Monthly Archives: October 2018

Week 9: Chocolate; Tempering, Dipping, and Pipping

Hello all,

October 25, 2018, Dao and Michelle were chef. We like to thank CeiKar, steward of the day, for making sure the class had the necessary ingredients for production. As well as the class for making beautiful decorations on chocolate covered strawberries, creative and uniform mendiants and chocolate dipped candied fruits. Lastly, we appreciate Professor Hoffman for the detailed demonstration on tempering chocolate and making chocolate bonbons.

Professor Hoffman demos on filling molds with chocolate.

Bowl of tempered chocolate and final result of chocolate bonbons.

Strawberries ready to be dipped in chocolate.

Removing the excess chocolate after the dip.

Chocolate setting up and adding decorations on strawberries.

Candied Ginger, Orange rinds and grapefruit rinds.

After tossing the candied orange rinds in sugar.

Candied ginger in a bowl of sugar and resting on the tray, ready to be dipped in chocolate.

Candied grapefruit, half dipped in dark chocolate.

Dark chocolate mendiant with crushed toasted almonds (left) and crushed pistachios (right)

White chocolate mendiants with crushed pistachios and chopped dried cranberries.

Class presentation of Week 9’s production.

Assorted chocolate covered goodies and mendiants ready to be taken.

– Hope everybody enjoyed the class’s productions and photos. See you next class!

Dao Tran & Michelle Mak

Week #8: Intro to Chocolate by Gloria Garcia and Matt Tobjy

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Hello everyone!

Thank you all for your cooperation and effort during yesterday’s production. Everyone worked as teams and were able to get production and clean up down effectively and in a timely manner. Student Chef Matt and I really appreciate all the hard work that all of you put into our productions, and we enjoyed working together with you.

Our production consisted of making: White Chocolate Cranberry and Pistachio Bark, Chocolate Crispy Rice and Fruit Bark, Spicy Milk Chocolate with Cherries Bark, Dark Chocolate Ginger Bark, Chocolate Dipped Candied Pineapple and Chocolate Dipped Candied Orange Peels. Each team did a very good job at getting their products made even though it was our first time doing this. We learned how to properly temper chocolate through different methods such as tabling and seeding. We saw a demo of how to temper chocolate on the marble slab from Professor Hoffman and the teams successfully followed what she did.

While the teams were making their products, Matt was dipping our candied pineapples from last week in tempered dark chocolate. According to Matt, once the pineapples started to dry they began to look like they were blooming. Which the Professor said could have been due to the moisture from the fruit.

I, on the other hand, went around the lab going to the teams and seeing if they needed anything. As I went around I observed how each team worked in tempering their chocolate and creating their assigned bark. Later on, I began to dip the orange peels in dark chocolate and at the end of class with the help of Shenice we cleaned the marble table with the torch.

Shout-out to:

Team A for their amazing teamwork and delivering an amazing product
Team B for patiently working with the white chocolate and not giving up on it.
Team C for making an extra batch of bark with modifications
Team D for thinking outside the box for cutting your bark

Thank you for a great class and enjoy your week!

– Student Chef Gloria & Student Chef Matt

ENJOY THE PICTURES.

Demo From Professor Hoffman – Dark Chocolate

: Mise en place ready

: Chocolate Tempering: Tabling Method

: Test

White Chocolate Cranberry & Pistachio Bark Production

: Tabling White Chocolate

: Teamwork

: Testing

: Spreading the bark with offset spatula

: Adding toppings – Cranberries and Pistachios

: Removing plastic wrap from bark

: Cutting the Bark

Spicy Milk Chocolate Cherry Bark Production

: Adding the toppings

: Second try – Chili powder was incorporated into the chocolate and cherries were cut into smaller pieces

Dark Chocolate Cranberry & Ginger Bark Production

: Tabling Dark Chocolate

: Ginger and Cranberries

: Cutting the Bark

: Final Product

Crispy Rice & Fruit Bark Production

: Spreading the Bark with offset spatula

: Topping the Bark with apricots

: Cutting the Bark

Candied Fruit Dipped in Dark Chocolate Production

: Candies Pineapples with Dark Chocolate

: Candied Orange Peels with Dark Chocolate

Our Final Products

: Boxing

Candies and Bonbons: week 7 production

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Candied grapefruit from start to finish. Cutting, peeling, blanching, simmering, storing.

Bringing water from room 208.

Bringing back cleaned dishes from room 208.

Washing dishes in room 208.

Candied oranges from start to finish. Cutting, peeling, blanching, simmering, storing.

Candied ginger from start to finish. Peeling, cutting, simmering, storing.

Marshmallow process. Sugar syrup, egg whites whipping, pouring gelatin into syrup mixture, pouring syrup/gelatin mixture into egg whites.

Orange marshmallow

Rose marshmallow

Peppermint marshmallow

Cassis marshmallow

The finished product. All marshmellows looked great.

Candied pineapple from start to finish. peeling, cutting, simmering, storing.

Good Evening,

Today I was chef and I just want to thank all of you showing up and being prepared. We had a good class and finished every task.

In today’s class we made candied fruit and marshmallows. I think you guys did very well with today’s production. Team A (Jessica, Michelle, and Hannah) you guys had orange marshmallow and candied ginger. Team B (Ashlie, CeiKar, and Eylin) you guys made rose water marshmallow and candied orange rind. Team C ( Jodian, Dao, and Matt) you guys made the peppermint marshmallow and candied grapefruit. Team D ( Shenice, Sarah, and Maria) you guys made the cassis marshmallow and candied pineapple. Considering we had no sink today that did not slow us down. Thank you to my steward Gloria and other students that pitched in and helped run dishes down to room 208 and get them done. You guys rock! Pictures of today’s production will be posted below. Also we will finish our candied fruits next week.

Candies and Bonbons: Week 6

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Hello class!

Just wanted to start off by saying thank you for showing up to class today! We had a full house so we were all able to have enough team members on each group. So today we took on the making of Nougats and Torrones. These recipes although very simple were still very difficult to handle control over. Our production day consisted of making Pistachio Almond Nougats (Team A), Soft Chocolate Nougats (Team B), Chocolate Cherry Nougats (Team D), Torrones (Team C) and Chef Jacque John Torrones (Team E), which was added today in the morning. Although we are in October, the weather was higher than normal today making it more humid inside the kitchen which were not good for the Nougats. We were introduced to new ingredients such as the Rice Paper, Cocoa butter chips and Glucose; plus new equipment such as the blow torch.

Today we had a series of trial and error. Two groups, unfortunately had to restart their recipes due to complications. That is why making sure we have our mise en place and we have scaled out the ingredients correctly plus read the recipe in advance is crucial to avoid mishaps like what happened today. On the bright side, we learned from our mistakes, adjusted and the outcome was beautiful. Also, the teams who didn’t have any problems with their recipe and procedures, were able to finish early and thankfully they jumped on to other groups to lend a hand and also helped clean around the kitchen. Thank you for helping us out!

The nougats and torrones were a hit, that even Professor Claude loved them! Great job today everyone and remember “in order to succeed you must fail, so you know not what to do the next time.” See you all next week!