L’art de la Patisserie - Week Twenty-One - Sugar Candies

L’are de la Patisserie Sugar Candies   Week 21

Chef Sébastien Canonne, M.O.F.

Partner-Michelle     Table 3   Kitchen 1

Monday

Sugar confectionary and chocolate confection are are two different world.  Candy ha water + sugar  Sugar is cheaper than butter, cream etc. that comes in chocolate.  Food, labor, shelf life and build in costs (rent, insurance) affect the cost of doing business.  Candy has a long shelf life.  Fruit gelée, caramel, nougat and hard candy are sugar confectionaries.

Do’s and Don’ts:
Do not memorize a recipe.  Know how they work.  Pâte de fruit is similar to jams, jellies and marmalade.  1 -1 fruit to sucrose.  Do not overcook or product wil be too firm and dark (caramelized).  Do not undercook or too much moisture will remain.

The definition of candy is that water is replaced with sugar.

1-Do not make more that 3.5 pounds of fruit with 3.5 pounds of sugar.

2-Weight of recipe, length of time and what the candy is cooked in all make a very big difference.

Jam = whole fruit
Marmalade = processed fruit
Jelly = juice of fruit

The recipe starts out at 55% solids with 45% water.  The water evaporates and the solid content goes up.  When jam gets to 63-65% solid content, it is cooked properly.

Try not to cook product longer than 15 minutes.  The mix will look barely gelafied.  To counteract this, pectin is increased.  Fruit gelée is a jam or marmalade with added pectin.  

Some fruits are high in sucrose or water.  Some fruits are high in pectin.

Understand how solids, moisture, pectin and how it works in fruit.

Cassis has high pectin content.
Passion fruit has medium pectin content
Raspberry has low pectin content.

Raspberry Pâte de Fruits:

• Oil bottom of 8” square pan, cover bottom of pan with parchment and lightly oil parchment.
• In a pot: Raspberry purée (11.11% sucrose) and whole fruit (this gives a bite).
• Mix sucrose and pectin together to prevent lumps.
• Cook to 40ºc on low/medium heat. 
• Add 1st scaling of sucrose and pectin.  It dissolves best at body temperature.
• Simmer sucrose and purée.
• Flash glucose in microwave.
• Add glucose to the pot. 
• Simmer.
• Add 2nd sucrose a little at a time.
• Whisk.
• Add a little more sucrose.
• Whisk.
• Turn heat to medium/high.
• Whisk vigorously the entire time.
• cook to 105º.
• Turn off heat.
• Add alcohol and tartaric acid.
• Whisk well.
• Bring back to a quick boil.
• Turn off heat.
• Cast into oiled/parchment lined 8” pan.
• Place on rack to cool.

Pectin acts at 100% of its strength by sucking up as much water as it can.  The sucrose gets split up so that the pectin has the opportunity to soak up as much water as it can.  This makes a more stable product so that the candies won’t separate or get sweaty.  

Glucose is an inverted sugar whig turns a solid into a liquid.  Glucose retards crystallization, attracts and holds moisture, keeps product softer and extends shelf life.  Can add 10 - 20% glucose.  If using 1000g sucrose you could use 100g glucose.

Products are less stable when the cook temperature is uneven.  Temperature shocks can prevent even blending and cause separation.  Whisking fast forces fast evaporation.  the faster you get to the lower solid content, the better the taste will be.

Cook Temperature:

Only using high heat then carbon.
High heat and then plateau.
Heat with food is up and plateau, up and plateau.

The thermometer can stay at 105º for a long time.  That is why the recipe says 106º.  This ensures that if a thermometer is not 100% accurate that you have cooked it up to and through the entire range of 105ºc.

Alcohol bumps up the flavor of the pâte de fruits and acid ells lower the ph to below 2.5.

The ideal ph for pectin to set is between 2.5 - 4.

Tartaric acid solution is 1 part water to one part acid.  All acids do the same thing; retard discoloration, add sour taste to a product.  7 is neutral.  Milk and water are neutral 7.  Acid increases shelf life.  Acids invert sugar products.

