Day 7: Fillings

The theme of today's lesson was fillings: pie fillings and chocolate mousse.

We'd touched on fillings last week when we did the cream fillings for the tarts. Today, however, we went into them in more detail. We learned the difference between a binder and a thickener, and when they are used. We made chocolate mousse, pecan pie filling, apple pie filling, blueberry pie filling, and black currant curd. With those fillings, and with more pâte sucrée and pâte foncer, we made little apple, blueberry and pecan pies, little pies with the curd, and each of us made a Mogadore cake.

The skills involved in the cake included cutting the top and bottom off the cake layer, soaking it in raspberry syrup, fitting it into a ring, piping jam onto it, and then filling the top with the mousse. Then we had to smooth it and chill it. While it was chilling, we made the chocolate decorations for our cakes. After that, we applied the glaze, smoothed that layer, and then decorated the cakes with writing chocolate, raspberries and our chocolate decorations. It is pretty amazing tasting.

I'm quite tired!