Danish Cornucopia (GBBO Technical 9)

 

This is it. This is the technical bake that I failed. I guess fail is a bit of an exaggeration, I did manage to construct it and it did stay standing for about 15 seconds, so that's probably better than a complete fail. However, it did break almost immediately after taking this picture and the caramel and tempering chocolate  both went badly, so overall it was not my finest hour. I foolishly decided to make this as one of the desserts for our family Thanksgiving (what could be more perfect than a cornucopia, right?), so part of the problem was that I was actually under a time constraint this time. 

The recipe included the printable for shaping the dough, and the printable for the tempered chocolate swirls. The dough itself was easy to mix up. Then I weighed out the dough according to the printable, shaped it, and then brought the ends together to form rings. This was definitely easier having seen the show and knowing what I was supposed to do from watching the bakers on the show, but it was still a little difficult to shape them. 

 

I probably should have put more effort into smoothing the sides, but that becomes one of the least of our worries as we progress. 

After forming the rings, I had some dough left over, so I made an extra ball with that. Then I baked the rings, and let them cool. Meanwhile, it was time to temper the chocolate, and things began going downhill.

I'm honestly not sure what the problem with tempering the chocolate was. In any case, you're supposed to heat most of it to 44 degrees Celsius and then add in the rest of the chopped chocolate and stir it together until it reaches 32 degrees and all the chocolate has melted. Well, it cooled down to 32 degrees in under a minute, and there were still large chunks of unmelted chocolate. That, of course, made piping it out of a small nozzle very difficult, as it kept getting blocked by lumps of chocolate. 

I ended up with these disgraceful chocolate swirls, only piped on one side, and with no shine to be seen. My finest hour. 

Thankfully, the royal icing on the cookies was much easier to do. It's not perfect, but it's at least presentable. Next, it was time to make the caramel that acts as the glue to hold it all together.

Guys, I had to make this caramel three times before it worked. It seemed like there was way too much sugar compared to water, so that the sugar couldn't all dissolve at the same speed, thus ending up both times with a crystalized mess. I finally decided to make a dry caramel instead of a wet one because at least those don't typically crystalize, so that's what finally worked for me. So for all of you who are super impressed by me baking through all the technicals, please note that I still cannot reliably make caramel. These things take practice and luck.

Caramel looks pretty fascinating as it's cooking. Then I quickly rushed the pan over to the table, dipped the bottom of each piece in caramel, and stuck them together. At first, I even thought I succeeded!

But when I turned my back on it, it had fallen over and four cookies had broken off. I think I probably should have left it laying on it's side to solidify before standing it up, but by the time I turned around it was too late. It was broken, and I couldn't glue it back together. I thought I had taken a picture of the collapsed centerpiece, but I somehow didn't save it, so I don't have that to show you. I can show you the pitiful excuse for chocolate scrolls that I just threw in the trash:

I still brought it over to share with the family, and my glass pyrex dish was so perfectly shaped that I could turn it up on its side like this and maintain the appearance of a cornucopia, despite the fact that some of those pieces are not connected at all. I was close enough to succeeding on this that I honestly wanted to try again just to conquer it, but we weren't huge on the taste of it, so I'm not sure if I will or not. It would look very impressive as a thanksgiving centerpiece, but the work it takes may not be worth the effort. I love almond flavored desserts, so I really expected it to be great, but it was so rich and sweet that I could only eat a bite or two before having enough.

All in all, the only reason I would make this again is to say that it didn't defeat me. But if I'm gonna make another almond cookie sculpture, I think I'm going to make a Kransekake instead.