June 2013- Week 4

ORGANIZATION SKILLS

I would say that this week was very productive. I didn’t only manage to get skills and knowledge from professionals, but was able to browse loads of things off the net.

COMMUNICATION WITH SUPERVISOR

This week, I didn’t communicate with my supervisor at all.

INFORMATION

This week in IPS, my teacher taught me the basic of Italian Buttercream. Italian Buttercream is a meringue-based (egg whites and sugar) buttercream, and is commonly used on top of cupcakes.

Italian Butter Cream:

-250g unsalted butter

-1 g salt

-60g Egg white

-150g Sugar

-100g water

1. Cream the butter until very pale and soft, about 4-5 minutes. The butter needs to be at room temperature, but not half melted.

2. Form soft peaks by whipping the egg whites.

3. In a pan, heat the sugar and water, and wait until the temperature reaches 114°C. Don’t stir.

4. Pour in the sugar and water mixture to the whipped meringue, and use the mixer to whip the two components until the bowl isn’t hot anymore.

5. Put the butter in the sugar, water, and meringue mixture, and use the hand mixer to blend them up until soft and fluffy.

The buttercream turns out to be rich yet not overly sweet in flavor, light and creamy in texture, and holds its shape very well. Therefore, it is the form of cooked buttercream that is easiest to work with when decorating cakes, and in which I most likely is going to use on my cakes later on. The only problem I had to deal with this buttercream is that it melts so easily when put into an area with warm to hot temperature. I also browsed some cake decorating shops I will most likely going to visit later on my upcoming vacation to the UK. Some of the really interesting shops I could go to are: http://sugarshack.co.uk/, http://www.cakecraftshop.co.uk/, and http://www.bake-a-boo.com/.

Italian buttercream on top of vanilla cupcakes

June 2013- Week 3

ORGANIZATION SKILLS

This week wasn’t very productive as I was out of the city most of the days. Though however, I think I really learned quite a lot of things from experimenting on different batters. I also managed to develop baking skills and ingredient knowledge.

COMMUNICATION WITH SUPERVISOR

This week, I only emailed Mr. Patrick about my online process journal.

INFORMATION

I decided to experiment on two new recipes at the Indonesia Pattiserie School this week: blueberry muffin and cappuccino chocolate chip cookies. For this recipe of blueberry muffin, I found out three new ingredients that I have never used in any of my muffins before: emulsifier, high gluten flour, and pregel starch. I began on creaming the room temperature butter and margarine until the color turns pale or broken white, about 3-4 minutes. I then added the sugar and cream the batter for 3 minutes or so. These two first steps need a plenty amount of time and are very important, as I realize then the steps allow air to incorporate to the batter to achieve the moistness in a muffin. The egg whites first are added, and the chef told me that it is because egg whites contain more water that will mix better firstly with the creamed butter and sugar, and egg whites make the batter rise better. After that then, the yolks are added. The other choice to allow air to incorporate is to ground the granulated sugar so it dissolves quicker. The dry ingredients then are added. I learned that a mixture of high gluten flour and all-purpose flour is used to achieve the crumbs in a muffin, as high gluten flour is commonly used for bread and all purpose flour is used for cakes. Emulsifier is then added, as the instructor said that emulsifier allows the pregel starch to soften (act as starch complexers) and therefore make the batter rise, and moist yet crumbly. I learned to never overmix the batter as the batter will turn tough and dry. After finishing the batter, the instructor said that resting the batter in the freezer is also important to allow it to relax so it doesn’t sink when baked in the oven. As for the cookies, I learned the same things, except that the ingredients for cookies needed to be cold and dry ingredients needed to be sifted properly so that ingredients don’t crumble up together.

June 2013-Week 2

ORGANIZATION SKILLS

This week, I started my personal project on cake decorating. I’m sure I spent my time wisely this week as I began to investigate step by step day by day. Overall, this week was a good start of my personal project.

COMMUNICATION WITH SUPERVISOR

This week, I had my first meeting with my supervisor with two other students as well. We discussed briefly about the personal project, went through the criteria in detail, and used the PP guidebook to know what needs to be done to achieve a high grade. Overall, it was a very beneficial and effective first meeting as now I have a better understanding of what is expected in the given time to finish the personal project.

INFORMATION

This week, I chose my personal project topic and AOI: cake decorating and human ingenuity. So, I looked through cake decorating websites available in the net. I opened three sites that seemed to be appealing and interesting to me: cakejournal.com, cakeoricandothat.blogspot.com, and jessicakes.blogspot.com. As I looked through the content, jessicakes.blogspot.com turned out to be the best website I can use as a source in relation to my topic. I then looked through the many sections of the blog and saw how Jessica Harris, the blog owner, bakes and decorates her simple, clean, yet beautiful cakes. I opened her most recent update and realized that she had tutorial videos on Craftsy.com. Knowing that I needed to learn and apply the techniques and skills she had later on in the create stage, I purchased her videos and learned so much from them. On lesson 1-2, she demonstrated how she is able to produce clean and simple edges on her cakes by crumb-coating (adding a thin layer of buttercream before frosting the whole cake), using buttercream on wax paper, using the cardboard as a guide, and flipping the cake in the end to achieve the clean look. To be able to achieve that clean look on a cake has always been a challenge for me. It was either the buttercream was not smooth and messy, or crumbs on the cake were scattered and seen around the light colored buttercream. She required that crumb coating is a very important step in icing cakes. Her technique really helped the idea of icing a cake and I look forward to apply her technique soon. Then, on lesson 3, she explained the medium marshmallow fondant and modeling chocolate in cake decorating. She showed a recipe of both in her videos (2:1 ratio of marshmallow and powdered sugar to make marshmallow fondant, candy melts and corn syrup for modeling chocolate) and demonstrated the purpose of the mediums. Marshmallow fondant is not just very easy to work with, but it is simple to make and not sticky. Modeling chocolate is a very easy form of chocolate to use as decoration as it cuts beautifully, works well with templates, and holds its shape very well. I felt like she is very passionate in what she’s doing and I would want to know more about her. I then emailed her, asking her whether if it is possible for me to interview her via email.