Crème Carmel

Crème Carmel (aka Flan) is a nice custard dessert, presented here with a tuile cookie dome. First prepare the caramelized sugar and then the baked custard.

Caramelized Sugar
Makes enough for 5 - 4" ramekins

• 8 oz sugar
• 2 oz water
• 3 drops of lemon juice

Combine all of the ingredients in a sauce pan and begin heating. Do not stir the mixture. Brush down the insides of the pan with clean water if crystals start forming on the walls, careful not to touch the mixture with your brush. Once the sugar begins to turn brown gently swirl the solution around to distribute the color, by holding the handle of the pan and swirling. Once the entire mixture is brown, place the pot directly into an ice bath so stop it from cooking further. Immediately pour the sugar into 5 - 4" ramekins. Just enough to coat the bottoms. If the mixture hardens in the bottom and you don't have enough to coat the whole bottom, don't worry about it because it will melt again evenly in the oven when you bake the custard.

Baked Custard
Makes 5 - 4" ramekins

• 1 pt milk
• 1 pt half and half
• 4 oz sugar
• 1/2 vanilla bean (split)
• 1/3 tsp salt
• 14 oz eggs

1. In a sauce pan scald the milk, half and half, sugar, vanilla bean, and salt. Remove from heat.
2. In a bowl, whisk the eggs to break them up. Carefully pour about 1 1/2 cups of the hot mixture into the eggs, stirring constantly.
   
3. Whisk the tempered eggs back into the hot mixture. Strain the mixture through a fine sieve. Gently scrape out the vanilla bean and stir in.
4. Place mixture into the ramekins (after the caramelized sugar has already been placed in the dishes). Put dishes in a water bath, ensuring water comes up no higher than 1/3 way up the ramekins.
   
5. Bake at 350 degrees F, until set and there is a light skin on top of the custard, approximately 35 minutes.
   

Once they are finished baking, cool and then cover in saran wrap and place in the fridge. The next day (or once they are completely cooled), take a small offset spatula and run it around the edge only going about halfway down so you don't touch the sugar. Flip it over onto a plate, shake it a little and it should come out of the ramekin. If it does not, you may need to run the spatula around again. Decorate as desired and serve chilled.

-amanda

English Trifle

English Trifle
It is made with an apricot jelly roll, layered with cake cubes soaked in grand marnier, strawberries, mandarin oranges, diplomat cream, and garnished with chantilly cream and strawberries. Although this is not a classic English trifle, it is still very delicious and pretty!



-amanda

Chocolate Kitty Jack-O-Lantern

This is a centerpiece I made in school (sorry about the photo quality, I only had my phone).

To make a hollow pumpkin (egg, ball, etc.) of your own follow these directions.

• Blow up a balloon to desired size and grease.
  
• Temper chocolate and dip balloon in chocolate covering all but the top
  
• Let the chocolate dry (you can set the balloon on a plate but might want to tie a string to the top and attach to something else so the balloon won't fall over)
• Once chocolate is hard, dip again in tempered chocolate and set to dry. (Do this procees a total of 3-4 times to get a thick enough shell, so that it won't break when you carve into it)
• Once the final layer is completely dry you can pop the balloon. Depending on how well you greased the balloon, it may or may not come out.

To decorate use cookie cutters or an exacto knife. Heat the knife tip or edge of cutter over a heat gun. Careful not to burn the metal or yourself! Slowly and with little pressure insert into the chocolate to carve desired design. You will need to keep re-heating your tools while you are carving. To add other pieces of chocolate, use tempered chocolate as "glue".

Have fun!

-amanda

Chocolate Bow

My first day working with chocolate at school we made bows! It was a very lengthy process mainly because chocolate is hard to work with because you have to keep it in temper. If you are unfamiliar with working with chocolate and how to temper here are some helpful instructions: Tempering Chocolate.

One thing I want to stress is to make sure that you don't get any water in your chocolate, or it is ruined. This includes steam, so if you are using a double boiler with your chocolate, make sure the bowl fits over your pot correctly so no steam can roll into the bowl. You also have to be careful when using a double boiler that you don't burn your chocolate. I prefer to pour the hot water into a bowl and use that instead of a pot over direct heat. It may take a little longer to melt, but there is less stress of burning and not as much steam to worry about.

I don't have my notes with me on how to make the bow, and I don't really know how helpful they would be without step-by-step pictures. However, if you really want my notes, let me know and I can send them to you.

-amanda