A land of castle, cookies, tarts and rolls...

It is part of our syllabus to work on patisserie projects. In this semester, there'll be a group project and an individual project by the end of next semester. During brainstorming, I suggested that our group to make a fairytale inspired showpiece, incorporating all the elements we learnt the last few weeks...it got lukewarm response which I am not surprise. My group members are unfortunately a scaredy bunch who are afraid to challenge themselves. Finally, someone proposed that we make a castle out of cake (I'm always interested in fondant and pastillage so I quickly agreed) but our chef felt like it will be too simple and recommended each of us make another 3 different recipes from 3 different lessons. So I've decided to choose the followings:

1. Chocolate Chips Cookie (Week 2)
2. Frangipane (Week 3)
3. Cinnamon Rolls (Week 4)

Of course I am not going to make exactly what we learnt without challenge myself with a few tweaks on recipe and presentation. For the choc chips cookie, I am planning to create a 'yinyang' effect. The frangipane, I am planning to make a miniature version tops with different fruits (peach, strawberry and blueberry). Finally, the cinnamon rolls which I incorporate a recipe found from http://www.allrecipes.com/ and a recipe recommended by my chef. Hopefully, they will be a standout and taste good at the same time.

I hope to post pictures of the work in progress as well as the final presentation.

Cookie Monster

I was quite excited about this week. Cookie making is like Baking 101. I remembered my first baking experience. It was a cookie recipe - chocolate chip cookie to be exact. This week, we were given 3 cookie recipes to try. Although in general, cookie making is quite easy, there are quite a few technical ways to prepare different cookie depends on the texture such as crispness, softness and chewiness. Also, there are different make up methods based on the final mixture and the intended presentation. Cookie mixture can be piped, dropped, cut-out, moulded, iceboxed, barred, sheet and stencilled...The first part of the week, we learnt to pipe, drop and icebox the cookie dough. Oven temperature is set between 160-170 degrees Celcius.

First, the all-time favourite butter cookies. It has a soft end mixture which allows us to create all kind of shapes based on the nozzle used for piping. Once the ingredients are ready, Creaming involves mixing the room temperatured butter (120g) and sugar (60g) with vanilla essence (3 drops) and eggs (1) added gradually. This allows the sugar to melt while incorporate some air but not too much. Too much or too long creaming will cause cookies too crumbly. Mix the flour (120g) and ground almond (50g) together before add in to the mixture.

By now, mixing should be done slowly by hand. Once it is evenly mixed, prepare pastry bag fitted with a star nozzle. Pipe the soft mixture according to desired shapes. Various garnishes such as glazed cherry, choc chips, coloured sugar can be used. The above recipe will produced approx. 20 delicious butter cookies.

Second, chocolate chips cookies. This recipe is much dryer thus, piping is not possible. Drop method is used by using two teaspoons to move desirable cookie size onto the baking pan. Similar creaming method is used to mix both butter (100g), brown sugar (60g) and vanilla essence (3 drops). Sift flour (100g) and baking soda (2g) three times. This is to incorporate more air in to the dry mixture before added into the batter followed by chocolate chips (70g) and crushed nuts (60g) - we used walnuts and pecans. Apparently, almonds, cashews, macadamias are all possible. Again, not to over mix the mixture.

Third, almond shortbread. Personally, I am not a big fan of this cookie. It involves more work and more ingredients yet the end product looks dry and unappetizing. However, one of its steps is the icebox/frozen method where the dough is frozen hard and can be cut according to shape and size before baking.