Mad About Chocolates!

These pictures are way overdue. They were done for a good friend who gave me her FULL support once she knows we were doing chocolates.


These were done over a few days and nights..... some were made from compound chocolates; some from couverture and the premium ones were made from the Origin range which were hell of expensive but worth the price as the chocolates were really GOOD.


A very important fact to add --- hubby was the main player here -- he was the one who tempered the couverture; mould them ...... --- in other ways... a chocolatier in the making. ME ? -- I did the appraisal and the packing... hee hee..... As usual, my sons chipped in as well. In a nutshell ; we hereby present a family effort... enjoy.................

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A Thousand Apologies

Assalamu'alaikum to all my muslim friends and a very good hello to everyone else.

First of all ............I am SOOOOOO SORRY..... for having 'vanished' from the blog world since July.

One project after another... challenges after challenges...... struggles while trying to catch the rainbow..... time flies and suddenly I realized that I have abandoned my blogspot for the past few months..... Once again .. my apologies and my sincere thanks to those who have remain loyal and sometimes send me a gentle reminder.... 'No new post?'..... a gentle reminder but a good wake up call..... Anyway..... we at D'Champs are BACK.... and boy do I have lots and lots to share....... so please bear with me..... I will upload story by story.....


THE  TOY  STORY  CAKE .......


One day, I got a cold call from someone called Noorasykin ( I think that was her name ) enquiring about birthday cakes..... and she did mentioned that she would be passing my number to another friend , Nora, who was looking for a novelty cake for her son's birthday..

To cut a story short, Nora's order came in with the question, ' Can you do a cake that looks as close as this?" .... A 3 tier birthday cake with toy story figurines......

I always go into a panic when customers ask that question coz you have to copy someone's work and you better be able to do the SAME if not BETTER...... especially if you want to put in your 2 cents' worth of creativity.....

But as usual, I took the order and panicked later ...... what's new with that right? as far as  Ainee is concerned.

A good thing about it is ... the customer wanted actual figurines.... I cannot imagine producing them from fondant.... I would probably have ended up with a new set of characters for Toy Story 4 .... with different looking
Buzz.... donkey.....

Bad thing about it ... I had a baking class that day ... that means the cake HAS to be finished the night before.

The funny thing about it is that when I went shopping for the figurines, I did not even know which were the good aliens and which ones were the bad ones..... I felt so dumb, so outdated and so old.... for not knowing the new story ... Toy Story 3...... "Kak, those are the bad aliens~!!!!!!' Nora chuckled when I described to her over the phone the figurines I had picked up.  Told myself .. must watch more movies....

Anyway , this is the cake......

and the exclamation from Nora..... "Wow, this looks even better than the photo I showed you"....... that comment made my day....... I rest my case.

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KId's Chocolate,Cookies, Lapis Class, Cake & Pastry Class

My very first chocolate, cake and pastry class at my very own place finally took over after soooooooooooooo many challenges in merely getting the classroom ready.

Nevertheless, the classes went well and here are the pictures :-

Kid's  Chocolate  Class  :-

The chocolate class for kids was planned for the school holidays but coz of the numerous challenges in getting the classroom ready, I did not push the marketing very hard.

But one day, I had a phonecall (while I was in Singapore) from a father pleading with me to have the chocolate for his daughter. Because it was only for one child, I declined but he kept on pleading saying that his daughter realy wants to join the class.  In the end, I agreed and I even agreed to send the daughter home right after the class. Later, thinking that the child was only 9 years old and she will be the only students in the class, I called up a few friends and offered them to send the children to join the class for free. But due to the lateness of the hour, only one could send his daughter.

And so the day arrived, I prepared the smaller room for the class and waited....... and waited......and waited.
Finally , I recieved a phoncall but it was from my friend's daughter, asking whether I would be picking her up for the class .... How could I say no to her?  And thus I had the chocolate class...( the father of the so-called student who very much wanted to come for the class did not even have the courtesy to call and say that she could not attend.)

