I have been very busy the last week , trialling a new recipe for hot cross buns and , have tweaked the recipe and came up with a delicious version that you can find on www.hotcrossbuns.co.nz The smells coming from the kitchen are just amazing, with the spices and gorgous dried fruit, and then making chocolate eggs, bunnies and treats for a raffle basket ,and making chocolate bunnies to sell at market mmmmm
heres a couple of pics of the hot cross buns
We all had to do a stint of at least one day at restaurant service in the training restaurant this week as part of our course module
I was in charge of the patissierie section , over 2 days, and got to teach some things to my helpers that they didnt know as they had never done restaurant service before. I had a blast and really enjoyed it.
On the first day we did a Lemon meringue pie with a raspberry couli and a white chocolate mousse with vanilla tuilles and cinnamon marscapone on the side.(go to the schoolwork link on the blogroll and have a look at the pictures)
The second day we did profiteroles with grande marnier pastry cream and white chocolate and orange ganache with orange blossom jelly and the second dessert we did was a hot pear, apple and ginger steam pudding with a caramel custard and roasted nectarine, here are the pictures of these last two desserts
a chocolate mousse and berry tart and lemon meringue pie
I have been doing a bucket load of baking this week making gifts for people and also doing some baking for a cafe
the house has smelt amazing , i made things like shortbread, chunky chocolate chip cookies, peanut brownies, spice and raisen cookies, butter cookies, gingerbread, coconut ice and rocky road . Everything made from scratch with great new zealand butter
http://picasaweb.google.com/tessa.shoebridge/MoreChristmasBaking2007
A few weeks ago I entered my first professional chef competition in over 20 yrs .This competition is run by the Culinare Institute , its a competing arena for the hospitality industry. I didn’t win anything but I gained so much experience and insight in to what was expected and what I need to do in the future. I entered A Chocolate Fantasy Dessert and the dessert that I entered was A Chocolate Turkish Delight Brownie it was a rich dark rose flavoured chocolate brownie layered with soft decadent turkish delight and then it had rose sugar syrup drizzled over the top and served with a rich truffle of chocolate ganash on top and roasted pistachios and toffee shards as decoration.
Iwill upload the recipe and a picture fairly soon,
I am teaching myself some new skills as a result of this competition, things like sugar art and chocolate sculpture and art and also brushing up on some old skills that haven’t been used in a while