Dare I say? I rather enjoyed the energetic chaos of baking under a time limit while hundreds of well-dressed people milled about, watching and chatting. In fact I'd love to do it again!
Heather, Danny, Victoria and I cooked up five lots of our dishes- one for each judge and one for the photographer- during the finals on Thursday, and I think we all did brilliantly. Ultimately, Heather was victorious with her intricate and amazing 'Conference of Chocolate' (it included poached conference pears, awesome pun setup!) All three were a lovely bunch to bake with, and the people of Godiva and Luxx PR were incredible.
There were a few frustrating times where us contestants were battling against the very swish but slightly puzzling equipment of the kitchen showroom we were working in. At one point I set my first batch of caramel on legitimate fire because my hob would only operate at too hot or too cold before switching itself off (resulting in me hovering my pan just over the hob for a good half hour to get a good caramel!) Heather's sorbet almost didn't freeze at all because the freezer was playing up, and one of the tempering machines Victoria was using didn't actually temper the chocolate.
Despite these little setbacks, all of us produced some pretty kick-ass desserts. I think best of all, I got some very invaluable feedback on ingredient balance and technique. My aim is always to improve, and getting a few tips from Godiva's head chocolatier was just brilliant.
I hope Godiva Chocolates repeats their Chocolate Challenge next year: I look forward to entering something new and original. At least next time around I'll be aware of the competition and have more than a few hours to come up with a recipe, make it and enter!
For my recipe that made it to the final, check out my blog Tashcakes! to see how my Praline Mousse Coeur is done.
Summary
'All the world's a stage'- and all of my shows are comedies. Welcome to my Wacky World, which is a collection of the mad, funny and sometimes slightly unbelievable things that happen to me.
Showing posts with label chocolate. Show all posts
Showing posts with label chocolate. Show all posts
Sunday, 23 March 2014
Wednesday, 1 August 2012
Short Stories: A Real-Life Golden Snitch
It's my mum's birthday on Friday, and she requested a croquembouche instead of a birthday cake this year (which is fair enough, since I made a pretty massive Chinese-style birthday cake for my dad's birthday only about three weeks ago). Since I work 9-5, practise the piano and do the odd fitness class/ make myself skip almost every day if I'm not at a fitness class, I've been preparing it since this Monday (it's Wednesday night now).
This evening I've been making the vanilla crème patissière filling, finishing off the white chocolate roses I've been crafting which I'll be decorating the croquembouche with, along with some milk chocolate leaves (which are evil to make, by the way), and then spraying them with edible gold lustre. There's also been great big fat bluebottle flying around whilst I worked.
Whilst I was spraying my chocolate flora (and I SWEAR this didn't happen on purpose), the bluebottle managed to fly straight into the stream of the spray.
So there's now a very bling bluebottle flying around. Every so often I catch it glinting in the corner of my eye- it makes me laugh because it's just like a tiny golden snitch.
Friday edit: here's the finished article, incidentally:
This evening I've been making the vanilla crème patissière filling, finishing off the white chocolate roses I've been crafting which I'll be decorating the croquembouche with, along with some milk chocolate leaves (which are evil to make, by the way), and then spraying them with edible gold lustre. There's also been great big fat bluebottle flying around whilst I worked.
Whilst I was spraying my chocolate flora (and I SWEAR this didn't happen on purpose), the bluebottle managed to fly straight into the stream of the spray.
So there's now a very bling bluebottle flying around. Every so often I catch it glinting in the corner of my eye- it makes me laugh because it's just like a tiny golden snitch.
| Maybe I should craft a little golden white chocolate fly in its honour? |
Friday edit: here's the finished article, incidentally:
| Vanilla bean crème patissière- filled profiteroles with muscavado ganache, milk chocolate leaves and white chocolate roses. All hand-made from scratch by yours truly. |
Labels:
anecdotes,
birthday cake,
cake baking,
cake decorating,
chocolate,
short stories
Saturday, 23 June 2012
Of Street Food and Melting Makeup...
True to form, my first tale of woe will be of one that only happened yesterday.
I was milling around in Camden Town yesterday evening, waiting for the precise moment to start walking to London Zoo for the summer Zoo Lates event (one thing about me- I hate, hate, hate to be late for appointments and meetups, often resulting in me being somewhere ridiculously early and then having to find ways of entertaining myself- thankfully easily done in Camden Town, on this occasion). I noticed it was getting a bit breezier now, so I put my cardigan on, but without buttoning up- it wasn't that chilly (trust me, this is a key bit of information for later).
Having grabbed some food from one of the stalls and found a nice bench to sit and eat at, I suddenly remembered that the shirt I had on was white- not a crisp white mind you, but white with grey pinstripes. White enough to make a bad impression of a messy eater, in any case. Noting my poor choice in food in terms of stain factor, I ate the fluorescently orange (and very delicious) sweet and sour chicken with utmost care, and for once, successfully.
Making a note of the time, I decided to touch my makeup up a bit, being forever conscious of my oily (and therefore shiny) skin type. I checked myself in my compact mirror. Alright, was my internal assessment, but a bit reflective around the nose and forehead area: better sort that out before I meet the guys. I fished out my trusty tube of Benefit The Porefessional primer from the depths of my bottomless bag (I always make a point of buying bags with TARDIS technology), unscrewed the lid and carefully squeezed a tiny blob onto the back of my hand.
At least, I intended to squeeze out a tiny blob.
