Today, Ladies and Gentlemen, I have a special treat for you. Today, you get an in-depth look into how I proposed to my girlfriend, Bailey Libby. So as always, let's start with our Mise En Place:
For this you are gonna need the following...
A happy couple...
(A photo from a couple years ago, I guess happy is relative.)
...and a ring!
Now obviously, this part is all very easy. Ring + Happy Couple = Proposal/Engagement. In my world, though, things are never so easy. I almost find it a game to get my lovely girlfriend, now fiancee, to cry with happiness, and in front of as many people as possible. So I decided to add another factor: her mother's annual New Year's Eve 3-course dinner. This was easy enough, a simple "would you mind if I made a platter for dessert?" is all it took. Who would pass up dessert from a Baking and Pastry graduate from the CIA? Now the gears were in motion. The next step it to make a WOW Piece.
~~~
The Wow Piece
For this you are gonna need the following:
A heat table and light
Scissors
Pulled, colored, cooked sugar
A silpat
A sterno
A sugar blowing pump
A cold air blower
and a demo from a chef who knows what they're doing. Thanks to Chef Cavotti for her help on this part of my project.
Now there's really no action shots, because I only had two hands, and that was still one less than I would have liked for this project, but the process is basically as follows:
1. Put ball of hot sugar on pipe.
2. Blow in a little air.
3. From the top of the orb, pull a neck and head.
4. Inflate the body and shape how you would like it.
5. Remove pipe from the ass of the swan.
6. Turn the hole in the backside of the swan into a tail.
7. Make a beak. Put that on.
8. Make wings. Put those on.
Here are a couple I did:
Now, you can only imagine from this picture what I might be up to at this point. Diamond engagement ring, beak of a swan, etc. etc. etc....
Now there's are two steps I forgot to mention and they are as follows:
9. Pack insanely carefully.
10. Pray.
Here's why:
-If it's too moist, they'll sag and be worthless.
-If it's bumped, they'll break.
-If you go over a pot hole, they'll break.
-If you look at them too long, they'll freakin' break.
And I have to carry this 200 miles in a car with my girlfriend for 4 hours and have it get there in one piece without letting her know what's inside?
God, help me.
~~~
The Actual Edibles:
For the actual dessert, I kept with the swans and decided to make
First, the choux.
For this you are gonna need the following:
Milk - 4 oz.
Water - 4 oz.
Salt - small pinch
Butter, cut in pieces - 4 oz.
Bread flour - 4 oz.
Eggs - 8 oz
Boil the milk, water, salt, and butter. Once it's boiling, add the flour and cook until it forms into a mass and leaves a film on the bottom of the pan. Transfer it into a mixer and add the eggs gradually, making sure it's completely incorporated it each time. Keep adding eggs until the consistency of it makes it slowly slide down the paddle.
Prepare two piping bags and a set of sheet pans.
For the bodies, pipe straight down, then pull it back releasing as you go to bring to a point.
For the neck/heads, start at the bottom of the neck, then make an "S", and then, like the bodies, make a small circle and draw it out.
Then bake at 375-400 F until a dark golden brown and all parts of the shell are dry. The heads will take far less time than the bodies.
Next, the pastry cream.
For this you are gonna need the following:
A Sauce Pot With...
Milk - 15 oz
Butter - 1.5 oz
Sugar - 2 oz
Salt - 1 pinch
Vanilla Bean - 1 ea, scraped
And a bowl with...
Eggs - 3 ea.
Milk - 1 oz
Sugar - 2 oz
Corn Starch - 1.5 oz
In the bowl, mix the sugar and the con starch together, whisk to combine. Add the eggs, whisk again. Then finally, add the milk, and whisk one last time.
In the sauce pot, bring all ingredients to a boil.
Once boiled, slowly stream the hot liquid from the pot into the bowl to temper, whisking quickly and continuously. Once at least half has been poured into the blow, pour all of it back into the pot and bring to a boil, whisking continuously. Cook over low-medium heat until the starchy taste has been cooked out. Then pour onto a sheet pan wrapped in plastic wrap, and place plastic wrap on top, pushing out all air pockets. It should look like this:
Now the last steps are as follows:
1. Cut the bodies of the swans, first horizontally, then taking the top half, cut vertically.
2. Whip heavy cream.
3. Combine equal amounts of the whipped cream and the pastry cream. This is diplomat cream.
4. Pipe cream into the bodies of the swans.
5. Apply wings and heads/necks where anatomically appropriate.
6. Dust with powder sugar and serve.
Here area couple of pictures to help you understand:
Now, we have our edible piece done, we have our WOW piece down, and we have the entire project's Mise En Place set up. Now onto the execution.
~~~
Kneel and Deliver:
1. Assemble a platter with the sugar swan in the middle and the choux swans surrounding it.
2. Place the ring on the beak of the sugar swan.
3. Present to the soon to be engaged girlfriend.
4. ...if I have to tell you the rest, well, then it wouldn't be your engagement, it'd be mine.
Eat Up and Enjoy,
~Chef Küthi and Sous Chef Bailey
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