Sunday, March 04, 2007

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......

24 comments:

boo_licious said...

wahhhh, so yummy and looks fantastic too. Even ended up in the papers! Very good, now when is tasting time?

LazySuzy said...

Great stuff. Thought of going too but was not informed earlier. Can we now place orders for the desserts?

fatboybakes said...

boo, aiyo, it seems like such a lot of work...for one person...

lazysuzy, i honestly dont think its commercially viable to make these lovely delights. the ingredients are so expensive, and worst of all, you cant even buy in small portions. like that tub of 5kg pate a glacer from valrhona......heck, it must cost nearly RM500!!! sigh. not to mention all the purees. passion fruit is selling at village grocer for RM60/kg. can you imagine what puree would cost?

Anonymous said...

not bad looking..not bad looking...

Babe_KL said...

wow the bride so beautifully dressed, can we have tasting session haha?

Tummythoz said...

Rupa, can see they are very indah. Rasa, there's only 1 way to find out. So when when when?

MeiyeN said...

ooooo... fbb is so famous now! :D i volunteer to be da "white mouse"!!!!! :p

Melting Wok said...

wow, the way put it, I'm tempted by the creme brulee and the jasmine tea infused chocolate entremet as well !! hey, the passion fruit puree is so pricey ?? Can't blend them yourself ??

fatboybakes said...

okay okay, everyone, i shall "attempt" one such entremet for the next food bloggers get together, IF i can find the ingredients, or close substitutes. melting wok, do you know how many passion fruits you'd need to kill to get that amount of puree? fresh passion fruit is RM60/kg in village grocer wor, that includes skin...which is probably half the weight.

silent reader, hmmm, scratching chin, hazarding a guess.

wmw said...

*rubbing hands together gleefully* Woo hoo!!! ...must be present for the next floggers' meet!

boo_licious said...

can get local passion fruit in justlife organic shops. Much cheaper but I think taste wise slightly different though.

Anonymous said...

Hi, this is May from the class. I am accidently found your site hahhahaha hope you don't mind. I don't know before that you are an expert in food. Wow, tell me some place that I can try some malay food. I don't know where to go yet. PLEASE!!!!

maybe you can drop me an email at
justclickja@hotmail.com

: )

Unknown said...

i know that u can't finish them all..let's share!

fatboybakes said...

hi may, which one are you ah? the friendly one? i am not an expert in food la, just like to eat. malay food? well, for "fine dining" malay food, you can try BIJAN, on jln ceylon, or STAN's at ONE BANGSAR. For normal malay food, anywhere oso got what.

boolicious, i will check out the local passion fruit.

jackson, puhleez lah, uncle here appeared in papers so many times liao, (ahem), but this is the first time its food related lar.

wmw, rub hands some more lah. maybe a genie will pop out somewhere, snigger.

kgboycitygal..alas, those cakes on display were not for us all to take home ler....

fatboybakes said...

OH, MAY, from thailand!!!! hey everyone, say hi to MAY, she came all the way to KL for Jean Arnaud's course.

Babe_KL said...

hi may!!!

wat??? paid so much and u dun even get to take the cakes home! apaler!

snowdrop said...

hi May :)

the bride(s?) looks beautiful, FBB. well worth the effort.

Tummythoz said...

Hi May.
So obedience deserves reward(s), rite?

fatboybakes said...

oops, sorry sorry, i meant, we were allowed to take a few of the mini ones back, and whatever large ones that were cut la, but it was hardly enough to throw a party with.

snowdrop, aiya, the adjustable ring i oso got la. its not very good, coz when goes smaller, it goes out of shape. unless you want a tear drop shaped cake.

i oso looking for the mini ones, like wonder woman's magic bracelet.

Anonymous said...

hello may.

wonder woman's magic bracelet is mainly used to deflect bullets. r u saying dat d entremet will be solid as ... nah ... not likely esp. with the now legendary fbb.(as an after thought ... do u now qualify as an urban legend?)

btw, fbb i tink now ur identity is pretty much terbongkar oridi. now all anyone has to do is get a copy of the "un-named" newspaper and they know who u are. some more dey no nid 2 guess which pix since u have oridi identified it for them.

so nid to hide2 face anymore! major boo2 or r u actually trying to let everyone know?

fatboybakes said...

hmm, well, i think most, if not all the readers here have met me before, so not much secrecy anymore la. and i dont think weekend mail has much readership, so by the time strangers come to this blog, and want to do some PI work, probably quite hard to get hold of a copy of Weekend Mail.

Flower said...

FB
I've seen the passionfruit puree in a can here in Perth. Is it the same one that you pour on top of the Pavlova?

fatboybakes said...

flower, i am not sure lah, if it's the same. but yall in australia, things like passion fruit, strawberry, apricot all so cheap. dont even have to buy puree.

Melting Wok said...

wei, actually hor, passion fruit puree is made of what har ? lychee, orange, mango, pineapple and what ? hehe, I always get my satu ringgit passion fruit smoothie here, mann..didn't know its so pricey there, solee !