Boutique Desserts Class Part 2, and Here Comes The Bride

Previously, on Fatboybakes Fantasy, [in the same tone as those astro voice overs, when announcing, Previously, On Boston Public, or something like that, referring to a previous episode ending with "To be continued...."]

Day 1 basically saw the individual parts of the fancy cakes/entremets coming together. Below, we have the printed joconde, which forms the border (as in, it lines the circumference of the cake) for one of the tarts. Looks like cloth hor. Seems like a lot of work though, so don't be expecting any of my desserts to be dressed in cake clothes any time in the near future.


At least 4 cakes were completed without make up by the end of day 1, and shoved in the freezer to chill. Lunch on day one was a duck confit thingie in puff pastry, a lovely salad, and divine bread. (with president butter, except it was unsalted, and I hate eating unsalted butter). They sell these duck confit and lamb shank prepacked in their cafe in Alliance Francais in Lrg Gurney.

Day 2, ...its amazing how everyone is so punctual, despite having to combat the daily crawl of traffic into town. I had kinda developed a routine by day 2, ie, arrive at 8.45, grab a quickie roti canai at the mamak downstairs, in the lane behind, and appear at class by 8.58.

Twas very funny, when the chef showed us how to line the tart ring with the almond shortcrust pastry. It looked easy enough, but when us mortals tried it, harumph.....

When the lady from BKK tried her hand at it, she botched up so many times, the pastry was getting warm. Meanwhile, I was sms-ing my friend bemoaning the incompetence of my fellow classmates.....but pride comes before a fall. When I tried MY hand at it, I realised it wasn't so easy. Unlike with our usual tart/pie tins which have a base, this one was a ring, without a base. So, that required lifting the entire piece of pastry, slowly lowering it onto the ring, and at the same time, ensuring you could still move it onto a baking tray. The base kept sticking to the marble slab. Also, I was rolling the pastry too hard. I finally got one done, but one of the chefs decided it wasnt good enough, so disassembled mine, and proceeded to make another one. IT was GREAT consolation to me, that even he had to have at least 4 attempts before finally getting it right. Snigger. You can see the baked tart shells in the pic below, in the picture next to the tub of Pate a Glacer Noire.




Lunch on Day two was a lamb shank pasta, with salad, bread and the dessert shown above. It was a lemon/ passion fruit mousse, with an almond tuille. Rather good.

Anyway, fast forwarding, the bride finally got dressed and made up, and look at the finished products at the bottom. And believe me, they tasted AS GOOD AS THEY LOOKED. You know how some cakes are Indah khabar dari rupa. These looked great, and tasted great too. With these kind of ingredients, it's hardly surprising. I loved the ones with the creme brulee layers, and also the jasmine tea infused chocolate entremet. Actually, I loved them all.





Epilogue:

This was the gift voucher I received.

And look, we even made it to the press!!!! Featured in some un-named newspaper......