Tropical fruit mousse pie

You had to wait for a while but here… finally… can you see the result of our combined efforts in producing the delicious passionfruitmousse (which turned out to be tropical mixture fruit instead but that’s a minor detail) pie… Last sunday we had our third lesson with Carle and as it turned out the fruits of our labours were plentiful indeed. I think we supplied half the neighbourhood with cake.. (Which is not entirely true, but one cake went to Tom’s parents, one cake went to my parents and one cake was brought over to Tom’s work. And then we kept the macarons ourselves ofcourse… Yes, we made macarons!! But that is for an entirely different post… Soon to come! (keeping up the suspense!)

So what did we make? We started of by finished the above masterpiece that is a combination of the joconde and tulip batter we made in lesson one, the mousse we made in lesson two and the topping that we made this lesson. I didn’t want to cut this specimen as it would be going to my folks, but still I can assure you that it was DELICIOUS!!

Making the ‘mirror’ on top of the cake is not very difficult. As for the flavor that you use; we used the same fruit as the mousse but you could use a different flavor, as long as it complements the mousse and is not too different either in color or taste.

This what you need for three cakes:

80 gr fruit puree

80 gr water

80 gr sugar

2,5 leaves of gelatine, soaked in water for 5 minutes prior to dissolving

Heat half of the water with the sugar and dissolve the soaked gelatine in this mixture. Add this to the fruitmixture. Stir softly making sure not to form airbubbles. Add the remainder of the water and make sure it is at least as cool as roomtemperature or a little colder. As long as the gelatine is not setting yet.

Using a spoon you can then pour it over the cakes. The cooled cakes will have a bit of a dent in the middle so more of the jelly will go in there, but just keep going until you have a smooth and even surface. Put this in the refrigerator until firm.

We started with coffee and a piece of the lemonpie that we made the week before too. And that too was so delicious and the sourness in the lemon made it quite fresh as well. I am definitely going to making that one again too!

Coffee with lemon pie

We made chocolate sorbet icecream (sooo good!) and we practiced a lot with how to apply icing in different shapes and forms. I did not take too many photos of that as I was sort of covered in sugar and buttercream by that time and didn’t really want to put that all over my camera, so I just have this one shot of Tom’s practice plate..

Tom practicing icing techniques

Next week will be all about sugar, chocolate and marzipan….

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We first met Carle during one of our courses at the Kookstudio Amsterdam, where we were very impressed with the way he teaches. His knowledge of baking, dessert and pastry is enormous and he is very good in transferring that knowledge to other people, so when we found out that he is giving patisserie courses as well, we ofcourse had to enrol. It took a while before we managed to find a date, which was mostly due to our ridiculously busy schedule but we finally managed to set four dates for the four lessons. And last night was our first lesson. We went to Amsterdam where Carle has his own bakery and shop, Douglas Delights, in the centre of Amsterdam. Carle is quite well known within the Netherlands and has an impressive resume. He’s worked for the Amstel hotel, has worked in several well known restaurants to end up in Amsterdam to teach us, mere mortals, the ins and outs of his trade.

Carle calculating what we need

We first started (well, we started with coffee and a wonderful delicious piece of cake that Carle made….mmm, but that doesn’t count as an official starting does it?) with going through the list of various batters and doughs that there are. I never knew there were so many!! I am not gonna name them all here, but let me just say that the list is extensive. A lot of them are not well known in Holland, but would be – for instance – well known in France. After going through the list we got to choose what we wanted to make. Obviously you cannot possibly make all of them in one evening, so we picked puff pastry, shortcrust pastry, Joconde and tulip. I had made puff pastry once before, for one of the Daring Bakers challenges where we made vol-au-vents. But we all thought it would be a good exercise to make it as it is not the easiests of dough to create.

