Final Report

Final Report

Food Innovation & Design

HCD 2304

Section 4

Lecturer: Chef Zaid bin Abdul Razak

Group Members

Muhammad Naimul Hishaam bin Harris (KJC0970161)

Chok Vun Kien (KJC 0950420)

Muhammad Kamal bin Kamaruzzaman (KJC 0950388)

Acknowledgement

Firstly, we would like to thank our family and friends for helping us and showing their full support in assisting us while making this assignment. Without their help, we would never have finished this assignment on time.

            Secondly, we would like to thank Chef Zaid for teaching us and our fellow classmates about the topic relevant to make this assignment and for all the sacrifices he has made so that we may properly understand the subject that he is teaching us

            Last but not least, we would like to thank each other for doing our part in making this assignment

Introduction

Lasagna is often described as a pasta with alternating layers of savory ingredients. We intend to recreate the whole thing by turning it into a sweet dessert instead of a savory meal. We hope to replace all the savory ingredients of a lasagna into sweet ingredients and still manage to hold it's shape.

Objective

The objective of this project is to create a new kind of dessert based on a savory meal. We want this new dessert to taste good wether it is eaten hot or cold so that it wouldn't matter what temperature the dessert is when the customer eats it as long as it tastes good.

Activity

On the first week, make the lasagna using real lasagna noodles, apples, some berries, avocado and custard

Results:

On the second week we replaced the Lasagna noodle with bread and add an addition of bananas to the fruits

Result:

On the third week, we re-vamped everything. We replaced the apples and bananas with pineapples and mangoes, the bread with sweet dough pastry and the avocado with boiled popiah skin

Result:

On the 4th week, we decided to use the same ingredients as the third week but we tried to make the end result to closely resemble lasagna

Result:

On the 5th week, we decided to make it into a multi-level fruit pie so that it can hold it's shape like a lasagna while still looking like a dessert

Result:

Activity

Throughout all the classes, we have supported and helped each other in turning this experiment onto a success story. Everyday we disuss on how we are able to improve our methods and then put the words of those discussions into action.

Body

From all of the experiments we have done for 5 weeks, we have chosen the resulst from the 5th week to use for our product showcase. Since we have so few crew members in our group, it's all hands on deck for the event.

Organization chart

Crew members:

Muhammad Naimul Hishaam

Chok Vun Kien

Muhammad Kamal

Task implementation

Before event day

We prepared the dough early since it was the most time-consuming process of them all. We also prepared feedback forms for the food testers to give their feedback on our product

During event day

We prepared the raw ingredients early. We made the dough a few days before event day and the rest of the ingredients are cooked before presentation

Since we were about to serve 50+ people, we decided to make the fruit lasagna in small tartlet forms so that they bake faster

After event day

After the event day we counted the result strips and arranged in the pie chart below. The feedback we received from the testers range from very positive reactions to not so positive reactions (this is because Malaysians are too nice to be honest). Here are the results:

Positive: 65%

Not so positive: 35%

Problem faced

The problems that seemed obvious to the teammates and the testers were that the texture was too crunchy and the amount of filling was inadequate and inconsistent.

Recommendation

A lot of time was wasted waiting for the pre-made dough to defrost. What we should have done, was to send someone to defrost the dough a few hours before prep time for event day. Since the testers were getting mixed results because of the small size of the lasagna, it’s best that we should have tried to make them bigger so that the lasagnas have more room for filling.

Conclusion

We’ve finally completed the entire course. The event day has shown how far we have come and we’ve shown many people how much we have grown. We would like to thank Chef Zaid for his wisdom and guidance that got us to where we are today.



Fruit Lasagna: 5th week

31/3/2011: Today we enter the 5th and final week of experimentation so, we have to go all out. Using the same recipes as last week but making two different designs to see which is better.

Task implementation
Before the task
Prepare the same ingredients and mise en place as last week.

Filling
3 mangoes, finely diced
A large bowl of pineapple wedges, finely diced/chopped
Sugar to taste

Sweet dough pastry

500g general/all purpose flour (sifted)

220g icing sugar (sifted)

150g butter

2 eggs



Custard cream

1cup custard powder

1cup sugar

7cups milk

Other

Popiah skin (as much as needed)

Last week's grape sauce

Lemon/lime juice

Green apple skins

During the task

1. Mix the flour, icing sugar and butter in a large porcelain bowl until the mixture turns into crumbles. Add the eggs and keep mixing until the dough that forms no longer sticks to the bowl. Cover the dough in a wet towel and let it rest there for half an hour.

