“Hi Anna”
“Hi Benjay”
“Ok, I’ve got the recorder set up and everything is ready to go on my side. Looks like you’ve got quite the setup there on your side as well”
“You have no idea Benjay. I took this week off work to practice. The Great British Baking Show isn’t quite as competitive as it used to be. Like I mentioned in our call though, I think I can get a leg up on the competition by getting these basics memorized, so thank you again for offering to help out. Do you have the recipe I sent you?”
“We’re doing ganache right?”
“That’s the one, the chocolate ganache.”
“If you could narrate what you’re doing as you go that’ll help me follow along, and I can let you know when you’ve gone off track. If there’s nothing else, I’m ready when you are.”
“Great. Ok, I’m trying to make 900g of creamy ganache. I’ve got 500g of milk that I’m about to put to boil. While that’s heating up, I’ve mixed together three egg yolks and added 100g of sugar to them.”
“Did you mix the yolks and sugar together?”
<Whirring from an electric mixer in the background>
“Yeah, I’m beating them together. I think it’s until they’re a creamy light yellow color. But just the yolks and sugar.”
“Ok, sounds like you’ve got that covered. How’s the milk looking?”
“You know Benjay, I’m not really sure what ‘boiling milk’ looks like. It starting to move around a bit.”
<Whirring from electric mixer stops. There’s a brief respite, then sounds of a soft rubber spatula gently scraping against a pot’s sides>
“Oh man Benjay, the milk is foaming. Does that mean it’s boiling? Shit. I should really know this by now. I’m going to take it off the heat.”
“That sounds like a good idea. Can I look up what ‘boiling milk’ should look like or is that cheating?”
“Eh, it’s ok. Let’s wait and see what happens when we go to thicken the cream. That’s the next step.”
“Right, that is the next step. Have you poured the hot milk over the egg and sugar mixture yet?”
“Just did, I’m putting it back into the hot pan now and returning it to the heat, which is probably around ‘medium’”
“Heh. Such advanced times yet no better description than ‘medium’ for how hot your stovetop is.”
“If ‘medium’ was good enough for Julia Childs, it’ll work alright for me. If I remember correctly now, I need to stir the milk and egg mix until it reaches… 83° Celsius. Or maybe it was 75°? Can you confirm for me?”
“Anywhere in the range from 83° to 85° should be fine. What’s it at now?”
“It says 58…. “
“62”
“75°. It’s not nappage-ing quite yet Benjay.”
“Remind me what nappage is again?”
“Oh it’s just this fancy French term for ‘thickened’, I think. You check it by running your finger down the spatula. If the line holds clean then it’s done.”
“Huh, I don’t think I quite understand but it sounds like you’ve got a good idea of the technique. Did you taste it? How’s it coming?”
“Mmmh. Tastes good. Oh shit, 86°. The egg’s gonna start firming up if I’m not careful. Fuck, where’d I put that strainer?
“Ok Benjay, I’m pouring the egg custard out of the hot pan through a filter on top of the cold chocolate chips. I’ve got about 300g of chocolate measured out.”
“Uh Anna, the recipe says you only need 250g. Is it too late to pull some out?”
“Oh shit. Yeah, I think I can pull a couple out. Let me tare the whole pot on my scale and then see if I can’t get it to go negative for 50g. One sec.”
<A pot clinks down, then the slight schnick of a straining basket on top of an aluminum pot. You can hear the a metal spoon lightly clacking against large chocolate chips>
“Ok, we’re down 50g of mostly chocolate and a little bit of custard. I think we’ll be ok though this chocolate melts fast. I’m finishing up pouring the egg custard over the 250g of dark chocolate.”
“Cool, we’re about done. Do you know what’s next?”
“Yeah, I’m just going to mix in the chocolate until it’s all cooled, and then pop it in the fridge to firm up a bit.”
<A spoon clinks glass>
“Man Benjay bet you could be here right now to taste this, it came out great”
“If you make it to the baking finals, I’ll be sure to get someone there to taste it. Have you finished the recipe? I’m going to turn this off if you’re done running through the script.”
“Yeah, that’s it, hang on a sec”
<Fridge door opens. Closes>
“Whew ok. Yeah, that was great! What’d you think? How’d it do? It does sound just like you.”
—
This recording has ended. This recording has annotations, would you like to hear them?
Annotations. Recording entitled ‘Benjay and Anna make chocolate ganache’. Recorded on the 5th of January, 2020. First memorized recipe assist by an automated intelligence. Script was shared — the ganache cremeuse recipe from Le Grand Manuel du Patissier. Originally recorded by Benjay Bergeron using VLC v3.0.8. Automated script assistant (ASP) version 0.2.2.
Source of chocolate photo: https://www.chowstatic.com/assets/recipe_photos/28649_chocolate_ganache2.jpg