"Cheesecake"

Our next tasty creation was an all-time favorite of mine: cheesecake. It involved three different components: the cheesecake itself, a strawberry coulis and chocolate leaves (not pictured above.) We used a dark cookie crumb crust to begin with and made the traditional cheesecake to go with it. There was also orange zest that was added to this recipe to add flavor. We prepared a strawberry coulis by combining strawberries, orange juice and sugar and refridgerating that mixture. Finally, the last part of this recipe was chocolate leaves. We washed and dried the leaves and simply painted a layer of chocolate on the underside of the leaves. Unfortunately, the layer of chocolate wasn't thick enough and we weren't able to peel the chocolate off the leaves successfully. Even with that minor complication the cheesecake still tasted delicious and we managed to plate it in an attractive manner.

"Truffles"

This recipe was not successful for my group because the chocolate mix did not set in time and it wasn't hard enough to form balls to make truffles. We followed the steps of the recipe, however, refrigerating the mixture for two days was not enough to set it completely and when we tried to form balls the chocolate was still in a liquid state. We tried to use cocoa powder to help with the shaping but the truffles were hopeless. The liquid truffles tasted delicious but they didn't look very appealing.  

"Garnishes: Apple Bird"

Another garnish that we made out of fruits and vegetables was an apple bird. This provided me with many challenges because I found it difficult to make clean and smooth cuts using a crisp apple. The wings were the easier part of this assingment meanwhile the head was very hard. I cut triangles out of the bird's wings to ressemble feathers and once I got to the head, I did my best to cut out the proper shape and make an eye. In the future I would try and make my cuts smoother and more rounded because I was not very impressed with my final apple bird. 

"Noodles with chicken, mushrooms and snow peas"

There are very few savory dishes that are made in this class becasue decorating is more common with desserts. The reason for making this stir-fry was to work on presentation and garnishing. The peas were used to add color to this dish and the different components on the plate were supposed to be arranged in an attractive manner. I found it interesting to see how simply changing where things are placed on a dish can make the dish look so much more appetizing. I am a very big fan of asian cuisine and I thought the stir-fry looked delicious and tasted great.

    

"Garnishes: Watermelon Basket"

The next garnish that we created was a watermelon basket. It involved using a tool to cut around the center of a watermelon while leaving spaces for the handle of the basket. Once the shape was cut out we had to scrape out the inside of the watermelon so that it would be hollow. It is possible to use the watermelon that we scraped out to create "melon balls" that could be placed in the basket and eaten. This garnish was much simpler to create than the shark and I prefer the look of the basket to the cucumber shark.

"Garnishes: Cucumber Shark"

We have began creating garnishes in this class and there will be three that we will be making: a cucumber shark, a watermelon basket and an apple bird. The first of the three is the cucumber shark. There are many different steps to building this underwater fish. First of all, a flat bottom must be cut. With that piece that you cut off, you can create the fins on the top and on the sides of the shark by cutting slits into the shark and pushing the pieces of cucumber into the slits. You can also cut out a mouth full of teeth as well as some gills. A tail can also be made with a different cucumber piece and a slit at the back of the cucumber and finally you can give the shark some eyes by using a rounded tool. The challenges with this task were the size of the cucumber (it was very small and that made it difficult to add details) as well as the ability to use a knife.

 

"Cookie Monster Cake"

The second time that we used the monkey shaped novelty pan we had to be creative and think of a completely different design that would work with the shape of the pan. One of our ideas was doing cookie monster because we thought it would be fun and unique. Once the cake was ready to be iced the labor intense process began again. This time it was a bit simpler since most of cookie monster is blue. We decided to outline his hair to create more visual texture and to add detail to the cake. Also, we made cookies before hand to put on the cake so that it could be more realistic to cookie monster. This cake was a lot of fun to make and it turned out really well and tasted delicious.