Almond Shortcake With Macerated Strawberries, Sable Breton With Pistachio Croquant

Chef's Shortcake & Breton Creations

In case you're not aware, it's the last class of the term today! And so we bid the year a fond farewell with the American classic Strawberry Shortcake (not the cartoon, but just as sweet) and French Breton biscuit.

Rolling & Cutting Out Shortcake, Brushing On Cream

The American version of strawberries and cream comes with a sweet, crumbly shortcake, hence the name. Almond meal, flour, salt, sugar, baking powder and cream are mixed together to form a pliable dough, rolled out 5mm thick and cut into shape, brushed with cream and dusted with sugar for extra crunch before being baked.

Filling Breton Paste Into Moulds

For the Breton, egg yolk, sugar and butter are creamed together before vanilla, flour, baking powder and salt are added to form a paste so sticky it had to be slapped on to the greased ramekins to be baked.

Breton has a thick and soft texture more similar to cake then biscuit, heck it was even piled on like a cake today with Crème Diplomat and Cointreau-macerated strawberries. Sorry kids, this biscuit's strictly for the adults.

Rounds Of Creme Diplomat & Berries

Cooking & Rolling Pistachio Croquant

Similar to the nougatine we made for the Croquembouche, we caramelized glucose and fondant into a light amber liquid, stirred in crushed pistachios and a pat of butter, and while still searingly hot, rolled it out flat before cutting into shape for the garnish.

My Cookie Plate

Seeing it is so close to Christmas time, I made uno shortcake as instructed and cut the rest of my shortcake dough into festive little shapes: gingerbread men, Christmas trees, snowflakes, you name it, I  got it. And the best thing about this little plate of cookies? They're mine, all mine! So hands off, Santa.

So distracted I was cutting my cookies shapes I forgot about the caramel and burnt it, so the croquants turned out slightly on the dark side. It still tasted good, but I thought I'd improvise by smashing them into smithereens and sprinkling the jade green crystals onto my Breton instead. Quick and easy, and rather homely-looking too.

Berries & Cointreau, Somethin' For The Holidays

Chocolate Macarons, Piped Shortbread, Biscotti

Chef Gert's Piped Shortbread, Biscotti, Macarons

With the assessment behind us, the atmosphere today was noticeably more laid back, so what better way to suit the mood than with a big tray of cookies and biscuits?

Rolling Out Biscotti, Slicing For 2nd Bake

A centuries-old recipe from the Italian city of Prato, biscotti or "twice cooked/baked" refers to the unique way the biscuits are baked twice to dry them out, weathering them through long journeys and bitter wars. Far from being hard and tasteless, these biscuits are packed full of flavor and literally fat-free!

And they couldn't be easier to make: mix egg, sugar, citrus zest, honey, salt and vanilla essence for the flavor base, add whole almonds and pistachios for crunch, star anise for a hint of spice, flour and baking powder for structure and Bob's your uncle!

Shape into a long log and bake at a low 150'C for 40 minutes before extracting from the oven, slice thinly, lay face up back onto the tray and bake again at a lower 120'C to avoid burning the thin wafers. When they feel hard to the touch, you're in business!

Piping Macarons, Shortbread

Macarons are the increasingly popular meringue-based confectionery with almond meal as the star ingredient. Made right, they have a smooth dome, ruffled "foot" and a moist, crunchy interior. Although this sweet dessert varies throughout different regions of France, my personal benchmark of a good macaron would have to be by Pastry Maestro Pierre Hermé.

Shortbread is very similar to the Biscuit Viennois we made in basic; flour, butter, sugar, salt, icing sugar, vanilla essence and zest is mixed to form a paste and piped into shape. Once baked they are sandwiched with jam and dipped in chocolate, to make a good thing taste great.

My Biscotti Jar

I substituted star anise with ground cinnamon and nutmeg, these spices coupled with the orange and lime zest and a festive splash of rum made my biscotti smell very much like Christmas morning. They were very Moorish too, like rusks for adults, you may enjoy them plain, dipped in strong espresso, or a sweet dessert wine such as muscat. My tipple of choice? A good, strong Port.

Macarons & Shortbread

Making macarons for the first time, I wasn't sure how they would turn out, all the bad press about how tricksy they are to the amateur cook did nothing to inspire me, and I find them too sweet for my liking, not to mention too costly to buy ($2.50 for 1 macaron? Seriously??). But for me the real joy of being a pastry chef is in making desserts more than eating them, so I was anxious to see how my virgin macarons would turn out. With the close eye of Chef Gert as my guide, they came out pretty well, with the requisite smooth dome and ruffled foot. And I didn't mind the taste either, esp when sandwiched with not just any chocolate ganache, but a strong rum flavored one! 

The shortbread I keep in an air-tight container, and whenever I open it up the warm fragrance of zest and butter would come drifting up to whet my appetite. Pop one in your mouth and they melt with no resistance, which makes finishing a whole tray of these so very easy.

Judgement Day: Gateau Opéra

My Gateau Opéra!!

How time flies, before we knew it it's the last week of the term i.e. Assessment Week! I am glad to report I did pretty well this time around, thankfully, much better than my dismal performance at Basic Assessment.

Small Cuts

Lessons learnt from my Gateau Opéra dry run, I warmed up the glaze to ensure it was dark and shiny and the syrup properly soaked through the jaconde. The one thing I would have done differently would be to put less coffee in the soaking syrup, as it was too dark and somewhat indiscernible from the layer of chocolate ganache in between. 

In my defence I only added as much coffee as I did to compensate for lack of rum, as it was not in the recipe (sacrilege!) and I was strongly advised by Margarita and Sunny not to risk getting penalised for adding it in.

Good Things Come In Small Doses

A Spoonful Of Rum Makes Everything Go Down Better

Needless to say my principals were compromised with the omission of the rum, which I felt was an integral part of the cake; indeed of any and all cakes, it makes them complete. So I advised Head Chef Andre of my concerns and strong belief that LCB's recipe should henceforth be amended to include rum and/or Grand Marnier; after all, alcohol is what makes good cakes great.

To further right the wrong, I put my off-cuts into a container, added a big, healthy splash of rum and was immediately soothed by it's warm aroma and the sensual way it soaked through the layers and made eating them much more gratifying. Rum oh rum, you complete me.