Lesson 6 : Sables Diamantes and Sables Hollander

Cookies Day !!!

Today we made 2 types of cookies..Sables Diamantes and Sables Hollander.

First of all…we were introduced what those name come from and how it look like. If I am not mistaken…Chef Michael said…they call Diamantes because they think it looks like diamond and wanna make them special…And for Hollander since it came from Holland and it also can be called Dutch biscuit or checker board biscuit.

“Sables” is a classic French cookies originated in Normandie. The name Sable’, comes from the French word for sand, because of their crumbly texture. Soft and delicate they are very easy to make. They can eventually be flavored with nuts or zest.

From left to right: Spider (named by Chef Michael for the left over dough), Hollander, Diamantes with Cherries and Plain Diamantes

Chef's Hollander was so nice...he made quite a big piece, light, nice and sandy.

Diamantes can be dipped into Chocolate..but these one were still hot, then chef just piped the chocolate on top which is good enough for us ^o^

You know last nite...I was thinking "oh today will have only 2 types of biscuits, then i will try only 1 each"...finally i end up with 6-7 pieces..can't help, it was sooo good ^ ^''

My Diamantes (orange zest added)...a bit messy cause forgot to take photo after it was took out from the oven...these tray had been trying to cool down.

We used so much effort to make checker-board design cause we need to make 2 colours of dough, then measure them, cut them nice and straight, then chill them, then cut and stack them, then chill them, then slice them and bake them…erm…lots of work to do...

I also made mini hollanders (unintentionally). So cute !!!

Su Hee made a different shapes of biscuits..waww.....i should do this too..

This Lesson is the most satisfied for me...

hahaha....brought home a big box of biscuits ( I gave one box which was already shared half-half of biscuits to my cuisine friend)

Lesson 5 : Light Fruit Cake (with Streusel Topping) and Gateau Marbre (Marble Cake)

My blog seems to be too informative? Should I write less about Key Culinary Terms? Let me know what u guys think about too many letters in the blogs..ok?

Anyway, today chef Karin showed us how to make Light Fruit Cake, Marble Cake and Viennese Biscuits. Actually we have to do 2 cakes today and the Viennese biscuit is for tomorrow class, but chef Karin said we gonna make only 1 cake and 1 biscuit due to our time limit.

Light fruit cakes contain about 35-50% of their batter weight in fruits, like orange peel, cherries, sultanas, currants, nuts..etc. *tip* lightly coat them with a layer of flour before u add them into the batter (which is added last) so that the fruits do not sink to the bottom.

Gateau Marbre (Marble Cake) is a butter cake which we have made in Lesson 3 that’ s why chef choose fruit cake for today…we bake it in a Gugelhopf tin ( I like this tin, beautiful !)

Chef Karin was coating the marble cake with dark chocolate…ahhh….looked so good.

One of my classmate asking about the type of chocolate we coat. Chef said normally we prefer dark because of the color makes it more luxurious…and of course we use Couverture not Compound chocolate…because we are LCB !!!

Can’t wait for tasting time ^O^

Viennese biscuit (Piped sables): It has a bit of rum in it and there’s also almond meals. These cookies are to be piped out into cute lil florets or patterns.

Chef Karin made it so pretty. And she was very kind by dipping it into the dark chocolate for us…yeah yeah…awesome !!

These biscuits...spreaded with a lil jam inside and dipped with chocolate..

Marble cake: cross section...

My light fruit cake with streusel...

u can see the left side of the tray is a bit pale in colour...

These are my classmate's which are overmix the batter (chef told) ..If the batter is too creamy, when bake in the hot oven, the biscuit will just spread out like this..