Raspberry Mouse

So this week's baking lab was pretty simple. Well, I guess simple is the wrong word....

This week we were "building" on our cakes that we made last week. We made Roulade and Flex Cake that this week we learned mouse fillings for and how to cut and fill them. My team had decided to do the White Chocolate Mouse instead of the regular Chocolate Mouse until Chef said she would work with one team of advanced students to do Raspberry Mouse. She obviously was waiting for the right team to volunteer because hands went shooting up everywhere and she waited until my teammate raised his hand and she gave it to us! That was a compliment in itself because it was obvious that everyone wanted to do it but she didn't want to let just anyone do it and we have some pretty great students in our class.

So, we got our ingredients together and Chef came over to help. By that time another team had begged her to let them do it too, so there ended up being 5 of us (ours was a team of 3). It was awesome to have direct instruction from her, especially since we were all working with sheet gelatin for the first time. The only mistake we made (and this was because Chef was in a hurry and thought that we would be okay) was that the raspberry puree mixture wasn't cooled down enough when added to the whipped cream. Well, if you have worked with whipped cream before, you know that when you add something warm or hot to it, it melts. So, the gelatin didn't set up as quickly as it should have but after giving it a bit of refrigeration (with lots of checking on it to make sure it wasn't gelling on the top and sides) and some folding, it got up to a good consistency and we were able to fill our cakes.

We also learned the proper Pastry Chef way to level and cut a cake in half. Wow....a lot more difficult than it looks. Almost everyone in class had problems with it, even people like me who have experience leveling and cutting cakes. It will take some practice, but I see how it will be a more efficient way to do it.

We also filled our Roulade with leftover Chocolate Mouse from Chef's demo and rolled those. Well, I rolled mine. I had the other half of the one from the demo because each Roulade was cut in two and our team had 3 people. Well, our Roulade was put on the bottom of the stack when it was put in the freezer....to make a long story short it had to be thrown out because the one above ours was stuck to it. The parchment paper ripped the Roulade in half and it is very thin to begin with. Sadly, the one above ours had to be thrown out too because of the same problem. I was happy I decided to take the demo!

So, with our cakes cut, touched up with simple syrup, wrapped with plastic molds, filled with mouse and wrapped in plastic wrap, they were ready for the freezer. We got out way early too. Even after clean up we were still out an hour early. Next week will be the fun week. We will be icing and decorating both the cake and the Roulade. Not sure what the Roulade is going to look like but right now it looks like a Jelly Roll....or one of those things made at Christmas that look like wood logs....I can't remember what they are called! But, we will be making buttercream too! Let's hope it stays cool next week! The bakery was a scorcher this week with the temps in the 70s and 80s in Orange County.