Nevertheless, Alishah and I had lots of fun.... And Im glad that I did not cancel on her.



Cookies  Class :

Initially, I had wanted to cancel this class since there were some who had emailed/called to request that the class be postphoned to July but there was a call from a Homechoc member who wanted to join the class but could not make it for a July date... And thus the class was confirmed...

It was suppossed to be a demo class for 10 cookies and 4 participants.

In the end, it turned out to be hands-on class still with 4  participants.... BUT it ended at 10 p.m.!!!!!!

The class had strated more than one hour late coz 2 participants were 'on the way' for the first hour.... and because there were only 4 participants, I had decided to get them to join in the making as well; thinking that it would speed up the process but in all the excitement, I had forgotten to tell them to halve the recipe portion... and in the end , the demo class turned out to look a mini biscuit making factory with trays and trays of cookies everywhere.....And at the end of the night... (YES night) ... there were lots and lots of cookies to bring home...

And guess what, NOBODY remembered to take pictures.... so sad to say, there is no concrete proof to remember the day by ... but Im sure all of us involved will NEVER forget that day...

Linda (one of the participants ) called a few days later to ask if I did make any money out of that class... considering the time, amount of cookies and the ingredient costs... so sweet of her to do so... Dont worry about that.... the important thing is my students are happy with what I have taught them.


Kek Lapis Class :

At last, I could become a student...... this class was conducted by the one and ony Nomie of the book,'Rahsia Membuat Kek Gulung Lapis Sarawak' fame.

There were 4 of us ; 2 so-called 'veterans'... me and Chef Fauziah and 2 more young ladies.

It was a mixture of a demo and hands-on class...

During the hands-on, the 2 'veterans' sat down and merely observed the 2 young ladies struggling their way through.... albeit with jokes and guidance from the 'sifu' as well as the 2 of us... So the young ladies were actually blessed.. they had the feedback and guidance from the experiences of the 3 of us. Nomie remained the sifu, Jie was nominated the CEO and I was just the busybody.... but the important thing is ... we ALL learned what we needed to .... even the CEO and me picked a few important pointers from the sifu.... so THANK YOU Nomie...

Cake  Class :-

Ilham has never baked a cake on her own before.... but she did a fantastic job.
For a total beginner, her first efforts at icing a cake are far far better than my very own efforts when I first picked up a spatula to ice a cake at baking school. 

She went home with Chocolate Butter Cake, Marble Cake, Genoise Sponge, Emulsified Sponge,Black Forest Torte, Blueberry Cake, Peach Torte and Chocolate Swiss Roll.  The picures speak for themselves.

Pastry  Class  :-

Fiza was the very first person to respond to the flyers sent around the neighbourhood. She signed up for the pastry class way back in May but I could only have the class for her last weekend.

She is one of the most eager students I have ever met. She was thrilled to bits everytime she takes out a tray of the tarts she had just baked. We joked and laughed admist the teaching and learning that was taking place.

Fiza eventually got 'cross-eyed' with all the tart shells she had to make --- she was so focused on getting the thickness of the pastry shells right ... not too thick ; not too thin (says her teacher... ME) , that she became giddy..... poor thing..Her husband had been very supportive of her efforts and had enecouraged her all the way --- he voluntereed to do he babysitting and some of the household chores for the weekend while she was in class; at the end of the first day, he called to remind her to buy home dinner coz he and the children were starving.... but in the end when she got home with dinner, he 'attacked' the blueberry cheese tarts first... declaring his approval..

By the second day, Fiza had understood the processes of tart making that she could make the tarts by herself; I ended up making the tart shells for her....

Eventually, her effors were not in vain at all...... All in all, she had produced Fruit Tartlets, Chocolate Tarts, Banana Cream Tarts, Strawberry/Blueberry Cheese Tarts, Egg Tarts, Coconut Tarts, Blueberry Cream Cheese Pie and Apple Crumb Pie.

That night, she messaged to say that her husband approved of all that she had made and gave special thumbs up for the Apple Crumb Pie...