2. While allowing the dough to rest, peel and dice/chop the mangoes and pineapples finely and place them in seperate bowls

3. Cook the pineapples with sugar but leave the mangoes in the chiller

4. To make the custard, heat the milk in a pot or saucepan but be careful not to let it boil (in other words, simmer). Add in the custard powder and sugar and stir. Keep stirring until it has reached proper thickness and then remove from heat but keep stirring until the custard cools.

5. Mix last week's grape sauce with some lemon/lime juice and the apple skins. While we're at it, boil the popiah skins

6. Once the dough has done it's resting, roll it flat with a rolling pin

7. Mix some of the fruits with some of the custard

8. This is where we start making the two different designs:

  i. The dough is cut in small round shapes, some of them are left to bake until slightly brown-ish and then taken out of the oven.

Afterwards, the fruits and custard mixture is added on top and then the tops are covered with uncooked dough rounds.

Bake them in the oven again until the tops turn brown-ish. Add another layer of fruits and custard mix and add another layer of uncooked dough. Then brush the tops with egg and then cook them in the oven until they turn the proper golden brown color

  ii. The dough is cut into various shapes but make sure each shape has a pair (we only used two shapes)

All of the dough shapes are baked together

After they are done baking, add the fruit and custard mix on one shape while adding the popiah skin on it's corresponding shape. and then the two shapes are sandwiched together with the fruits and custard mix and popiah skin staying between the dough shapes

After the task

After we were done making and decorating the two designs, we presented the chef with them to decide on which one to use during the presentation day

After thinking long and hard, the chef decided that we should use this design

Recommendations

1. The presentation day is going to be hectic. It's best to prepare the ingredients beforehand to save time

2. There's no more time for any new designs. Stick with what we have and KICK. SOME. A**...

Conclusion

We've finally reached the fifth week with a desirable fruit combo and design. We hope that during the presentation day, our product still retains it's good taste or tastes better for the testers

Fruit lasagna: 4th chapter

24/3/2011: Today we enter the 4th week of our experimentation and so far, the results of our work have been bearing fruit (pun unintended). Today we're using the same fruits as yesterday and the same underliner but with a few changes, of course.

Task implementation

Before the task
The ingredients we are using today are not much different than the ones we used last week. The difference lie in the end product, a double portion of the sweet dough ingredients and an extra ingredient: grapes. But first things first, mise en place.

Ingredients

Filling
Pineapple 2, peeled and chopped
mangoes 3, peeled and diced
brown sugar to taste

Custard cream
1cup custard powder
1cup castor sugar
7cups milk

Sweet dough pastry

500g all purpose flour

220g butter

150g icing sugar

2 eggs

10g salt

Other

Popiah skin (as much as needed)

806g red grapes

sugar to taste

During the task

1. Mix the flour, butter and icing sugar in a large porcelain bowl until the mixture becomes crumbles. After that, add in the eggs and salt. Keep mixing until the mixture clumps together and does not stick to the bowl. And then cover the dough with a clean wet towel and let it rest for half an hour.

2. Peel and chop/dice the pineapples and mangoes and then cook them in a pan with sugar until they turn golden brown

3. Cook the milk in a pot over a low heat and stir. Add the custard powder and sugar into the milk and keep stirring. Keep stirring until the custard becomes thicker. Once it has reached proper thickness, remove from heat and keep stirring for a few minutes before stopping.

4. Boil the popiah skins in water and collect in a bowl

5. After the dough is done resting, flatten it and cut the dough into rectangular shapes (any basic shapes will do)

6. Blind bake the shaped dough in an oven set at 150 degrees celcius top and 170 degrees celcius bottom until they develop a brownish color. P/S: You can make them in pie tins if you want.

7. While waiting for the dough to bake, seed the grapes and then blend them in a food processor

8. Mix the blended grapes with sugar and then cook the mixture in a pot until it becomes a viscous sauce

9. Mix a bit of the mango and pineapple with a bit of custard in a small bowl

10. Once the dough is done baking, take one piece and spread the mixture on step 9 on top of the piece of dough.

11. Place some boiled popiah skin on the mixture (on step 9, mentioned in step 10)

12. Take another piece of sweet dough (of the same shape as step 10) and place on top of the mixture (so that the mixture will be sandwiched between the dough pieces)

13. Decorate with the grape sauce.

14. Serve

After the task

We didn't use the pie tins (except for when shaping the dough) and yet we're still able to make it hold it's shape.

As for the taste, the Chef says that it should have a bit of acidity in order for it to be delicious. Otherwise it is just straightforward sweet.

Recommendation

Try to find a way to increase acidity

Conclusion

It seems we've run into another success but the chef thinks it still has room for improvement. It is important that we keep looking for new ways to improve the dish anyway for we have still not found the right combination. We just hope that in the future we will find the perfect combo of ingredients.