Plated Desserts

In the Culinary kitchen, pretty much everything is "plated" -- you get you food delivered on something after all, and unless it's take out, in a restaurant, that's apt to be place. In Culinary, we learned a number of nuances for how to present food to a diner -- the "protein " (typically meat) goes toward the diner. Hot food? Warm plate. Balance of colour, height, shape. Protein / vegetable / starch and so forth.

It's the same in the Pastry kitchen, except desserts are typically a single player with a supporting cast, so to speak. This week we learn to create desserts for presentation. After 10 days of chocolate and sugar work, everyone was delighted at the change. But along with creating a presentation for a hypothetical fine-dining customer, are the demands (quality & consistency of the presentation, time budgets) that go along with it. After all, when you order the "Lava cake" in your favourite restaurant, and it says "this preparation takes 15 minutes" -- you actually expect it in 15 minutes. If it's a half hour, the desire (and patience) wane.

First day of Plated Desserts was sort of boring. Frozen dessert lecture and made breads in the morning (one for use the next day, the 2nd I think to use up some leftover fruit that needed to get out of the frig), 3 different frozen preparations (ice creams, sherbet) in the afternoon.

The next days got much more interesting. The recipes were more complicated, with nested procedures ("Make X", where the 2nd step in "Make X" is "Make Y" and the 3rd step is "Make Z"). The first of these days was a kind of trial run: we were given X, Y & Z and the "service" time, but with tons of time to pull it off. Everyone did, more or less on time; the results were a bit varied.

The 2nd day was more challenging -- and more fun. The products we were making were souffles; they deflate in just a minute or two after they're taken from the oven. Also, we served ice cream and sherbet at the same time. Screw up the timing... melted ice cream. Oh, and to demo that we'd mastered (hah!) chocolate writing, we had to write "Happy Birthday" and our names, on the serving plate.

My partner Miri and did ok on the souffles. Unfortunately, just before service time on the second one, in a jittery moment (or maybe she just LOST HER MIND :) -- she spilled our sherbet (which was pretty liquid to begin with) -- all over the my plate. I was in shock for just a moment -- it had all worked so well -- then in an instant it was wrecked. But I wasn't angry. I'm not sure why. She convinced me to do the chocolate plate writing over again -- didn't come out nearly as well as the first time -- but in another two minutes, we were back in the game.

Thursday afternoon brought some relief from the minor rigors of delivering on a schedule -- we put together a simple fruit jelly (actually it was a complicated fruit jelly) -- and we made... marshmallow. Who knew you could make your own marshmallow.? Who'd want to?

Plated Desserts
Presentation for Fine Dining

In the Culinary kitchen, pretty much everything is "plated" -- you get you food delivered on something after all, and unless it's take out, in a restaurant, that's apt to be place. In Culinary, we learned a number of nuances for how to present food to a diner -- the "protein " (typically meat) goes toward the diner. Hot food? Warm plate. Balance of colour, height, shape. Protein / vegetable / starch and so forth. It's the same in the Pastry kitchen, except desserts are typically a single player with a supporting cast, so to speak. This week we learn to create desserts for presentation. After 10 days of chocolate and sugar work, everyone was delighted at the change. But along with creating a presentation for a hypothetical fine-dining customer, are the demands (quality & consistency of the presentation, time budgets) that go along with it. After all, when you order the "Lava cake" in your favourite restaurant, and it says "this preparation takes 15 minutes" -- you actually expect it in 15 minutes. If it's a half hour, the desire (and patience) wane. First day of Plated Desserts was sort of boring. Frozen dessert lecture and made breads in the morning (one for use the next day, the 2nd I think to use up some leftover fruit that needed to get out of the frig), 3 different frozen preparations (ice creams, sherbet) in the afternoon. The next days got much more interesting. The recipes were more complicated, with nested procedures ("Make X", where the 2nd step in "Make X" is "Make Y" and the 3rd step is "Make Z"). The first of these days was a kind of trial run: we were given X, Y & Z and the "service" time, but with tons of time to pull it off. Everyone did, more or less on time; the results were a bit varied. The 2nd day was more challenging -- and more fun. The products we were making were souffles; they deflate in just a minute or two after they're taken from the oven. Also, we served ice cream and sherbet at the same time. Screw up the timing... melted ice cream. Oh, and to demo that we'd mastered (hah!) chocolate writing, we had to write "Happy Birthday" and our names, on the serving plate. My partner Miri and did ok on the souffles. Unfortunately, just before service time on the second one, in a jittery moment (or maybe she just LOST HER MIND :) -- she spilled our sherbet (which was pretty liquid to begin with) -- all over the my plate. I was in shock for just a moment -- it had all worked so well -- then in an instant it was wrecked. But I wasn't angry. I'm not sure why. She convinced me to do the chocolate plate writing over again -- didn't come out nearly as well as the first time -- but in another two minutes, we were back in the game. Thursday afternoon brought some relief from the minor rigors of delivering on a schedule -- we put together a simple fruit jelly (actually it was a complicated fruit jelly) -- and we made... marshmallow. Who knew you could make your own marshmallow.? Who'd want to? Previous Log Next Log

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