Plate Decor @ BITC

Sorry but work has been pretty much draining my energy. This is a über outdated post as we made sauces, decorative snaps and learnt how to plate during the last last week's class; confused? never mind dates don't really matter anyways...

We were taught to make different kinds of sauces, from fruity base to custard base to chocolate base. It was pretty interesting to discover how much effort went into making those yummy dollops found on our plates. In order to ensure we yielded a smooth and saucy consistency, we had to strain our sauces through a fine sieve. 

From Left to Right: Frozen Kiwi Fruit Puree, Frozen Strawberry Fruit Puree, custard making, straining, chocolate sauce in the making, zesting up some orange sauce, different sauces for the day.

The day would have been ultra boring if we only made sauces and so our lesson plan included learning how to make some edible dessert ornaments like Tuile and Snaps. Tuile is a thin and crispy wafer like chips which can be either sweet or savoury. Tuile means tile in French as it is named after a roof top of a shop in France. We added Sesame Seeds into our Tuile as Chef said it would helped us in the spreading of the Tuile (had to make sure its about 2mm thick). I dunno whether the sesame seeds did help in terms of the spreading and baking of our Tuile but it sure did add a whole lot of flavour to the Tuile. The Tuile was very fragrant and tasted really good albeit a little too sweet. 

Sesame Tuile

We also made some Almond Snaps which were easier to make as no spreading was needed. The Almond Snaps were also easier to fold and manipulate as it took a longer time to cool and harden. You can basically shaped these decorative wafers into any shapes you like!

Almond Snaps

Last but not least, assembling and plating. I've only heard of spooning as that's the technique adopted by many chefs, who appears on cooking channels I follow. However, to my surprise, there are many other different techniques such as flooding, dripping, brushing, piping etc. I know right?! So much work just to make the plate look good! Well, its like how girls have to put on primer, foundation, powder, blusher, eye shadow, eye liner mascara etc. etc. just to look all presentable and pretty.

Plating

My gorgeous plate :)