Our group is very small, with only three people, which is great as you can ask all the questions you want. Our group consists of Anita, who is also a trained patissier and has had an internship with Carle. She is now starting up her own business in Hilversum. And then there is Tom and me. So we are actually the only two amateurs in the class… But it’s great to have two experts to teach us how it is all to be done! (although technically, Anita is not there to teach us, but we also learn a great deal from watching experts at work, right?)

Preparing the tulip on a baking sheet

Because the space is not big, we make something all together, which works better for me as well. Carle shows us how to do something and then we take turns in either rolling out the dough (and believe me, I am lousy in rolling out properly, but I now I know at least what I am doing wrong!!), kneading something, whipping eggwhites etc. So the end result is a combined effort of us all.

Joconde is a type of batter that is used a lot for decorationcake. And with decorationcake I mean a very thin cake that is baked on a baking paper and then used as a ring (for instance) on another cake. You can make patterns in it by using the tulip batter to make letters or use patterns as is being done above by Carle.

We started with preparing the tulip batter as that needs to freeze before you can use it. The ingredients for this are:

Tulip batter

55 gr butter (very soft)

65 gr caster sugar

70 gr eggwhites

55 gr flour

5 gr cacao

Mix everything together and use to make a pattern on a baking sheet such as per the photo here. Let your imagination run wild! You can color this batter in any color you look using foodcoloring. We used cacao to make it chocolately but you could easily make it pink, red or whatever other color you fancy. Put the sheet on a baking tray and keep in the freezer until completely stiff.

Making puff pastry... forgot to take a photo of the block of butter on the dough...

Once the tulip is prepared and in the freezer you can make the Joconde batter which is essentially a genoise batter but with almond and I think more sugar and flour.

Joconde batter:

125 gr ground almonds

100 gr castersugar

165 gr of egg

Mix all of these together into an airy batter. Works best in a kitchenaid (or similar).

110 gr eggwhite

42 gr castersugar

Beat the eggwhite stiff with the castersugar.

35 gr flour

25 gr of melted butter

Mix the first part of the batter first with the extra flour, then add the butter and then the whipped eggwhites. Fold all of this in gently. Once the batter is complete and the tulip patterns are frozen you can spread this over the same bakingsheet.

Anita spreading the batter

Once it is evenly spread you can put it in the oven at 230°C until it is light brownish on top. Remove from the bakingplate as soon as possible (we sort of forgot and since the plate it hot, it keeps baking making the outsides too thin.. O well, we are students right?)

And this is then the final result. You can then proceed to cut out small strips and put that in rings to put another cake in. We will continue on that next week and will finish it then. We also made shortcrust pastry which we’re going to make into delicious little things next week… Aren’t you all curious what it is gonna be??

Cake with baked in patterns!

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Last night we had a lesson in patisserie from Carle Douglas from Douglas Delights. We had a patisserie lesson before from Rob in the first course,  but there is a big difference… Rob is passionate about cooking and everything else except patisserie I would say, while Carle is a master in making desserts and beautiful cakes (and YES, he makes macarons!!! Finally found them in Amsterdam!) and it is a huge difference being taught by someone who loves doing something… lol.. No offense Rob!

Making of the bottom

The weather outside was absolutely terrible and while the rain was pouring down we all set out to make a Gateau St. Honore, which – when I saw what we were gonna make – was quite a daunting prospect but with the help of Carle we all made a beautiful creation!

We started out by making dough for the bottom of the pie and I have no idea how that is called in English but in Dutch it is called “Harde Wenerdeeg” I will try and find the correct names later on. While that was being chilled we made Choux pastry for making profiteroles, then on to making Creme au beurre mousseline, creme chiboust and Italian meringue… Yes, you read that right; five recipes to make the one pie!! But how gorgeous does this look! I am not sure we would have been able to successfully complete this without the assistance of Carle, but I have learned soooo many things this time! Remember the Daring Bakers where we had to make our own marshmallows? Well, I finally know how to make them plus I also know now what ‘soft ball stage’ is when talking about cooking sugar/making caramel. It makes a huge difference when you have someone showing you how to do that as compaired to just trying it out for yourself. Caramel does not work that way!

