delicious!  I’m trying to figure out how it was so much lighter.  The recipe uses pastry flour instead of all-purpose, so that’s definitely one of the reasons.



We used the hazelnut-pistachio biscotti with our plating of the coffee crème brulee.  This is Camille torching the turbinado sugar on top of her crème. 



Playing with fire.  I look a little too happy.



I topped the crème brulee with crème chantilly, chocolate cream (really rich chocolate pastry cream), cocoa powder, and white chocolate.  Chef said it looked good, but next time hold back on the chocolate. 


Sacrebleu!

P.S. Don’t forget to vote for my peanut butter & jelly macaroons in the grape contest!  This is the last time you have to hear about it from me.  I’m so sorry I’m annoying.  But please vote!  I would greatly appreciate it.