So! The day has arrived! I have officially enrolled myself into this culinary cookbook class (aka I am committed to cooking my way through it!)
For those that are just arriving — I have recently received the Le Cordon Bleu Pastry School Cookbook! To further my culinary endeavors I am slowly cooking my way through and showing you all my progress. The goal is that it is a learning experience for all . . . and I get to eat sweets.
This book is AMAZING. It ranks all recipes based on how easy they are to attempt (1 chef hat = easy, 4 = difficult). The step by step pictures are out of this world, and my favorite part: everything is measured out in metric units. That’s right folks, my life as a compounding pharmacist has come full circle! Not only do I measure out ingredients at work and create individualized medication, but now my hobby includes the same actions. . . . yes I am a giant nerd.
So, where to start? Well the book is not organized from easiest to hardest. I flagged all of the recipes that are marked by 1 chef’s hat for now, I’ll cook through those and move on to the next level. With that said James was craving chocolate, so soft centered chocolate “fondants” seems like a good choice!
Because I do not want to infringe on any copy write I won’t be posting the actual recipe but I will show you what I learn and how I am improving. Plus of course how tasty everything is.
Alright! Let’s finally get started.
Soft Centered Chocolate Fondants are a really fancy way to saying cupcake size lava cakes. As stated above this is a 1 chef hat difficulty level so there were not a lot of new skills to learn in the recipe, however it being my first Le Cordon Bleu recipe there is always something to learn:
This recipe called for dark chocolate. Dark chocolate means the chocolate you are using can be made with sugar and cocoa but cannot be made with any sort of milk product. In Europe dark chocolate is identified by a percentage of cocoa of 35% or more and in the US there is no minimum. The percentage refers to the amount of cocoa particles in in a product. Since in this recipe the book did not give me any indication on what percentage to use I used 70% dark chocolate. I would do this again too it made for very rich cakes which is to my preference. However! While I used 70% for the cake, I used a semi-sweet 56% for the chocolate filling. This was not a problem for me, but surprisingly my very chocolate acquainted husband registered the difference and to my disappointment did not like them as much because of this.
One of the first steps preformed in order to make this recipe is called a bain-marie. It is actually translated directly from French as “Mary’s bath”. A bain-marie is when you simmer water in a pan, and place a heat safe bowl in that. It allows you to apply gentle heat, a lot like a double boiler, to items that may need to cook, or melt but cannot do so in direct heat. The difference between this and a double boiler, is that the bowl in which you place your ingredients in has direct contact with the hot water in a bain-marie. In a double boiler the bowl holding your ingredients never comes into direct contact with the water or steam. In a compounding pharmacy a bain-marie is a fancy way of saying hot water bath.
I am excited to say I cannot wait to attack my next recipe. So far Le Cordon Bleu is living up to all expectations as an exceptional teacher and incredible desserts. I was extremely pleased with my final product. Please post any comments, concerns or questions I might be able to answer! I hope for this to be a learning experience for all so I will keep the kitchen light on.
I'll Leave The Kitchen Light On 