Jack Burke

Results

For lab this week, we worked on prepping and getting things together for next week’s final practical exam. My partner and I prepared and assembled our opera cake, and we also prepared and froze our cookie dough.

Evaluation of Results

For next week, my partner and I will be preparing a “Salted Caramel” menu, featuring a Salted Dark Chocolate & Caramel Opera Cake, a Brown Butter Chocolate Hazelnut Cookie, and a Classic Creme Brûlée.

This week, my partner and I fully completed the Salted Dark Chocolate & Caramel Opera Cake, and we will defrost and cut the cake next week. We plan on piping “opera” onto the top of the cake, as well as add some flaky salt for texture and flavor. Each layer came out well this week, with us tweaking recipes after our initial make of the opera cake two weeks ago. One thing in particular that we did was double the joconde, which really helped keep the batter light and airy while also being less thin and crispy as it was two weeks ago. I’m excited to see how the cake comes out next week.

For the cookie, we prepared Chef Dallas’ chocolate chip cookie recipe, while replacing the butter with browned butter, adding our salted caramel, and adding in chopped dark chocolate, white chocolate, toasted hazelnuts, and marshmallows. We baked off one tester cookie, and judging how it turned out, I think we have a really good cookie on our hands.

Conclusion

Overall, this week’s lab was a great refresher into what we have made, and was a great time to get things ready for next week’s practical. All we have left to actually make will be the Creme Brûlée, so my partner and I will be watching lots of videos on that to make sure we are well-prepared.