For those that want to give this a try, here are all the recipes! The importance here is also the sequence in which you make the recipes below. I will first list all recipes and then at the end explain how you have to make them all and in which sequence…! So make sure to read it all thoroughly before proceeding!

Dough for the bottom (Harde Wenerdeeg)

100 gr. fine sugar

150 gr butter

35 gr egg

2,5 gr salt

grated lemon zest (one small tsp)

300 gr all purpose flour

Mix sugar, butter, egg, salt and lemonzest in a large bowl. Add flour and quickly mix to a dough. Make this into a ball and flatten it out so it chills faster. Wrap in clingfilm and refrigerate for about 2 hours.

Choux pastry

250 gr. water/milk (50/50)

112 gr butter

4 gr sugar

4 gr salt

150 gr flour

5 eggs

Bring water/milk mixture, butter, sugar and salt to a boil. Take of the heat and add all the flour in one go and stir, back on the heat until the dough forms a ball that doesn’t stick to the wall of the pan. Make sure you do not have the dough on to short or it will be tasting too much of flour. You can smell when it’s ready! Take of the heat and add the eggs while stirring and keep stirring until completely incorporated.Put the warm mixture into a piping bag.

Creme au beurre mousseline

250 gr milk

125 gr sugar

2 eggyolks

15 gr custardpowder

15 gr flour

75 gr butter

75 gr butter (yes, that is twice!)

Mix flour, custard and 2 tbsp of the sugar. Mix this with a little bit of the milk into a smooth fluid. Add the egg yolks to this and incorporate well.

Bring the rest of the milk to a boil together with the rest of the sugar. While stirring add the egg-mixture to the boiling milk. For about a minute keep boiling until it becomes a thick custard. Once the custard starts to make ‘plopping’ sounds you know it is done.

Add 75 gr of butter to the hot custard. Cover with a piece of clingfilm (the clingfilm should cover directly the custard, so let it touch the surface!) and leave to cool completely. Once cool add the other 75 gr of butter little by little while mixing with a handmixer or foodprocessor until you have a smooth and airy cream.

Assembling

Creme Chiboust

120 gr milk

25 gr sugar

10 gr custard

2 egg-yolks

1/2 leave of gelatine

15 gr of Grand Marnier or Rum ( we actually put Amaretto in it and that works lovely!!)

140 to 160 gr of Italian Meringue (recipe below)

Using the same procedure as for the “Creme au beurre mousseline” cook from the milk, sugar, custard and eggyolks a thick cream. Add the (soaked) gelatine and the alcohol of your choice. Incorporate completely before adding the Italian Meringue and carefully fold that into the hot cream. Use the cream while still hot in assembling the Gateau!

Italian Meringue

4 eggwhites (120 gr)

180 gr sugar

20 gr glucosesyrup (if you do not have glucosesyrup you can use ‘basterdsuiker’ which has already a coating of glucose around it so it has the same effect. I am not sure of the right translation but I am thinking caster sugar)

Bring the sugar with 60 gr of water to a boil and if you have glucose add it. Without stirring cook until it reaches 120 C or softball stage. While the sugar is boiling mix the eggwhites (preferably in a standmixer) to a foam. While continuing to whip the eggwhites add the hot sugarsyrup and keep mixing until it is completely cooled of. Make sure not to pour the sugar on the beaters but along the edge of the bowl!

And now for the fun part of assembling the Gateau St. Honore!! The qty’s we made were enough for making two small ones of 18 cm in diameter. The only thing that needs to be doubled is the qty of the Creme Chiboust of you want to make filling sufficient for two.

GATEAU ST. HONORE

250 gr of dough for the bottom

Choux pastry of 250 gr water/milk

Mousselinecream of 1/8 milk

Chiboustcreme of 120 gr milk

150 gr sugar

30 gr glucose

Roll the dough out so you can cut out a circle of about 22,5 cm. Around the edge of the circle make a ring of the choux pastry, making sure to stay inside the circle and not outside. On the same baking tray or a separate one depending on your space add about 20 small profiteroles of approx. 3 cm.

