Mac's Modern Crepe Cake

Woohoooooo!!! All done! This morning we all enjoyed an early 5:30am breakfast with Chef W. What a pleasure! Then we had about 2 hours to finish off our individual entremet projects. This was plenty of time, as I finished up in about 30 minutes!

I had to make the glaze, gather my equipment and decor, glaze my cakes, remove them from the cake rings while they were still frozen and toss some garnish on (yes, I literally haphazardly tossed it on! It's very "contompory" you know!).

Pictures!!!

From top to bottom: caramelized hazelnuts, candied orange peel, maple icing, maple syrup mirror glaze and one large orange crepe; mascarpone mousse; nutmeg bavarian mousse and orange crepes, orange chiffon cake soaked with maple simple syrup, and an orange cookie base.

All in all, I was very satisfied with the way this cake turned out. The flavors are GREAT!!! Reminds me of Christmas and eggnog and happy times. A lot of the orange comes through, there was some chewiness and texture from the cake and crepes, and the cookie base was crunchy! The colors are very monochromatic, but I couldn't help much with that. The nutmeg mousse was SUPER GOOD! I decided to call it a "modern" crepe cake because it is a twist on the traditional, plus using crepes as an insert is like a surprise when you cut it open!

At the end of class, each student had to get up and share about their cake in 2 minutes. Then everyone tried it. This was fun.... until you got to piece o' cake #10... sugar overload! We had to taste 16 pieces. Gahhh... way to kill my lunch appetite! Everyone came up with either iconic or interesting flavor combinations, and there were maybe 1 or 2 that didn't quite work or taste good. Plus you could easily tell if people made their products well. Cakes and mousse don't lie... If a mousse isn't made right, you can feel it in your mouth (lumpy or grainy) or see it oozing out of shape once it thaws. Tricky, tricky!

We also were required to cost out how much one cake would be to produce. I was exempt from this exercise since I had compiled everyone's ingredient shopping list for Chef W, but I decided to do it anyways just to know! It would cost me $6 to make one cake, and I could definitely sell it for more!

We took our final after production and I think I maybe only missed one question, so that's good. I studied a LOT as usual.

At lunch I knew I needed to get rid of my second cake (aka give it away because I am absolutely sick of mousse cakes!). I wish I could send something like this home or off to my friends, but it just wouldn't make it in one piece! So I took it down to some of my culinary friends in another kitchen. The other chefs I don't know are kind of intimidating, but the one in this French kitchen was very nice and everyone looked super happy to have the cake to eat! It brought back memories of me bringing my baked goods up to my friends houses back home :) I miss sharing my food with people I know!

And now, off to enjoy the weekend! I'll post some pictures tomorrow of our Grand Buffet spread. I'm taking a looooong road trip (as in many hours, but only a few days!) while I'm out here in New England. Gotta see as much as I can!