Fruit Tarts

Hello everyone!

I'm sorry I've been so MIA, haven't been giving my blog the attention that it needs. For those of you following me on Instagram (@frosted_amor) would have been getting updated there.

Anyways I'm back now & I will strive on catching up all the exciting practicals we have done this year at Capsicum Culinary Studio in Durban, South Africa.

So this is where I'm going to start, FRUIT TARTLETS.

Tarts is something that a lot of people enjoy due to the fact that it can be filled it with almost any filling that you like. There is a practical I just did today at Capsicum which was Lemon Meringue Tarts, Milktarts, Pecan Nut Tarts & White Chocolate Tarts, buuuurt, that blogpost will be done after all these overdue ones are done first, so follow my blog & keep yourself updated on all my posts!

For the fruit tarts, we made a short crust pastry, lined the tartlet mould with the dough & baked fully. Normally, you would line your tartlet tin with the pastry & bake blind till the tart base is halfway cooked due to the fact that after you fill the tart base with filling, it needs to go back in the oven to for the filling to cook/set and the tart base will complete its cooking process then.

However, with these tart bases, they had to be cooked fully due to the fact that they were getting filled with custard and fruit which didn't need the oven to set/cook it.

Once the tarts were cool, we brushed it with a layer of chocolate. Now this must only be done on the base of the tart because once you fill the tart with custard, you don't want any 'eaters' to see the chocolate in there, so when they take a bite of it, it's more like a surprise to them! So keep this chocolate application quite neat.

So ya, quite simple, we baked the tart bases, let it cool, brushed it with chocolate & then filled it with some delicious custard that we made from scratch, of course, & then topped it off with fruits. We used kiwis and mixed berries.

Hope you enjoy the pictures below of our Kiwi Fruit tarts & Mixed Berry Fruit tarts.
Once again, sorry for being so MIA on here but do keep visiting my blog as there will be MANY more posts being uploaded on here from now. Thank you all for sharing my journey of being a Pastry Student! 

The short crust pastry dough done! You have to let it chill in the fridge tho before you use it to line your tartlet tins. Sweet pastry dough could also be used for tartlets.

The tartlets have baked blind in the oven until fully cooked. The holes you see on the tartlet bases are due to 'docking' which means poking the base of the tartlet before you place it into the oven to bake, just so that air can get through. Also, once your tartlets are out the oven it is vitally important to let them cool on a cooling rack to avoid the base of the tartlet getting soggy. 

Tartlets are filled & ready to eat! 

Until next time, which will be soon, keep your life frosted! <3

The 'PANCAKE' Stall

So this 'place' is really special to me. I'm sure those of you living in Durban, South Africa know about the Essenwood Flea Market that takes place every Saturday of the month. There is a stall at this flea market that sells Pancakes. & for me, it's the BEST pancakes that I've tasted in Durban.

This pancake stall is REALLY special to me because I started going there to eat pancakes in Grade 3, which was literally TEN YEARS AGO when I was NINE years old :/ (I feel so old now). I use to go there with my Uncle EVERY SATURDAY without fail just to get some pancakes, & they MUST be HOT. Otherwise it just doesn't taste the same. The market use to start at 9am and finish around 1am but the pancakes will be sold out by 12pm latest!

So I stopped going to the Pancake Stall for about 2 or 3 years & just recently this year I went back. First time was with my friends & second time was with my Aunt & Uncle who were down from Botswana. I was taken aback to like 2004 when I saw the SAME man sitting behind that SAME Pancake table. He has been there EVERY SINGLE time I have went to buy pancakes. The person sitting next to him helping him out always alternates. I started feeling all fuzzy inside & excited like how I use to feel when I was a lil 9 year old going to buy pancakes. Not everything was the same tho except the table, the Main Man himself & the four pans behind the table. The lady who used to be frying the pancakes behind (in 2009) was not working for him anymore, due to some reasons I wouldn't want to post here (We had a good chuckle about that LOL). Of course the prices have increased but is still very affordable. Oh & of course, the Main Man himself still has the same face, but a whole new different shade of hair - GREY! Lol he is such a sweet man, always smiling & always pleasant.

