Mary's bathed, sponged and creamed...

Today is the last day of the first week and we got the chance to do our first baking. Exciting!!! Of course, one of the more interesting terms I learnt this week is Bain-Marie which means Mary's Bath in French and comes from a medieval alchemist who invented a slow heating in a double walled container filled with hot water while cooking his wife named Mary. OK, I made up the last part.

Genoise Sponge Cake
*recipe is for ONE cake.

• Eggs.............................. 280gm (approx. 5-6 medium sized eggs)
• Sugar.............................180gm
• Flour...............................180gm
• Butter (melted).............. 60gm
• Vanilla essence............ a few drops

1. Set the oven at 190 degrees Celcius
2. Mix eggs, sugar and vanilla. Whisk over a "bain-marie" to approx. 60 degrees. This is noticeable when mixture starts to increase in volume. 
3. Transfer to a mixer and whip till "ribbon stage" mixture forms layers of ribbon-like strings when lifted with a wooden spoon.
4. Remove mixer bowl and starts to fold in flour, follows by melted butter. Stir in gradually but no too long as air cells created during the mixing will be lost if stirred too long.
5. Pour batter into cake tin greased with butter & floured. An alternative will be a baking paper cut to shape and place in the bottom of the cake tin.
6. Bake for 30 mins.

Hints for cake when it's ready:

• Poke in tester. The cake is cooked if it comes out clean and dry.
• Softly tap the middle part. The cake is cooked if the part tapped does not sink in.

Of course, we could not end the lesson with just baking. So we got to do our first cake topping using cream. Two types of creams.

1. Topping Cream which we used today is sweetened, non dairy (vegetable extracts) and more stable than the Whiping Cream.
2. Whiping Cream is unsweetened, dairy (cow's fat) and less stable towards heat.

Important: All creams have to be chilled before whipping to achieve great volume.

Today task posts a challenge to my overly-structured mind. My wrist is not as flexible as I hope but after a few shots I managed to completely covered my cake with 3 patterns from the topping cream. The first one is called "shell" mostly applied around the cake edge. Second is called "rosette" which is the most difficult ones for me. Finally, the frilly thing which applied to the cake wall which I have no idea what you call it.