Ascorbic acid is best for helping protect color.  
Citric acid comes from citrus and is best for taste.  
Tartaric acid is purified cream of tartar.  This is the strongest acid and is very powerful at inverting sucrose.
Cream of tartar comes in powder form and has a lot of impurities.  It is good for stabilizing albumen.

Add acid to a sugar solution and it will invert it.
Add pectin to a sugar solution and it helps pectin set up.

These two competing jobs make the jellies firm and soft at the same time.  

When developing a recipe or trouble shooting one, go back and look at the ingredients.  Only change one at a time.

Caramel:

• Add vanilla beans to sucrose to disperse.
• Melt butter and lecithin in microwave.
• In a bowl; microwave cream and baking soda.  Too hot to touch.
• In a pot; sorbitol and glucose.
• Melt on very low heat.
• Slowly add sucrose to pot.  Add, melt, etc.
• Darken to color.  2 readiness signs; smoke and foam.
• Slowly add butter and lecithin.
• When it smells like brown butter, slowly add cream.
• Whisk quickly to help evaporation.
• Cook to 120ºc on a low heat.

Caramel is supposed to be be bitter.  Caramel is not sweet.  The bitterness offsets the sucrose.  Saltiness offsets bitterness.

Baking soda helps lighten the cooking mix so that is is not so thick and dense.

Sorbitol comes from alcohol fermentation of berries.  It preserves moisture and keeps moisture stable.  

Super fine sucrose is better for confectionary.  For pastry you want a coarser granulation for a lighter, crumbly texture.  10x is dense, strong and crispy.

Praline Demo (Pink Praline):

• In a pot; water, 1st sucrose.
• Slowly dissolve on medium heat.
• Use water bath to brush sides of pan.
• Whisk a little.
• Add vanilla.
• Remove broken roasted almonds.  Only keep the perfect ones.
• Turn up sugar to medium heat.
• Bring to a boil.
• Add warmed glucose.
• Add good cooler,
• Skim impurities.
• Cook to 116ºc.
• In a round metal bowl; warm almonds.
• Add a little cooked sugar to the almonds at a time.
• Stir, stir and crystallize.
• Build up a thin, even layer by adding cooked syrup slowly and crystallizing between each addition.
• Sift sugared almonds in a tamis.
• Get rid of broken ones.
• Allow to dry overnight.

If doing large batch; bring sugar syrup to a boil, take it off the heat, skim the impurities and divide the syrup into 6 batches.  Cook each batch to 116ºc and add that to the proper quantity of almonds.

Nougat:

• Cut rice paper to size of bottom and top of pan.
• Warm almonds and pistachios in oven on low.
• In a pot; water and sucrose.
• Melt slowly on low heat.
• In mixer bowl; room temperature egg whites and small amount of sucrose.
• Hand whisk.
• Whisk on low speed until frothy or as much as ½ way to all the way whipped.  
• Melt cocoa butter.
• Flash glucose and honey in microwave.  
• Add glucose and honey to water and sucrose.
• Cook to 149ºc. 
• Add a little sugar syrup at a time to the meringue.
• Whisk on medium speed. 
• Switch to paddle when mixture gets thick.
• Mix on lowest speed.
• Cool mixture down.
• Torch the sides if mixture cools on the edges and sticks to the side of the bowl.
• When cool, add a little melted cocoa butter at a time.
• Let the cocoa butter combine before adding more.
• Use hard scraper to fold in nuts.
• Place into rice paper lined pan.  
• Press down smooth with bowl scraper.
• Make even.
• Place rice paper on top.  
• Press.
• Uncovered in chocolate cooler overnight.
• Store at room temperature covered or uncovered.

Hard sugar type nougat or a hard sugar, whipped batter confectionary.  Cocoa butter allows for a softer set and pleasant bite.

Clover honey or a light pale honey keeps the nougat white.  Orange blossom has a nice flavor and is light.  Different hardnesses are the result of different cooking temperatures.  The hotter the cook the harder the nougat.  

This is an expensive recipe.  Good with tart fruits like dried cranberry, cherry and apricot.  Tart is good in confectionary in general.

