Day 62: Nothing Easy

We are making cream rolls today. There is nothing easy about making a cream (jelly) roll. Making the sponge cake for the cream roll is not an easy task. I know this because mine didn't come out as it should. My cake was a little dense instead of light. Still not too bad, but a lighter cake would have been better ~ especially when trying to rolling it without breaking it. I don't know that anyone in the class had success in making the perfect cake. Some cakes were over cooked and couldn't even be used for cream rolls. Some didn't rise properly, while others rose too much.

To make the sponge cake for the cream rolls, we used egg whites, egg yolks, sugar, salt, vanilla, milk powder, water, honey, cake flour and baking powder. The egg whites and egg yolks are first beaten until light using an electric mixer, then sugar, salt and vanilla are added, and then the milk powder and honey that has been mixed with water.The cake flour and baking power are sifted and folded into the mixture to create a batter for the sponge cake. The batter is poured into a lined baking sheet that has been butter on both sides. Buttering the underside helps keep the parchment paper stick to the baking pan. A half inch flat cake is preferred for the rolled cake that we are making today.

While the cake is still warm, we roll the cake and leave to sit in parchment paper until we are ready to add the cream. The parchment paper should be sprinkled with a light layer of sugar so that it doesn't stick to the parchment paper when unrolling.

The cream that we are making today is an orange cream. The ingredients for the cream filling are: egg whites, sugar, water, gelatin, orange liqueur (optional), cream cheese, orange zest, orange juice and heavy cream. The orange zest gives the cream a nice boost of flavour.

For plating we are making two fruit coulis and some creme anglais. We've made fruit coulis before, but this is the first time I've attempted to make creme anglais. Creme anglais is the base for making ice cream. Cream anglais is made with heavy cream, sugar and egg yolks. To make creme anglais, I start off with heating the cream in a pan. The warm cream is added to beaten egg yolks and sugar a little at a time to temper it. Once I've tempered the egg yolk and sugar mixture, I pour it into the pan with the rest of the cream and continuing whipping it over the heat until it begins to thicken and has a smooth texture. I can remove it from the heat and it's ready for use when cooled. If you were making an ice cream you would add additional ingredients such as vanilla, chocolate, berries, etc. The mixture would then be poured into an ice cream maker. Chef said that the volume would increase to almost one and a half.

At the end of class Chef spoke to us about our buffet project. Chef gave us a few ideas for set up and food ideas. It's important to remember the vegetarians and those that have a gluten allergy.