Put everything together in an oven at 180 C for about 20 minutes untill golden and done. Leave to cool.

Fill the profiteroles with the Creme au beurre de mousseline. (Filling you can do by making a small hole in the bottom of the profiteroles or by pushing the piping bag through if that works)

Make golden brown caramel with the sugar, 50 gr of water and the glucose and use that to dip the filled profiteroles into. Make sure not to touch the caramel as it is very very hot!! Leave on a baking tray to cool of a bit and then with the rest of the caramel stick the profiteroles on the ring of choux pastry you made.

Once the chiboustcream is done fill the middle of the gateau with that and leave to cool and stiffen in the fridge for at least 2 hours.

As you can probably guess by the number of recipes needed to make this, you need quite a lot of time to do it all. In total our workshop took about 4 hours but a little less will work as well if you’re an experienced baker! (which I am not…) I just had a bit of this for lunch ( ) and it was incredible! The crust was nice and crunchy while the amaretto that we added to the creme chiboust gave it a wonderful flavor. It’s not something I would make easily again as it involves a lot of work, but it’s a lovely cake!! And great practice in all sorts of techniques too!

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Our ingredients for today

It’s ofcourse a little less impressive in terms of the ingredients that we used for the patisserie lesson. A pile of fish or meat looks quite different then a lot of stuff in various bags and boxes…:) Since the ingredients for any cake or dessert need to be followed much more closely then for instance preparing a piece of meat, this was the first time that we worked from recipes rather then making it up as we went along. We worked in group of 2 or 3 people preparing something and we tried to follow the recipes also in a way that would make sense so not everyone was using the machines at the same time.

Tom and I started with making dough, which we didn’t process any further but it is in the fridge here so I might be making something out of it later this week. Have to think what that would be… Then we went on to make a chocolate cake

Our chocolate cake

and that is what went a bit wrong. I am not sure what went wrong but the fact of the matter is that it came out of the oven looking good on the outside but still completely wet on the inside. Oops…. Keeping it longer in the oven would have meant a burnt outside, so my guess is we should have put it at a lower temperature and for much longer. Although it could also be that we somehow mixed up the right ingredients and did something wrong there. Who can tell?? We took it home and tried it but as soon as we cut a piece out of it, the inside was really liquid.

We made chocolate ganache, we made puff cakes and we made sausage rolls combining puff cake dough with meatloaf to create lovely fluffy rolls. We used the puff pastry that you can buy anywhere and it was so much easier to make then I thought it would be!

And they were quite tasty too!

Rob also showed us how to make a really quick tarte tatin. Just caramelize sugar in a ovenproof baking pan, add apple or pear put some puff pastry on top, pop in the oven and voila a few minutes later you have a very tasty tarte tatin!

Sausage rolls

Very quick tarte tatin

Ofcourse you can make it look nicer, but this was just to show how easy and ridiculously quick almost it is to make something like that. Add some vanilla cream to it and you have something very tasty. We also made vanilla icecream, but since that had to go into the ice-machine it wasn’t finished when we left this afternoon, so we will probably be seeing the results of our icecream next week.

We’re all kind of disappointed that we are almost at the end of this fabulous cooking class, so we’re already thinking of ways to keep cooking together or start a cooking club or something along those lines. It’s a fun group and it would be great to keep doing something together, but more to follow on that!

As has become a habit now we went to get a drink at one of the many bars in Amsterdam after the lesson and while we were having our second glass of something, Rob came in to ask if I wanted to come back to the studio as he just brought in a huge monkfish! They would be having a group 0f 24 people in that night for a bachelor party type of cooking class and he was getting fresh produce from the market.

So after we finished our drink, Tom and I went back to the kookstudio to find this monster lying and waiting

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