Day 52 - Macaroons and Vacherin

Today I made Vacherins, a French dessert, which is a meringue crust filled with lemon curd and topped crème Chantilly. Then a chocolate design in placed atop this. Today I also made some lemon Macaroons with coconut pastry cream.

I also made some Almond Twills and Fortune Cookies. These are essentially the same except the the twills have almond slices. The fortune cookies have orange, lemon and vanilla added.

Day 51 - Cat's Tongue & Feuilles D'Automne

Above is the Cat's Tongue Cookies that I finished today. I thought this tasted good and it was easy to make.
Below is the Feuilles D'Automne. Working with sheet of chocolate wasn't easy. It was made with chocolate and a little oil, then spread in a thin layer on a sheet pan. Then I had to scrap it up with a spatula, which mine wasn't flexible enough, so I used a plastic bowl scraper. Then the chocolate would melt to the touch. But I got it done. Fortunately I only had to make four. Inside of the chocolate is three layers of almond meringue disk and chocolate mouse between each disk.

Day 50 - Opera Cake

Yesterday and today I baked an Opera Cake. The Chef told me that if this would have been my practical, I would have made a 100 on it. I didn't take a picture of the whole cake. Here is just one slice and all the slices look exactly the same.

I'll tell you what the layers are from top to bottom:

- Opera Chocolate Glaze

- Coffee French Butter Cream

- Syrup (coffee & rum) soaked Joconde

- Ganache

- Syrup soaked Joconde

- Coffee French Butter Cream

- Syrup soaked Joconde

- Chablon (thin footing)

I plan to make this at home this coming weekend for my family.

Today, I also worked on Feuilles D'Automne. I started by making Chocolate Mouse and Almond Meringue Disk. Tomorrow I'll complete it. Also I started making Cat's Tongue Cookies (which is kind like a Milano cookie. I'll also finish this tomorrow.

Day 48 - Practical

Today was my practical and I had to make Madeleines, Florentines, and Macaroons. I got my score today, which was a first for getting it so fast. Unfortunately, I got an 89, and I didn't expect that at all. For some reason, the Chef graded me hard and the Madeleins and the Florentines. My Madeleins looked the same as my friends but the Chef said mine were rough textured. She gave me no explanation other than maybe I scaled it wrong. Nope, I scaled the ingredients exactly right. On the Florentines, the Chef said the needed to baked more. My Macaroons were just fine. Oh well, I'll have to do better on my Opera Cake next week.

Day 47 - Macaroons & Petit Fours

Today I continued to work on Macaroons (pictured above) and Petit Fours (pictured below) that I started yesterday. The macaroons are plain with raspberry filling. The petit fours are made of an almond cake, topped with raspberry, then almond paste, then completely covered with liquid fondant. The flowers are made of decorating butter cream. I also did my mise en place for tomorrow.