What I actually squeezed out was a whole lot of runny mess, and all over myself: the primer had melted in the warm weather. Cursing, I hurriedly screwed the top back on and made that pose everyone does when suddenly covered with wet stuff (you know, the 'looking generally down at yourself in disbelief with your elbows at your sides but your forearms stuck out like an incredulous velociraptor' pose). It wasn't looking good- now my shirt was streaked with light peachy marks. Could be worse, I thought to myself, at least it's nowhere near as noticable as sweet and sour would have been. I managed to mop myself up well enough with some tissues, but couldn't help noting that I hadn't solved my shiny face problem yet. It occurred to me that I should have kneaded the tube before using it. Silly me! It had been in my bag for a while, after all. I picked the tube up again, and squished it around.
I didn't realise that, in my previous haphazard hurry, I hadn't screwed the top back on properly.
So here I was, shiny-faced and with primer makeup on practically every part of my body except for my face. A bit fed up now, I managed to smear a bit of the stuff straight from my shirt onto my face, re-mopped myself up as best I could, and decided it was time to get myself to the zoo.
I should have just kept walking, in hindsight. Instead, I stopped by a churros stall. I noticed they were doing large, filled churros instead of the traditional thin ones that you dip into chocolate, so I went to get one, deciding that it would cheer me up. And it did, for a while.
I got about halfway through it until it very quietly and very messily exploded.
Now thoroughly fed-up indeed, churro-less and looking like the posterchild for a Persil advert, I resigned myself to the fact that I'd now be meeting my friends looking utterly ridiculous. I whipped out some more tissues and started cleaning the sticky stuff from my bag, and as well as I could from my trousers. I sighed, preparing myself, and looked down to properly assess the state of my shirt, which was of course terrible.
It was then that I noticed why it had suddenly gotten breezy earlier.
The middle button of my shirt had been undone the entire time, exposing, in all its green and spotty glory, my bra.
Which was now also splattered with chocolate.
I was milling around in Camden Town yesterday evening, waiting for the precise moment to start walking to London Zoo for the summer Zoo Lates event (one thing about me- I hate, hate, hate to be late for appointments and meetups, often resulting in me being somewhere ridiculously early and then having to find ways of entertaining myself- thankfully easily done in Camden Town, on this occasion). I noticed it was getting a bit breezier now, so I put my cardigan on, but without buttoning up- it wasn't that chilly (trust me, this is a key bit of information for later).
Having grabbed some food from one of the stalls and found a nice bench to sit and eat at, I suddenly remembered that the shirt I had on was white- not a crisp white mind you, but white with grey pinstripes. White enough to make a bad impression of a messy eater, in any case. Noting my poor choice in food in terms of stain factor, I ate the fluorescently orange (and very delicious) sweet and sour chicken with utmost care, and for once, successfully.
Making a note of the time, I decided to touch my makeup up a bit, being forever conscious of my oily (and therefore shiny) skin type. I checked myself in my compact mirror. Alright, was my internal assessment, but a bit reflective around the nose and forehead area: better sort that out before I meet the guys. I fished out my trusty tube of Benefit The Porefessional primer from the depths of my bottomless bag (I always make a point of buying bags with TARDIS technology), unscrewed the lid and carefully squeezed a tiny blob onto the back of my hand.
At least, I intended to squeeze out a tiny blob.
What I actually squeezed out was a whole lot of runny mess, and all over myself: the primer had melted in the warm weather. Cursing, I hurriedly screwed the top back on and made that pose everyone does when suddenly covered with wet stuff (you know, the 'looking generally down at yourself in disbelief with your elbows at your sides but your forearms stuck out like an incredulous velociraptor' pose). It wasn't looking good- now my shirt was streaked with light peachy marks. Could be worse, I thought to myself, at least it's nowhere near as noticable as sweet and sour would have been. I managed to mop myself up well enough with some tissues, but couldn't help noting that I hadn't solved my shiny face problem yet. It occurred to me that I should have kneaded the tube before using it. Silly me! It had been in my bag for a while, after all. I picked the tube up again, and squished it around.
I didn't realise that, in my previous haphazard hurry, I hadn't screwed the top back on properly.
So here I was, shiny-faced and with primer makeup on practically every part of my body except for my face. A bit fed up now, I managed to smear a bit of the stuff straight from my shirt onto my face, re-mopped myself up as best I could, and decided it was time to get myself to the zoo.
I should have just kept walking, in hindsight. Instead, I stopped by a churros stall. I noticed they were doing large, filled churros instead of the traditional thin ones that you dip into chocolate, so I went to get one, deciding that it would cheer me up. And it did, for a while.
I got about halfway through it until it very quietly and very messily exploded.
Now thoroughly fed-up indeed, churro-less and looking like the posterchild for a Persil advert, I resigned myself to the fact that I'd now be meeting my friends looking utterly ridiculous. I whipped out some more tissues and started cleaning the sticky stuff from my bag, and as well as I could from my trousers. I sighed, preparing myself, and looked down to properly assess the state of my shirt, which was of course terrible.
It was then that I noticed why it had suddenly gotten breezy earlier.
The middle button of my shirt had been undone the entire time, exposing, in all its green and spotty glory, my bra.
Which was now also splattered with chocolate.
Labels:
anecdotes,
camden town,
chocolate,
embarrassing moments,
food,
makeup,
mess,
street food,
wardrobe malfunction
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