Ok but I think we haven't got any traffic from mothers (yet!)
Anyway my sister and I brought my mum to her first hands-on baking class yesterday as her mother's day present. We figured it would be rather pointless to buy her material items since she already has everything. So we decided to give her a new experience and some exposure in something she does not do normally.

We made 2 types of things -- ENREMET CHOCOLATE ORANGE CAKE And THE CHOUX PUFF BREAD.

The bread is called choux puff bread because on top of the normal bread dough, we added the choux dough. For those unfamiliar with this word, this is the dough used for those delicious éclairs, as well as cream puffs we buy outside. The only difference is that the mixture we use to coat the top of our bread has slightly more eggs. But honestly speaking, it was not very obvious at the end that two types of dough were used. The choux puff dough added a more egg-y flavour, which was custard like, whereas the bun was plain almost like a normal bread roll.

We started the lesson preparing the dough. After so many years of amateur baking, I must say that the process of bread making still eludes me. It is difficult, you know, to get it to rise to double the size, to knead the dough without it sticking all over the table or your hands? And the process is pretty long and tedious. After the dough is well mixed, the next step is kneading it into a round and glossy ball. Then let it rest. After a while, divide it and roll each portion into a smooth ball. That again, needs special technique. Then it rests again. Then we got to transfer it to the waxed paper and let it proof to double the size and then can we bake it. If you have tried and failed, you are not alone. If you succeeded, then good for you, maybe you could teach me a few tricks. =D

First there was the sponge layer. Next we pour in the mousse we made, then we put in a piece of frozen orange jelly, and we pour in more mousse. Second piece of chocolate sponge goes in, and the rest of the mousse. Let it set then remove and pour the glaze over.
Because of time constraints, we only made the chocolate mousse from scratch. Our teacher prepared all the sponge, orange jelly and the glaze, but he prepared it in front of us.

The main ingredients in the mousse were egg yolks, sugar, whipped cream, gelatin and melted chocolate. After adding the chocolate we had to fold it in quickly so it would incorporate well into the mixture. My sister stirred it very carefully, almost too slowly, in the end the melted chocolate solidified before it blended in with the mixture. That is a no-no!

The cake was prepared in a cake ring rather than a mould. It was a normal ring with a aluminum foil base and another cake base below to support it to let the mousse harden. The tricky part is removing the cake from the ring without ruining it of course. The instructor used a blowtorch to heat the cake ring, [as we learnt in primary school science that the metal will expand] and then slowly maneuver the cake out from it. [ I got a video of the process but youtube says the format is not acceptable so give me some time to check it out. maybe i should ask menny. she's more IT savvy.haha]