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From Classroom To Table: Mousse Terrine and Bavarians

Remember the mousse terrine and the Bavarians we made last night in pastry techniques class? I didn’t have good photos for you because the terrine was, well, not that fetching in its waiting-to-be-served state (upside down), and the Bavarians were in Tupperware containers, since they were the leftovers of a cake project that’s still at school, to be finished next week.

So I thought I’d share a couple of pictures I took tonight, in advance of company coming for dinner. I piped the chocolate and white-chocolate Bavarians into dessert dishes.

Unmolded and inverted, the terrine looked somewhat less than alluring. It took about a nanosecond for me to realize that I shouldn’t have carelessly lined the little loaf pan with plastic wrap, because it had left nasty marks all over the terrine, as if it had had a previous life in the Mob, with all the scars to prove it.

It also made me realize that when you do a terrine like this, you have to take special care to make sure that the mousse and the pâte sucrée base intersect perfectly and completely, with none of these unsightly gaps.

Well, what to do, since my guest was on her way? I laid a clean sheet of plastic wrap over and around the terrine, and used the warmth of my hands, and gentle pressure, to smooth the lines out. It didn’t take care of the problem completely, but it really helped.

Sliced, it presented like this:

I was happy. She was happy. And all’s well that ends well.