Tuesday

Chocolate Nougat:

• Place nuts in oven to warm.
• In a pot; water and sucrose.
• Flash glucose and honey in microwave.
• Cook syrup to 151ºc.
• Add glucose and honey to pot.
• In mixer bowl with a whisk; egg whites, 2nd sucrose and cream of tartar.
• Start whites on low when syrup reaches 132ºc.
• Add syrup to whites at 151ºc.
• Switch to paddle.
• Paddle on low.
• Melt cocoa paste.
• Go up and down with mixer to keep batter moving.
• Torch sides if batter is sticking to side of bowl.
• Add melted cocoa paste all at once.
• Mix to the right consistency.
• Switch to stiff spatula.
• Mix in nuts.
• Pour into rice paper lined pan.
• Press down.
• Cover with rice paper.
• Chocolate cooler, uncovered.  Store at room temperature sealed or not.

To offset sweetness, add sour.  Less sucrose because of the solids in the cocoa paste.  30 - 40% water to sucrose is the proper amount to dissolve sucrose.  There is less honey in this recipe to allow the chocolate flavor to stand out.  There is 50 -55% cocoa butter in cocoa paste.  

Volume is money so do not deflate this recipe too much.  Stabilize the water to control shelf life and bacterial growth.  Free water is water on its own.  Bacteria likes this.

Vanilla Marshmallows:

• Sift 10x and cornstartch over silpat or molds.
• Hydrate gelatin.
• In a mixer bowl; egg whites.
• Whisk on low speed.
• In a pot; water, sucrose and glucose.
• Cook to 126ºc.
• Add vanilla bean seeds to meringue.
• Whisk meringue to soft peak.  
• Add gelatin to syrup off of the heat.  Add color at this point.
• Whisk.
• Add syrup to egg whites.
• Whisk on high.
• Stop and lift whisk.  Count how long peak stays.  5 is good.
• Continue whipping until whisk lines remain for 6 seconds when mixer is stopped.
• Should be loose enough to spread out in a pan.
• Recipe fits 2 8" square pans.
• Tap tap, clean edges.
• Wait for it to get a skin.
• Sprinke with 10x/cornstarch mixture.
• Brush with pastry brush.

The whipping agent is the gelatin.  Oil based flavorings go into marshmallows.  Add fruit purées makes it have a shorter shelf life and it is a different recipe.

Vanilla bean pods should be fat and oily.  Tahitian smells like extract or alcohol.  Mexican is smoky from being cured over a fire.  They all have different processing methods.

Good recipe to learn texture.  This is a basic recipe.  

Gums:

• Lightly dust molds with a 50/50 mixture of 10x and cornstarch.  Use 75% cornstarch 25% 10x if environment is humid.
• In a pot; agar agar and water.
• Whisk.
• Bring to a simmer.
• Boil for 1 minute.
• Whisk continuously. 
• Add purée.
• Whisk.
• Flash glucose in microwave.
• Add glucose.
• Whisk.
• Add sucrose all at once while whisking.
• Cook to 105ºc (ending at 106ºc).
• Whisk vigorously. 
• Add water and tartaric acid.
• Boil again while whisking.
• Pour into warmed funnel gun.
• Cast into flexi mold.
• Torch the bottom of the funnel to keep gun warm.
• Sprinkle10x/cornstarch mixture on top.

Agar agar smells like the sea but not after it is boiled.  Agar agar has a different texture than gelatin or pectin.  It sets soft and chewy but can also set hard.

Mint Pastille:

• Flash glucose in microwave.
• In a pot; water and 1st sucrose.
• Dissolve sucrose on low/medium heat.
• Whisk to help dissolve sucrose faster.
• Wash sides of pan down with hot water.
• Bring sucrose to a simmer.
• Add color or flavor at 141 - 145ºc.
• Cook to 155ºc.
• Turn off heat.
• Wat for the bubble to settle down.
• Warm funnel with torch.
• Pour syrup into funnel.
• Cast over mold on silpat.
• Warm funnel as needed.

Wednesday

No School.  Left for Boston.

Thursday

No School.  Thanksgiving.

Friday

No School

Chef Thoughts:

Classics done at their best are going to attract customers.  25 menu items; pate a choux, crème anglaise, ganache, curd, jam, plain sponge, chocolate sponge, dacquoise, pound cake, croissant, puff pastry, brioche, baguette, sweet sablée dough, pastry cream, butter cream and almond cream.