So when I visited him recently, I had a good chat with him (he even gave me a free pancake & an unwanted discount for being a 10 years old loyal customer haha) & it was fun reliving memories. I even told him that it looks like his stall has moved up from where it was & he told me, "No, my stall is in the exact same place that it was 10 years ago BUT the entire Flea Market moved more up so it gives the illusion that my stall has moved when it hasn't." I found that very interesting.

I then ordered what used to be my usual, A cinnamon & golden syrup pancake. Just that all those years ago, my uncle & I used to order like seven & I use to eat like four :| I mean when you 9 years old you don't usually worry about your weight, right? This time I just ordered one & I decided to try the Banana Pancake too. It didn't disappoint. I mean I was wasn't expecting it to disappoint either. The only thing about these pancakes & I'm sure with many other pancakes is that you have to eat it HOT, otherwise it just doesn't taste the same.

So the reason why I decided to write this blog post tonight is so that all of you readers who live in Durban can go get yourself some of the best pancakes in Durban, TOMORROW!

So I leave you with some pictures, hope you enjoyed my review on this living childhood memory of mine & I hope that you Durban readers will go get some Pancakes tomorrow? I know I will!

Yummy pancakes! Can't wait to get my hands on some tomorrow! <3 

\P.S: Sorry for not posting for 3 months now! I will try and post more regularly, I have PLENTY of updating to do. Thanks for the support :) 

Until next time, keep your life frosted! <3

Vanilla Swiss-Roll, Carrot Cupcakes & Orange and Almond Cake

Today's practical is a mouthful - as you can see by the heading of this post. Reason being is campus was cancelled yesterday (due to some reasons I still don't know about) so we had to get 2 slots of practicals done today in one slot.

The class worked as a big group preparing the Orange & Almond cake & the Carrot Cupcakes whilst we all, in groups of two had to make a Swiss-Roll .. It was the first time I was going to be making a Swiss-Roll so I was excited. Now when I think about it, I actually think I did most of the Swiss-Roll preparation on my own, except the part where I told Terene to spread some Chantilly Cream on the Swiss-Roll so that I could take a picture .. LOL shame, she didn't even say much. Just let me do my own thing. [Thanks Terene :)]

Ya so, the Swiss-Roll was a hit! It didn't crack so we were overjoyed. The Vanilla Chantilly cream that we made as the filling instead of the Bavarian filling that we were supposed to make was a DOUBLE hit. I have never tasted anything better than Vanilla Chantilly cream, I am definitely going to use it in a lot of ways in the future of me being a Pastry Chef. Our Swiss-Roll looked stunning at the end too, with some icing sugar dusted on top & some edible flowers placed on the side to add some colour. & tadaaa. A proud moment was born. In actual fact, my mum has told me now that on Saturday she wants me to bake another Swiss-Roll because it was, I quote her words "..tooo tasty!" 

The Carrot Cupcakes looked too beautiful. They were topped off with some Cream Cheese icing. 

We made the Orange & Almond Cake & shew, was that cake moist or what? We were supposed to pipe some Cream Cheese icing on the cake but we were exhausted & really wanted to go home, so I just spooned the icing on the cake & spread it out. I then took some whole almonds & gave it a rough chop & sprinkled that on top of the cake along with a few whole almonds scattered around. I wanted to give the cake a natural, simple look that still looked well presented but proved to you that 'Less is MORE!'

So I have pictures down below for you to see. Hope you enjoy the 'view' ..

Carrot Cupcakes with some Cream Cheese Frosting & a Chocolate Sauce Drizzle.

One of the happiest moments of my life - IT DID NOT CRACK. Lol I think that's the only worry of every first timer Swiss-Roll maker.

After the Swiss-Roll was left to cool down (Picture above this one) we unrolled it & spread Vanilla Chantilly cream on it .. I just can't get over this cream. Honestly it's superfantabulisticexyaladocious! (Mind the spelling)

We re-rolled the Swiss-Roll after filling it with Vanilla Chantilly Cream & then finished it off by dusting some Icing Sugar on top. When the Swiss-Roll just got out the oven, it was placed on a sheet of waxed paper that had Castor Sugar sprinkled all over it so that also added the right amount of sweetness you want to get from the actual Swiss-Roll Cake.

