Layers upon Layers

It may have seemed at first that I was not really working hard in class this week from the lack of blog entries...but reader beware.  I have learned just how complicated and orderly cake-baking is.  The first two days we spent making bare cakes and freezing them as well as the Mont Blanc cookies.  These cakes are later pulled out, sliced up and made up into beautiful layers of tasty perfection.  Of course before you can make them up, one must make all of the cremes, icings, curds, mousses, and caramels that make up the layers.  It is quite a delicious armamentarium.  Cakes can provide a wide arrange of taste experiences depending on your mood, and the layers upon layers of ingredients are reflective of what your palate is craving at the time.  We started with a very dense and rich chocolate torte that is layered with truffle filling scented with rum and Amaretto.  We then moved on to this luscious beauty, which is then frozen enough to get the slices made up.

This is a lemon chiffon cake with Bavarian lemon mousse filling.  The cake is made up of yellow chiffon (cake made with a little bit of oil and separated eggs so that you can fold the whites in later and get an incredibly light and fluffy crumb).  The cake is then very lightly smeared with lemon curd (which I also made) and then topped with Bavarian lemon mousse filling.  This filling is basically a lemon pudding mixture that is folded  into whipped cream.  It sets up beautifully and can hold its shape once it is chilled.  This layering process is repeated and then topped with cake.  The whole cake is then refrigerated until solid and the outside is covered with vanilla bean butter cream and topped with lemon curd.  It will be sliced into 1.25 inch slices and packaged individually.  Its components are extremely light and airy and are a sharp contrast to the deep and rich taste experience of the chocolate caramel truffle torte.  It is very exciting to apply food chemistry in such different ways.  Cakes such as this are an extension of Pastry art and are a true testament to the understanding needed of chemistry to enact such a fantastic assemblage of layers.  I am learning all day long and am excited to come back and be able to introduce some of these fantastic creations in the bakery.  I love lemon and chocolate, so these were great places to begin. 

Oh, by the way, while waiting for things to set up and chill, etc...we had time to make a whole batch of long flake pastry and peach filling and make peach cobblers.  This peach filling is divine with lemon notes in it and nutmeg and cinnamon.  This was a surprise addition, but will be a fantastic offering at the bakery.  So....the amazement never ceases.  Marda has more tricks up her sleeve than David Copperfield.

Peach cobbler

On to another day of fun baking.  I think that milk chocolate and hazelnut are coming up on the menu soon.