nothing in particular

Woke up so early at about 8am, bolted down to Outram with K to attend this chocolate making course by Chef Geert from Belgium.

A little history on this choc making course:
I have been waiting for Chef Geert for 1 year! Last year April, he was supposed to have a 2 days class and I registered for it but he cancelled last minute due to personal reasons (from what I heard later was ..his dad was seriously ill). Later on, I asked several times on the course availability but the answer I got was.."He doesn't work on weekends" -__-

So this time on Labour Day, he's actually having a course~! How can I miss this??
Well, in fact I told my friend that I may miss his church wedding if the course ends late >.<'' what a lousy friend I have been .. Its quite alot of ingredients involved in making chocolate fillings for today.. We have coke, lemons, cognac(scotch whisky), mango & peach yogurt, tea bags, almond sticks, macadamia nuts, raspberry puree, raspberry liquer, cherries.

Chef Geert demonstrated a few times on how to fill the moulds with chocolate and shaking them to create a thin shell. Afterwhich, every student in the class has their chance to hands on.

The general idea is:
1. Fill the mould with chocolate.
2. Scrap off the excess, knock the air bubbles out.
3. Turn the mould upside down to shake off the chocolate, knocking helps.

This is K, filling his mould with dark chocolate



And me..having problems cos the "tank" of chocolate was too tall for me..as the result, I tiptoed -.-'''



After almost everyone had their turn at making chocolate shells..all the moulds are placed into the fridge.

The class was conducted half hands on, half demo kindda environment. This meant that all of us participated in one way or another in the "production" of the chocs. This is K having his turn at piping the mango yogurt ganache into the white chocolate truffle cups. These truffle cups were pre made.

In this pic, the chef was adding whisky to the ganache. This mixture is for making cognac cups.

Another participant filling up the chocolate cups(pre made) with cognac ganache.

Cherries were coated with dark chocolate. Do you see the water coming out from the cherries? This is because chocolate contracts when dried, thus squeezing the cherry's juice out.

After all the chocolate shells have been filled, the chef covered the moulds with chocolate once again. See the pic below, can you see the white stuff? This is due to "nipples" created when piping the fillings. Therefore to have a nice chocolate base, extra care must be taken when piping in fillings.

Picture below (clockwise) shows the truffle cups filled already; place board over the cups; spread chocolate over the board; remove the board and the dark chocolates would have been stuck on the truffle cups, covering the hole.

Overview of the creations(clockwise): Cherries dipped in dark chocolate; macadamia nuts covered in milk chocolate(created by 2 spoons); various shapes ; cognac cups

More pics on the overall creations..some chocolates have designs on them, these are created by using chocolate transfer sheets (a magnetic mould is needed)

We ran out of fillings halfway =( and so these unused shells are melted in the large "tank" to be "recycled"




After everything was completed, the chef says we can start grabbing our share of chocs..This was where I got damn irritated by AUNTIES AGAIN! *** (fill in with 3 letters from b,c,f,k,n,t,w)

This is total crap..all I wanted was 2pcs per design and I couldn't get it! This freaking hell AUNTIE took 2 bags FULL, mine was only 3/4 of a bag I swear..and she kept taking those that were small => can pack more. *** hope she gets sore throat!

The pic below was taken in despair..couldn't get my heart shape choc..I turned around to K to complain and he quickly "cut losses" by grabbing more cognac cups..

Morale of the story: Kiasu-ism is a vicious cycle. Kiasu-ism begets kiasu-ism.
So why is this pic shown? Look at the arrows shown in the pic..these 2 idiots have been grabbing alot zzzzzz..2 bags each!!! Stupid gian perng aunties always wanting to get their worth of course value by grabbing the expensive stuff..not my first time getting pwned by these idiotic beings le lor.. SBDL~