Just before I begin this entry, this is about my Culinary Fair Results and doesn't contain a recipe or tutorial.
First I shall explain exactly what culinary fair is. It is a competition for hospitality students and school students. Last year I entered 2 classes, cup cakes and cafe cake and gained 2 silvers.
There are two type of different classes, static and live. Static is something you create and bring to the fair to be judged. Live is when you cook in the wintec kitchens and make the meal live.
I entered the savoury pie class. I recieved a bronze in this category. I received 73 points. It is a beef mince pie. The base is homemade shortcrust pastry and the lid is puff pastry. Decorated with hundreds of flowers. Garnished with poppy seeds and edible flowers.
The judges comments were 'Excellent even baking. Great flavour and filling.Good detail. Flowers a bit impartical. Good Effort'
The way the judging is done is you are competing against yourself. You start with a 100 points and everything that isn't done right, you are deducted points. So if you had a soggy bottom on your pie you would lose 4 points say.
The next class 'Chicken Dish' is a live class. That means it is cooked and constructed live. It was really exciting it was like masterchef, you had judges coming round examining your technique, skill and procedure. There is a funny story in the live kitchen. I had such good time management I was ready to plate with 15 minutes left on the clock. The judges could see I was just doing dishes and passing time so they said 'you can plate earlier and we can judge early if your are ready' I replied 'do we get extra points for finishing early' Craig one of the judges said 'we will take it into consideration' He then smirked. Hahah.
Craig is examining my 2 chicken dishes.
These are my practices at school in preparation of the day.
The judges comments on this dish was 'Good use of different chopping boards. Chicken was not seasoned before going into the oven and rice needed more seasoning. The chicken combined with the sweetness of the brussel sprouts fared better than expected. Well done!
This is my chicken dish. Feta and pesto stuffed chicken with bacon wrapped around it. Mix of brown and white rice. And caramelized brussel sprouts with bacon, honey and maple syrup. The sauce is a traditional marinara sauce. I received a silver medal for this dish with 88 points. I was 2 off a gold. I also wan top of class, which means I was the best overall. So I was really happy.
And this was the beauty! The entremet that wan me gold. That wan me top of class. This beauty is a jaffa entremt.
Orange curd dots on the plate, the chocolate sponge is an alhambra sponge. The next sponge is a biscuit macaron. The piped chocolate is a chocolate cremux (mousse) A tempered orange chocolate shard. An orange curd mousse. Orange chocolate hoops and garnished with gold leaf.
It did take a while to prepare as you can see from the photos above. I was up all night and all day, burning the midnight oil as mum said.
I took some to my design class to share as well as my drama class. They all brought smiles to everyones faces since it was an 11 week term.
This is my mum sending me a snapchat enjoying my entremet.
This was the best dessert in the Junior cold dessert section. Junior is people who have been training for 2 years as a chef at wintec. It was an opera cake, similiar to my dessert but more layers and a lot more richer. A mousse, carmelized hazelnuts and a chocolate barrel paired with a tamirillo compote. I had many friends of mine come tell me someone has copied your dessert.
The judges comments were 'Wow, what a dish. Beauioful presentation and flavours. Orange curd cylinders and gold leaf made this dessert stand out. Well done. Walking into the venue at wintec with my desserts, I had several chefs come up to me and question what it was and how I achieved the chocolate hoops. One chef even asked if I could teach his class.
With every good thing comes practise. I made my savoury pie about 8 times, my dessert 4 times and my chicken dish 4 times.
My prize dessert!!
Until next time lovelies..
