I just did a double take when I went looking for today's date. How is it November 19th?!?!?
Another recent find: My camera has a "food" picture function. Sigh.
Today we made our Opera cakes. Talk about time intensive. After making and cooling the sponge cake, we had to make our coffee butter cream frosting, coffee rum sauce, chocolate ganache and seized chocolate for piping. The Opera cake has a history and has been around for a while:
Said to have been created in the early 1900's by Louis Clichy at the Exposition Culinaire, this cake is comprised of layers of almond Joconde sponge cake soaked in a coffee-rum syrup between alternating layers of coffee butter cream and chocolate gananche. Others believe that Dalloyau, who sold a very similar pastry in his patisserie, created the cake in honor of the Paris Grand Opera.
After assembling the cake, and piping L'Opera on top, it is finished with a touch of gold leaf. One of the important presentation aspects of this cake is cutting it with a hot knife (and wiping the knife after each cut) so that the layers are clearly seen all around. The cakes are cut in two inch squares and will be part of our four day final, which starts tomorrow....
So check this out... Here is what will be required of us starting tomorrow... We will begin with our written exam which I HAVE to study for, and a 25 item product ID. We will then be required, over the next three and a half days (Wednesday we will finish and present and be graded... Grading will take almost two hours), to create the following: A whole Gateau L'Opera (8 pieces), Lemon Meringue Tarts (3 each), Florentines (8), Batons Marechaux (8), Petits Fours Glace (8-12), Linzer Window cookies (8), Linzer Jewel cookies (8) and "properly display" these items in a themed manner...
JIGGA WHAT?!!?!?
So here is how Chef suggested we break our days down...
Friday (tomorrow)
Written test
Product ID test
Make dough for lemon tarts
Make sponge cake for L'Opera
Make sponge for Petits Four Glace
Make marzipan (that is the top layer of almond flavored candy) for Petits Four Glace
Monday
Assemble Petits Fours and freeze
Assemble Opera cake and freeze
Bake dough for lemon tarts
Make lemon curd for lemon tarts
Tuesday
Make florentines
Glaze Petits Fours
Make both types of Linzer cookies
Glaze Opera cake
Wednesday
Seize chocolate for piping on Opera cake and Petits Fours
Make Batons
Lemon curd into shells, make meringue and torch
Set and prepare table and be out of the class room by 1:30 for grading
All of the cakes and cookies, by the way, must be uniform in every aspect...
I MEAN COME ON!!!
I just got stressed out. I have to go.