Today's lecture was given by Chef Lexie and was all about Mousse. Mousse consists of two things: a Base and a Lightener. The Base gives the mousse flavor-chocolate, gianduja (chocolate hazelnut, NOT to be confused with Nutella!), creme anglaise, lemon curd, pastry cream. Mousse can also be savory-fish or vegetables for example. There are only three Lighteners: whipped heavy cream, meringue-Swiss or Italian and sabayon.
There are several styles of Mousse:
1. Creme Anglaise (vanilla), which can be put into any type of vessel (it won't stand up on its own).
2. Pastry Cream, which can be used to layer in cakes and tortes.
3. Quick, the type of mousse that you make when you are in a hurry (no surprise there, lol!). The formula for this is twice as much chocolate or lemon curd as heavy cream. Melt your chocolate, whip your heavy cream to soft peak stage. Take 1/3 of your whipped heavy cream and stir it into your chocolate to set the chocolate (stir, stir, stir!). You sacrafice this much of your whipped cream to stabilize the chocolate. Then in two additions, FOLD in your remaining whipped heavy cream. Put it in your serving bowls, wine glass, etc and keep in the fridge until you are ready to serve. All this happens very quickly!
4. Sabayon, which uses all three lighteners and is used for plated desserts. You fold your chocolate into your sabayon, then fold in meringue, then fold in whipped heavy cream.
5. Meringue-style is good for tarts and for those people who are lactose intolerant. This style eats very sweet, almost like fudge.
6. Bavarian, which is mousse and gelatin. This style is good for molded desserts (think old-fashioned jello molds, lol).
We learned about two forms of gelatin. 1. Powdered (like Knox gelatin) and 2. Sheet or Leaf gelatin. 1 package of gelatin (or 2 1/4 tsp) equals 4 sheets of gelatin. To use any gelatin, you must first "bloom" it. Which means dissolving it in water for the powdered gelatin and soaking it in water for the sheets.
We paired up and each made either milk chocolate or white chocolate mousse using the Quick style. We had to whip our heavy cream by hand!!! It took a while but it did happen. We had varying levels of success, lol.
Chef Dale took some time to review sauces, which was helpful. Chef Dale also told us that if you do not want the expense or want to take the time to make your own stock, you can enhance store bought stock by adding mirepoix and bouquet garni to your store bought stock and letting it simmer for a while. You could also add a chicken or turkey carcass if you had it. I had not really thought much about it before. Good idea!
Then it was time to get into our kitchens so we could make lunch.
I am going to try to remember to take pictures of all our Entree platings, but I forgot today!! GardeMo made Smoked Salmon Baravian served with a dressed frissee salad. Hot Plate made Prime Rib of Beef with Au Jus (I was in charge of the Au Jus-turned out delicious!), Gratin Savoyard (Potatoes Gratin) and Glazed French Baby Carrots. For dessert, Pastry made a Four-Level Chocolate Mouse Cake using the chocolate mousse we made during our demonstration. The bottom two layers were Devil's Food Cake and Chocolate Hazelnut Cake that ate more like a candy. Yummy!
Now it's time to study for my test tomorrow! Oh, by the way, I got 101 on last week's exam (out of a possible 107)! Yeah!
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