& we are done! Tadaaa! Just placed some edible flowers around the Swiss-Roll to add some colour.

The texture was AMAZING & the overall sweetness was PERFECT. 

The Orange & Almond Cake. I'm not a fan of Orange in cakes as well as Carrots etc that's why this cake & the carrot cupcakes won't be on my favourite list. Fruits and cakes, for me, just don't go together. In order to try and forget the fact that this IS an ORANGE & Almond cake, I just decorated it with Almonds. NO slices of orange or anything to do with orange, thank you very much. But it does look pretty, right ... 

....right. It's pretty.

Until next time, keep your life frosted! <3

Gingerbread House Practical Assessment

I must say, this practical was the most looked forward too one of the year (so far) for me! I mean I was excited! My group: Ian, Shefali, Nomfundo & I were excited! The ideas were just pouring out of our thinking caps, we wanted to do so much!

However, when we got to the actual day of doing the practical, it was nerve-wrecking. Isn't that always the case? LOL.

So basically last week Wednesday we had to bake the gingerbread & create a template with which we can work with to cut out our house. We had to assemble the house on Wednesday & decorating was too be done on Thursday.

Assembling was fine, but the roof was a catastrophe. Especially Ian's ideas (If only I took a picture of the roof that Ian designed, you'll fall over laughing) - but at the end of it all, we learnt a lot. We also had a balcony (Ian's ideas, of course :/ ) & a chimney which was the Girls' ideas. We had a light too that we were to put inside the house after it was decorated, which we did do, & the light shone through the windows. It was cute. 

So basically after assembling on Wednesday (Nomfundo & I had to do some last minute repairs before we left as the one part of the roof fell down, was NOT funny at that time) & after me praying the whole of Wednesday night for the house to still to be standing  the next day, it was Thursday & it was time to decorate. The fun part right? Ya. But the tiring part too. VERY tiring.

So we covered the roof in this chocolate biscuit things which were pringle shaped? & then stuck wafer biscuits on the side walls to make it look like bricks? The windows were done out of sparkle sweets that were melted. Ian managed to put his balcony up somehow after it fell down I don't know how many times. The board was covered with white fondant then royal icing then glitter to look like snow. Our idea was basically that the winter season is coming to an end so the snow is melting. We outlined the windows & door frame with jelly tots. Ian created his own lil garden on the side. OH AND he wanted a car, which Shefali molded for him coz his looked bad. 

Ya, & jellybabies were the 'people' living in that house. We did the rest of the decorations with royal icing. Everything was edible.

We were & are really proud of our piece. But now when I look at it, I can see SO MANY things I would do differently next time to make it a neater, blolder & much more vibrant house. At the end, even though it was a tiring two days, we all had lots of FUN & the group & I were happy. It was a great group effort & we had a lot of team spirit. Bearing in mind my group were all second year students whilst I was the only first year, it went well. GO TEAM!

Hope you enjoy the before & after pictures! :)

Just when we were done with the assembling on Wednesday.

DONE! Ian's garden gate on the left, our jelly baby people all over having their own lil conversations. Pathway showing the way into the house which was actually milk chocolate buttons.

The side of the house on Wednesday. That long rectangular horizontal piece is Ian's balcony. Yes mind the mess. There was royal icing EVERYWHERE!

The side of the house. How CUTE is the chimney? I love it! & Ian's balcony is standing! Thank you Strawberry Wafer Sticks! & there's Ian's lil cute car made out of fondant haha. 

The other side of the house with the windows & the wafer bricks.

A better view of Ian's garden & his garden gate made out of strawberry wafer sticks.

The overall Gingerbread house! Not bad for first timers right?

Until next time, keep your life frosted! <3

Chocolate Financier & some Flooding Work

As many of you know from my last blog post, I am quite behind with my posts but I'm getting there, slowly but surely! This is a practical we did two weeks ago I think.

