Baking Day with Jesus the Pastry Chef at Yuca Bar (5/17/21)

When I got there he was finishing up some sort of chocolate cake with strawberry jelly. He put the sheet cake in the freezer and got the jelly off of the stove and let it cool. Then he handed me the recipe for the chocolate lava cake to take a picture of. But we first got started on the lemon tart. 

Lemon tart: 

Dough crust: 

We did half the recipe. We first measured out all the ingredients. 360 grams of flour sifted, 180 grams of butter, 140 grams powdered sugar sifted, a pinch of salt, and 50 grams of almond flour. Then we put all of it into a stand mixer with the paddle attachment to mix until the mixture looks like coarse sand. Jesus put plastic wrap around the mixture so it would fall out. Then he added 2 eggs, one at a time once it looked coarse. We only did two eggs because they’re small eggs and we can’t do 1.5 eggs because the recipe called for 3. Then we took the dough out and shaped it into a disk and put it in plastic wrap to go into the fridge for 1-2 hours before baking. 

Lemon filling: 

We used the full recipe, first we grated the lemon zest. Then we measured the water, lemon juice, sugar, eggs, and gelatin powder. The eggs in the recipe showed 200 grams which are 4-6 eggs. Jesus put the gelatin in the water and mixed it well then put it to the side. We squeezed the juice out of the already seated lemons to have freshly squeezed juice. Then he cut more lemons to squeeze because we need a lot of juice. Then he measured the butter on the scale then put it in the fridge. Then we combined the lemon zest and juice and put it on the stove to heat up a bit. He said we have to see bubbles for it to be done. Then we combined the eggs and sugar, then put the zest and juice mixture on top. We had to temper it first then fully combine and whisk it all together. Then we put the mixture back into the pot to put on the stove to heat up again. Jesus whisked it consistently and told me you can’t stop or else it will cook the eggs and have lumps. You can use a thermometer to wait for the mixture to be 110℉ but Jesus uses his eyes until the mixture thickens and it starts to boil. Then we strained the mixture into a separate container. He said that a lot of recipes say to cool the mixture before adding the butter, but the better way is to put in the butter while it’s still hot. So we used a handheld mixer to add the butter and gelatin mixture. Then we transferred it to a separate bowl and put plastic wrap over it, then put it in the fridge to cool. 

Before baking tart: 

We got the dough out of the fridge and Jesus cut it in half and put only one half onto sprayed parchment paper. Then put the paper on top of each other and rolled it out flat with a rolling pin. Then he put. Silicon baking sheet onto a baking tray for the tart. Then he measures how much he should cut with a special tool. The. He cut out the shapes he wanted. Then he put it in the freezer for a little while before putting it in the mold to bake. He put the other half of the dough in the freezer. Then he took one strip out and put it into a circle mold. Then he put a smaller circle piece into the mold as well. Then we put them back into the freezer for a few minutes. We preheat the oven to 325 and put it on low. (If your oven downs have a low function preheat to 200℉ or 225, it’ll take more time to bake but it’s important.) then he cut the tops off of the tarted so they would bake nicely. Then you should poke the bottom of the tarts with a fork a couple times. Then we put them in the oven to bake. We took them out after 10 minutes but it needed another 3 minutes. 

While the tarts were baking, he put together a couple orders for customers. Someone ordered churros, and another ordered a tres leches cake. Then Jesus continued to crack eggs and prepare to make more tres leches cake. He also changed the batteries in his scale because it was acting weird. 

After baking:

Jesus microwaved some white chocolate to brush the crust with so that the lemons filling would stick and it would sag down. Then we took them out of the molds and transferred them to another baking sheet to then put in the fridge for a little while. He told me about a great store to buy things to bake with, it’s called JB Prince company. Then we took them out of the fridge and he grated the edges down a bit so they looked smoother and prettier. Then we took the filling out of the fridge and he whisked it till it was smooth. (I made the mistake of not making the plastic airtight over the filling make sure you do this, but if you don’t it’s ok just whisk a little longer till the filling appears smooth after taking it out of the fridge.) Then we put the filling into the tart for me to take home. I will decorate them with berries when I get home before serving them to my family! 

Chocolate Lava Cake: 

First, he put out these small containers on a baking sheet. Then we measured out the chocolate and the butter so we could put them over boiling water to combine. While we waited for the chocolate to heat up, I cracked 6 eggs and separated the yolks from three because we need 3 full eggs and 3 yolks. Then I floured the small containers for when we put the batter in them. Then I measured the flour and sugar. Then we put the eggs into a stand mixer with the whisk attachment for a few minutes. Then Jesus took the chocolate mixture out and we saw that it was partially melted, so he consistently mixed it until it was smooth. Then while the eggs were mixing I slowly added the sugar then Jesus gradually turned up the power on the machine. Then I added the chocolate mixture, then I manually folded in the flour. Then I transferred the batter into the small aluminum cups to bake at 400℉ for 10–12 minutes. Then enjoy while it's hot with vanilla ice cream, powdered sugar, or fruit!