In conclusion, I like to say a big 'Thank You' to all the students who have been very supportive...... Thank You.

 

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Tom & Jerry

This is my first buttercream birthday cake in 12 years.

I have a love-hate relationship with buttercream --- I just hate working with that stuff.... but ALL my teahcers told me that buttercream is the mother of all cream.... master that and you are on your way in cake decorating.... But still......

Well anyway, at midnight with a migraine throbbing and the one million dollar question, "Why did I ever agree to do this?", my family and I finished the cake.

This morning, the look on the birthday boy's mother's face and her grateful 'Thank You'  wiped away all my exhaustion and the million dollar question was answered.

Here's the cake.... If it doesnt look like Tom & Jerry .... pls let me know... Tom looks real angry to me ...

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Hari Raya Cookies 2010

I will be conducting a Hari Raya Cookies class on the 19th June .

This class is in replacement of the one that was cancelled due to unforseen circumstances.

RM 100; from 2 p.m. to 5p.m.
The cookies to be taught are:-

1. Pumpkin Seed Cookies
2. Evergreen Flower Cookies
3. Chip 'O' Chip
4. White Choc Cappucino
5. Pecado Slice Cookies
6. Necklace Cookie
7. Nutty Cookies
8. Chocolate Almond Slice
9. Lemon Mushroom
10. Cornflakes Crunchies

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Fundamentals of Cake Making 1 / Pastry 1

Fundamentals of Cake  Making 1 -- RM 380


17th & 18th June; 10.30 a.m. to 5 p.m.

This class is confirmed for the 17th & 18th June.
 
In this class, you will learn the theoretical fundamentals of cake making such as function of ingredients, oven
preparation etc., You will learn how to make a total of 6 cakes, using a variety of mixing methods.

You will also learn to make some of the cakes from scratch to the full assembly of a decorated cake.

Cakes taught include : Classic Genoise, Marble Cake, Chocolate Chip Pound Cake, Moist Banana Cake with
Glaze, Black Forest Torte…………………etc

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Fundamentals of Pastry Making 1 -- RM 380

3rd & 4th July ;  10.30a.m. to 5 p.m.

This class is confirmed for th 3rd & 4th July (Weekend)

In this class, you will learn the theoretical fundamentals of pastry making such as function of ingredients,
oven preparation etc., You will learn how to make a total of 10 tarts, using a variety of different
kinds of sweet pastry dough and fillings.

Tarts taught include: Fruit Tartlets; Egg Tarts, Coconut Tarts, Banana Cream Pie, Blueberry Cream Cheese Tart, Peach Crumble, Classic American Apple Pie etc


Please feel free to email me at ainee@dchamps.com for registration and enquiries.

Thank you.

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Homechocs with Chef Amer

At last, after weeks of hundreds of emails, phone calls and co-ordination, the specially arranged class for the Homechoc Group took off.

I'm most proud and honoured to delcare that my friend, Master Chocolatier, Chef Amer delivered what he promised and much more. He shared his years of experience and knowledge with unbridled passion and his willingness to share was more than generous.

Alongside the knowledge delivered and techniques taught, the atmosphere was electric with jokes and jibes coming thick and fast from the Master Chef. I must say some of them hit bullseye. There was no room for the sensitive and narrow minded.

The group soaked in every word the CHEF spoke like a sponge -- eyes getting bigger, mouth gaping and finally "WOWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW" and then the very familiar, "I didn't KNOW that" . And this is coming from a group of entrepreneurs who are producing and selling chocolates and some of them instructors themselves. Look at the photos below.... all look so tensed.... even the chef.... so much to learn (we say)... so much you want to squeeze from me (chef says)..

This brings home my personal Maxim ---' That no matter how great YOU THINK you are, no matter how much YOU THINK you know, you can always still learn from somebody; be it a beginner or the Master. The least you can learn is what NOT to do.'

My heartiest and grateful thanks to the chef -- Master Chocolatier Chef Amer Hamzah.
Also my appreciation to the group for their support.

Now enjoy the sights.

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