So firstly, you must be wondering what on earth is a Financier. I found a some info on Wikipedia which explains it perfectly.
"A financier is a small French cake. The financier is light and moist, similar to sponge cake and usually contains almond flour, crushed or ground almonds, or almond flavoring. The distinctive feature of the recipe is beurre noisette  (brown butter).Other ingredients include egg whites, flour, and powdered sugar. Financiers are baked in shaped molds, usually small rectangular loaves similar in size to petit fours.

The name financier is said to derive from the traditional rectangular mold, which resembles a bar of gold. Another theory says that the cake became popular in the financial district of Paris surrounding the Paris Stock Exchange."

Financier pans are traditionally rectangular, but other shapes are not uncommon." 

Our Financiers looked like cupcakes haha. However it had a really deep chocolate taste that I didn't like much (it had dark chocolate AND cocoa powder in the mixture :| ) so that was a bit too chocolatey for me. We then had to make some buttercream & pipe it on the top BUT only a lil amount as the sugar work which goes ON TOP of the buttercream supposed to be the focal point.

In my personal opinion, I found the buttercream too sweet to be going on a cake that was already so chocolatey and ... I mean it just wasn't the right combo for me. I would like to whip some cream and pipe whipped cream on top so that the rich chocolate taste gets toned down a bit. Also, I would like to pipe a lot more of the buttercream/whipped cream on top to make it look prettier.

We did some sugar work our goal was to get a round ball kind of piece which wasn't that easy to achieve.

We also did some flooding work on biscuits. Flooding is basically covering & decorating a biscuit with royal icing. You can also just write on the biscuit etc.

Tomorrow night there will be a blog post about the Gingerbread houses we made last week! So hope to see you tomorrow! Enjoy the pictures!

Until next time (Tomorrow), keep your life frosted! <3

Cake Decorating Practical Exam

This exam took place on April, 30th. Yes, I've been delayed for a while.

For this practical exam, we had to bake, ice & decorate a Genoise Sponge Cake. It could be a full, round cake or it could be one slice of the cake decorated around all three sides. I chose to do a slice as my cake baked into a lopsided shape so I preferred to create a slice due to height.

I needed height because I decided to do Ombre around the sides and then on top, flowers in different shades of pink so that it also had an Ombre look. I love pink so I stuck to pink.

We had to bake, cool & decorate in 4 hours (It was so hectic!) & this practical was to see how we work under pressure. I just had to keep going even though my plan just was not working out. I even cut myself with a bread knife (most painful & stupidest cut ever) so that slowed me down even more as the blooooood just wouldn't stop so I had to cover it (You know that finger glove thing you see Chefs wearing on TV whilst cooking or in a challenge when they get cut? Ya it took me about 5 minutes to sort myself out there) & just keep going even though it was BURNING. 

Many things didn't work out as plan but I was 70% happy with the overall look. However, there is LOTS of space for improvement. Also, I was the last one in my class to finish. OOPS. 

Hope you kind off like the pictures! 

The Pink Ombre on the side.

Flowers and dots on the top with glitter. I love sparkle.

I made the flowers flow in a trail across the slice of cake and down the sides. My Lecturer, Chef Julia said it looked like how something would flow on a dress. 

Until next time, keep your life frosted! <3

Caramel Millionaire Shortbread, Checkerboard Biscuits & Butter Biscuits

In this practical we made more biscuits! I was so tired of biscuits after this week LOL. 

Enjoy the pictures! I had fun in this practical, didn't take it so seriously, was busy doing my own thing. 
'

The end product! Caramel Millionaire Shortbread in the two hearts. Checkerboad biscuits in the loaf tin & butter biscuits in the round tins.

The Mise En Place for the white vanilla part of the checkerboard biscuits.

Team work to lift the checkerboard biscuit over in order to create the checkerboard look. It was really cracking and breaking due to it being so soft LOL.

Last one to turn over, almost there. 

Baked and out the oven & you get CHECKERBOARD biscuits! However, checkerboard supposed to be 2 layers, not 4. LOL oh well .. 

I am done making my butter biscuit dough and about to roll it out and cut out my shapes!

Butter biscuits baked and out the oven. Just had some fun drawing and writing on them with royal icing.

