Week of Cakes!

Last week we worked on various kinds of cakes, each of them using a different techniques. 

The Dehaies:

This cake, was lots of fun to make with all the different layers!

The first (very thin) layer is a chocolate genoise cake. The chocolate genoise cake is known for its lightness. (which is perfect for the Dehaies, because every other layer is heavy and rich.) Which we then soaked with a coffee sauce. 

Next layer is a crunchy peanut and coconut layer, it is extremely heavy, crunchy, and tasty! 

The following layer is a Vanilla Bavaroise Cream. It had somewhat of a mousse like texture.

It was extremely yummy tasting when it was a cream, but after being refrigerated it turned into a mousse, which the texture I'm not too crazy about. 

Then another layer of the chocolate genoise, and another layer of the vanilla mousse.

All these layers and wrapped with a Coffee Glaze.

It is a spectacular looking cake, but it wasn't my favorite cake.

St Honoré

(Our Chef's Version)

This cake consists of cream, cream, cream and more cream!

Its base layer is puff pastry dough, baked with a layer of  "pâtes à choux" (think of the dough for éclairs!)
When finished being baked, an apricot marmalade is spread on it. 

The two little balls on each side of the cake, are also made of pâtes à choux, then sprinkled with slivered almonds and baked, then dipped in a caramel sauce that turns hard. (I burnt myself with the caramel, and got a blister just moments after, ouch!)  Pâtes à choux, when baked, is hollow, so we cut them open and filled it with a Sweet Vanilla Cream (not the same cream as in the Dehaies cake.)
We then lined the whole cake with that same cream, then we braided a Chantilly cream on top. (Chantilly is a fancy name for whipped cream made with icing sugar.)
Decorated with Julienned Candied Orange Peel.
(Basically, orange peel cut into extremely thin slivers boiled with sugar over and over again until they are sweet.) 

Overall a yummy cake, but one piece is very sufficient. (Thank God!)


Orange Grapefruit Tart

The tart's shell is made up of sugary dough, baked and then filled with almond cream, then baked again!

The grapefruits and oranges get chopped into pretty looking slivers. (A very painful thing to do when you have cuts on your fingers!) 

The tart bottom gets glazed with a "napage," a nice fancy word for apricot glaze.

The fruits are placed on the tart in a nice design, add a little coriander, for a contrasting colour, glaze again with napage, and Voila! 

The coating of napage over the fruits, act as a preservative, allowing the tart to stay better, longer. 

This tart was my favorite dessert we made all week, oddly enough, because I don't like grapefruit!

It just all seemed to work well together and it turned out scrumptious!

All three of these desserts we took home on Friday, and sadly enough, we were leaving that evening for Barcelona. I took a quick bite of each cake, then gave them to a house of guys that are not doing the pastry course, so they never receive any desserts.

They were happy!

(I kept half of the orange and grapefruit tart because it was my favorite!)