It's That Time Again...

My group's final presentation for Baking & Pastry II

At the end of every kitchen rotation comes Practical Time. We also have written final exams, but as I've mentioned previously, for an academic geek like me the hands-on kitchen practical is far more nerve-wracking. Our Advanced Baking & Pastry practical was the most intense yet: it spanned three days, throughout which we made and presented multi-component desserts in groups of three and individually.

It's amazing to me that the number of components we produced only added up to two (very painstaking) desserts: a chocolate mousse entremet (cake, in layman's terms) and individual fruit mousse timbales.

The entremet had a base of coconut dacquoise—meringue made with almond flour and grated coconut—and a creme brulee center, which involved making creme brulee in a small ring mold and freezing it instead of torching the top. On top of the dacquoise base, we added about half of the chocolate mousse, placed the ring of creme brulee in the center, and then filled the mold with the rest of the mousse. That was left to freeze overnight, and the next day we garnished it with French macaroons that we'd also made from scratch, plus chocolate decor that we'd tempered and curled, and tuiles that we'd stenciled and baked.

My group's chocolate mousse entremet

For the individual mousse timbales, we first made chocolate decor paste which decorated the thin layer of almond bisquit cake that would line the timbale molds. We stenciled the decor paste in the diamond pattern you'll see below, then poured the almond bisquit batter over it and baked it. Once the molds were lined with cake, we filled them with mango mousse and a fruit compote center (we chose raspberry) that we'd made and frozen the previous day. These mousses also went into the freezer overnight, and then we topped them with a raspberry glaze.

One of my two individually-plated mango mousse timbales

My three-person group presented our entremet and two of the mousses; then we each plated two additional mousses for an individual grade. Here is the menu that we turned in (written on the paper in the first photo):

Chocolate Mousse Tort
Layers of Chocolate Mousse with Creme Brulee Center and Coconut-Almond Dacquoise
White Chocolate Shavings and Chocolate Tuile


Mango Mousse Timbale with Raspberry Fruit Compote Center
Chocolate and Almond Cake
Raspberry Sauce

Whew. In the end, everything came together surprisingly well, but I won't lie—my stress level was pretty high at times. I try to remind myself that culinary school is a learning experience for me and just to have fun, but sometimes I can't keep my perfectionist tendencies in check. One evening during the three practical days, I was telling my sister about it on the phone. She listened and concluded that she'd never want to work in a group with me for anything. Instead of getting offended, I had to laugh because she is probably right. (Reminds me of one of my favorite quotes: "You have to laugh at yourself, because you'd cry your eyes out if you didn't." So wise, those Indigo Girls!) Fortunately, the two guys in my group promise that they still like me after all. And we scored a 95%!