How about some canapes?

Last thursday I made out some canapes with my friends in college, just for kicks that is.

We made aproximately 100 canapes that...well...we ended up eating most of them.

The list included

Parma ham with melon balls and manchego cheese cubes.

Cucumber boats stuffed with cream cheese and butter.

Salmon rolls in butter toasted bread and cream cheese

Ducks (made with hard eggs and the yolk passed through a strainer)

Penguins (Black Olives with carrots)

Vol au Vent

Grape lollipops with cream cheese and some sesame on top.

Le Vol Au vent!

Mirrors actually help a lot with the presentation and give a lot of depth but unfortunately my school mirrors werent...that good, too bad.

Abastur 2011

Last Thursday I went to The Abastur Exposition here in Mexico City.

I pretty much went to witness who was going to be the pastry team that represented Mexico on the

 Coupe Du monde Du patisserie at Lyon france.

At abastur 2011 the national finals took place, six teams compited for the prestigious spot. 

It was really amazing to see some of my favorite chefs displaying their works of art, seeing those sugar and chocolate sculptures were just massive. the level of concentration and techniques that some chefs showed were really REALLY cool to see.

Here is the winners list.

Concurso Maya latinoamericano de Reposteria.

1st place.

Chef Jacob Henriksen

Chef Harumi Paulin Badillo

Chef Adriana Gonzáles Valdés.

2nd place.

Chef Luis Robledo

Chef Liliana Hernandez

Chef Rodrigo Romo

3rd Place.

Chef Marco Guillen Guriérrez

Chef Sergio Torres Vasquez.

Chef Alfredo Jaimes Rojas

Unfortunately I could only go one day for work and school reasons...but here are some pics as always...

Alejandro Lechuga´s sugarpiece.

This was my favorite...too bad it didnt win.

Rawr!

Opera cake.

Here are a few shots of the cakes my mates and I made at our pastry class @ college, its a classic Opera cake but with the obvious exception of this one being round instead of rectangular.

We still have a LOT of practice and hard work to do if we want to make it as pastry chefs...

But well...lets get to the interesting and fun part.

This baby has the following 

Opera Cake.

Chocolate glaze

Chocolate ganache

Coffee Buttercream

Coffee syrup

Two biscuit joconde pieces.

Working hard on my chocolate glazing abilites...dont be too hard on me .=(

This one is a classic 3 leches cake with the Brullee twist and swiss meringue

3 leches with Crème Brulée

Torched swiss Meringue

3 leches syrup

Crème Brulée

Vanilla Genoise.

Winter Mousse

???

And this is a aWinter Mousse which contens i will not reveal cause the recipe was eaten by racoons...yeah racoons...called...Roger...and...Seth