More butter biscuits! I cut out star and circle shaped biscuits.

Until next time, keep your life frosted! <3

Brandy Snaps & Sable

Shew, I haven't posted in a long while :| 

This was a practical done at campus a few weeks ago. I'll just let the pictures say it all. 

These are brandy snaps. Once out the oven and whilst they are HOT, you're supposed to shape them. We shaped ours against a dariole mould & we molded some cigar shapes. The cigar shapes are ideal for custard to be piped into them & then to dip the cigar in chocolate. Our round bowl ones are perfect to hold a scoop of ice cream etc.

My Mise en place for the Brandy Snaps

Mise en place done for the Sable (which are basically biscuits) 

The brandy snaps mixture whilst hot. We had to wait for this sticky gooey mixture to cool so that we could mold it into round little flat balls on a baking tray. We noticed it was easier to spoon an ugly lump of this mixture onto a baking tray and leave it to cool there. Once cool then you could mold it and neaten it up from its ugly self.

Some of the Sable after they were baked and after they were dipped in chocolate.

The Sable piped on a baking sheet ready to go into the oven.

Until next time, keep your life frosted! <3

Chocolate Chip Cookies & Langues De Chat Chocolate Dipped Biscuits.

Today we baked more biscuits! Chocolate Chip Cookies and Langues De Chat Chocolate Dipped Biscuits .. I'm guessing that's a French name? Any French people reading this can help? LOL.

So I made the Chocolate Chip Cookies & my station partner Sihle made the Langues De Chat Chocolate Dipped Biscuits. However, we both helped each other during both the processes - team work you know?

To be honest, the Langues De Chat Chocolate Dipped recipe was a flop. I mean it supposed to work, but it didn't. My Chef Lecturer, Chef Julia is currently away due to health reasons so we have Chef Afzal who is in charge of us and he also couldn't figure out why this recipe wasn't working. Well, some recipes flop due to the climate, ingredients manufactured by different companies & so on. It can work in some parts of the world but might not work in other parts of the world. However, it tasted GOOD.

As for the Chocolate Chip Cookies, I had a lot of fun as I used biscuit cutters in the shape of MINI BUTTERFLIES AND HEARTS :D The recipe said you should place spoonfuls on a baking tray and press it down till about 5mm thick & then bake - that was just too boring for me.

I shall let the pictures say the rest! :)

My messy station whilst making the Chocolate Chip Cookies! At this stage, I just started cutting out the butterfly shaped cookies.

All my Mise-en-place done for the Chocolate Chip Cookies. Mise-en-place is basically the preparation for whatever you need to do for the recipe so for example measuring and placing all the ingredients needed in front of you for the recipe and so on. Mise-en-place MUST be done beforehand. 

The molds I used to cut the heart & butterfly shaped cookies out :)

Heart shaped Chocolate Chip Cookies (some with a white chocolate chip on top) ready to go into the oven.

Out the oven and busy cooling down on a wire rack.

This was what the Langues De Chat Chocolate Dipped Biscuits looked like at the end. Sihle did a great job as they really tasted good. As you can see, they were dipped in chocolate on the ends. We melted some dark chocolate for this.

The end product :)  Next time I would melt some white chocolate chips and use a writing nozzle to pipe details and just some outline of the wings etc on the butterfly cookies. The reason I didn't do it this time was because the chocolate chip cookies were already so 'chocolate-tey' due to it having white chocolate and dark chocolate roughly chopped in the batter. However, if you are a die hard rich chocolatey fan, then piping white chocolate to make the butterflies look a bit more pretty than they already are and to add another texture of chocolate is the way to go for you. 

These Chocolate Chip Cookies & Langues De Chat Chocolate Dipped Biscuits was made by a fellow student in my Pastry Class named Santhil Ramdhani. The reason why I'm posting a picture of his food stuff is because I found his end product so cute. He didn't use a cutter but he just created simple balls for his Chocolate Chip Cookies and then pressed his thumb in the middle and placed some white chocolate chips. I asked what it was, he said, "NESTS". How cute? It does look like nests with little eggs in it. You could see he was in the Easter mood LOL.

Until next time, keep your life frosted! <3