Strawberry Fromage Entremet – layers of strawberry bavaroise, cream cheese mousse, and sponge cake, topped with meringue. Many of these cakes take about two days to make.
Well we just had another week of cakes and it was only a four day week. We had friday off in lieu of a different long weekend that conflicts with exams. Last week we learned about more entremets, buttercream cakes and practiced some rolled fondant a piping. Overall, it was another great week. But as I mentioned in my last post, we are entering the crunch period of the program.
We have two big weeks ahead of us. I have another quiz tomorrow, our idea journals are due (which we have been working on throughout the term), and then we have a BIG entremet project due on wednesday morning. The project includes a large written component, then we have to execute our cake plan over the next two days, wednesday and thursday.
I was brainstorming ideas for the past couple weeks and finally decided on a s’more entremet. More to come on that in the next post. I’m pretty excited about it though, and hope it turns out the way I plan.
Because I still have more work to do tonight, I’m trying to keep this short and leave you with my favourite photos of last week, and a couple other notes from the week.
It has been really fun to get creative with some of the cakes. So far we have been able to make up a few of our own, to practice for our upcoming project.
This was my station partner and I’s entremet creation: chai blackberry and white peach entremet with poached pear on top and sponge fingers around the outside. It was really good…
We also learned about food costing this week, which I find quite interesting. We have to price out how much every single ingredient costs that is used in the cake, from 50 grams of sugar to 200 grams of eggs. Then we can ultimately determine how much a product should be sold for, and what our profit could be. One day I’d like to have my own business, so I found this exercise both fascinating and overwhelming because it means a lot of numbers are crunched to run a bakery. So. Many. Numbers. But I don’t need to think about all of that just yet!
Even though there is a lot to be done in the next two weeks, I do feel somewhat overwhelmed yet rather calm too. I know I’d rather be working on this cake project than any other project, and I’d rather be practicing making croissants and macarons for my practical exam next week than any other task. I keep reminding myself that I know more than I realize.
But for now, I will let you look at more photos…. And I’ll get back to studying.
By the way, if you have any tips for how to survive a practical pastry exam, let me know! I’m all ears!
Pretty proud of our creation!
We practiced more piping skills with royal icing, and learned to roll fondant on a cake.
Hazelnut sponge cake with praline buttercream and almond nougatine on top. We will be making this cake in our final exam…. I love icing cakes, can’t wait to practice this one again.
My first charlotte cake. We made a jelly roll, then lined a bowl and filled it with layers of mousse and more sponge cake. Then we portioned it out the next day. So pretty!
Here’s how the praline buttercream starts out on the cake, then we carve it down to cover the cake perfectly. So fun.
Then it starts to look more like a real cake shape…
Now this cake is a memorable one. Not only are there three layers different kinds of chocolate mousse – white, milk, and dark – but then we spray painted it with more velvet chocolate!
Strawberry Fromage Entremet, ready to finish…
Beyond The Dough 
Your cakes look amazing, Jeanette. The S’mores one reminds me of the night you were here. I love reading your posts about your adventures in baking!