Plated Desserts

Today was my first experience with plating desserts. It was very...stressful. I had to keep reminding myself to breathe [a lot]. All week we had to come up with crazy flavor combos; well things out of our comfort zone. Trying to mix fruits with spices and herbs is actually hard. Just throwing extracts together does not always make a great and fabulous flavor. Well in the end with all the tears and sweat that shed it all came together. I was very pleased with my desserts. The baklava was filled with pecans, maple, and star anise. My pastry cream was star anise. The sauce was chocolate. Of course I had a garnish and it was a simple chocolate design. The second dish was a puff pastry, the pastry cream was blueberry all-spice with chocolate raspberry coule. The kicker on the puff pastry was it was atop a graham cracker crust! I got good reviews from the graham cracker mixed with the sauce. I hope to get better with each practice run and it will benefit me in the future with my career. I can seem myself enjoying this class and it will be over before I know it.

My baklava called Crunch of Warmth:


and the beautiful puff pastry named Spice of Summer: