butter.bread.boulangerie: The epidemic

Maybe epidemic is an over-statement, but a bunch of us are sick with some cold/sinus thing. Which made working in a hot kitchen on cakes even more difficult. Yesterday we finished up enriched breads, which means today we started the dreaded cake section. Which is also the last section in Pastry 1. AND we had to switch partners! Sad, I love Carla, but luckily I'm with a girl (Bella), who I have worked with before-and she's great too! I've been quite lucky in the partner lottery, hopefully it stays that way!

Today the only finished product was the pound cake (or petit pound cake). It's a very traditional, and very french recipe. I've done some research into it, since its one of those "easy to do alright, very difficult to do well" sort of cake. The recipe we use is pretty much the original...The problem is, there have been many updates that I believe improve the cake dramatically. This one, versus the one I made over the 4th was slightly less dense, but significantly less flavorful. Pretty boring actually. Plus we had issues keeping our emulsion during the egg addition (9! eggs get added). In recent recipes they substitute 3 eggs for some milk or cream, and a bit more sugar. I prefer the second method much more, resulting in a deeper flavor, color, and ease of execution. But, I am at the French Culinary Institute, so I suppose I just have to stick to the original! Or modify, but not tell...

We also made Genoise for a layer cake (to be completed tomorrow). I hate Genoise, I'm fine at making them, but I hate them. They taste boring, are very difficult to make properly, and usually result in my burning myself. The "French Issue" came up again. After doing some research I found the general conclusion to be, when heating up the initial sugar-egg combo, heat to about 85-90 degrees, so that while you create the whole egg foam you're around 75 degrees (the best temperature for stabilization-which is KEY). However, our recipe says 110 degrees! Apparently, French kitchens are traditionally very cool, so a higher temperature is needed since it will cool quickly. In our kitchen, I don't think that will be a problem. I'm going to try this next time. There's also a huge debate over starch content. Generally higher starch=lower genoise. BUT it is a flavor enhancer, and tenderizer...I'm not sure where to go on this one, we used a higher starch content flour, so maybe next time, I'll use lower (all purpose vs. cake). And perhaps brown the butter (a suggestion in several recipes I looked at).

Last we made buttercream, and did the first part of the assembly of the cake. This was simply covering the cake (cut into three layers with raspberry filling) in buttercream. This I was scared of. When it comes to cakes, I generally haven't had much luck. Especially related to icing them. Then again, the last time I made a cake was probably High School. The chef gave a demo, and assured us it was OK that ours weren't going to look that great, we've never done it before! His wasn't even perfect, then again he's not much for presentation. A chef from level three was there to offer help as well. He was great, and I can't wait to have him in class. He had several tricks related not only to frosting a cake, but making the genoise itself (that our chef didn't know). When we were sent back to our stations I painstakingly began the assembly. I went really slowly, probably trying to be too perfect. But in the end the chef walked by my cake and said "this is your first time? It's excellent, I'm impressed." Of course I was relieved (and VERY surprised), now the pressure is on to finish strong tomorrow! So while I may not really like cakes all that much, at least I'll manage!