crunch time!

This past week was mainly about doing the mise en place for our practice exam, struggling to finish the practice exam, doing the mise en place for restaurant service, finishing our last restaurant service, and then having a free day!

the timeline for our practice exam... we kind of fell off schedule after 11am

what we did get accomplished by 1pm [starting on the left, clockwise]: pithivier, chaussons aux pommes, moka, flan tart shell, and tarte aux pommes (unpictured, éclairs et religieuses shells)

my chaussons needed more applesauce, as you can tell

the moka's close-up shot. I think my "flames" (the piped border around the criss-cross design) have improved since the first time I made the moka. woo hoo for improvement!

we finished filling and glazing the éclairs/religieuses the next day

Chef checking out all of our choux

Other than our practice exam, our big thing this week was the last restaurant service for lunch. We ended with a bang, offering 6 different desserts! There was quite the assortment, with sweet treats ranging from:

Macaron framboises - a macaron filled with rose-flavored buttercream and fresh raspberries... there might have been something with litchi sorbet, but I didn't see it

Feuillantine - a chocolate biscuit base with a wafer/praline layer and topped with chocolate mousse... I think I can honestly say that this was one of my favorites of this service, if not the whole program.....


inside cut of the feuillantine


Paris-Brest en stick aux framboises - basically a Paris-Brest in long stick form with raspberries inside


Fraisier - another entremet with a biscuit on the bottom, fresh strawberries dotted inside a layer of mousseline cream (pastry cream + butter) and topped with another layer of biscuit... and fondant on top. Might be the 2nd place winner of this lunch's service.


good old traditional tiramisu


and we finish off with the one and only French tarte tatin.

The service was ok, since we didn't have to plate any of the desserts. We just left them as big pieces and gave them to the servers so they could slice and serve, as needed. In the meantime, we finally finished our practice exam by dipping our chocolate bonbons... did I mention I hate tempering chocolate? Chef seemed to be really on our backs this past week, especially when we did the chocolate... is he finally simulating what it's going to be like in our internships? The stress and stern voice? Why now? Why not from the beginning??

As we started late on Friday (13h30), it was definitely a chill relaxed day. No one really wanted to be there, including Chef. He mentioned something about doing regional desserts if we wanted, or we could just practice whatever we thought we needed to practice. I decided to take the opportunity to squeeze in some new recipes before I lose the availability of an oven (no oven at home).

Gâteau basque - a cake from Pays Basque (I think) with pastry cream in the middle...

my 2nd gâteau basque since I made two smaller ones rather than a large one. I ran out of pastry cream so I used some leftover chocolate pastry cream and green tea pastry cream, divided by some dough... made an interesting combo, to say the least.

30 minutes before we were supposed to start cleaning up, Chef told me to make a kouign-amann. Umm... yea, I don't think he realized what time it was. The kouign-amann was supposed to sit for 30 min, before I did a couple turns to it... letting it rest for 30 min. between each turn... and rest for 45 more min before I baked it. Well, we actually finished it within an hour, and let it rest in the warming oven before baking it. Turns out the warmth melted all the butter (and there was a lot of butter) so the dough was sitting in a pool of butter when we baked it.... despite its presentation, it still turned out really well. So good and buttery!!! *note: don't eat too much otherwise you're going to get sooo sick... not that I would know or anything ;) *

2 of my kouign-amanns turned out, while the other two had some separation-anxiety issues from the pan...

Still can't believe that this next week is our final exam. eeeekkk! Time to go and practice some piping...

review review review!!

This is sad. The past couple of weeks have been all review, with only a few new recipes thrown into the mix. It's all coming to a close!

Last week, in addition to practicing some feuilletage (puff pastry), we had dinner restaurant service and made a nice assortment of sweet treats.

a classmate and I prepared crêpe soufflées - crêpes filled with fresh fruits and a lime soufflé mixture... pop them in the oven for a few minutes and serve them tout de suite (immediately) before the crêpes deflate!

we had a table of 25 that we had to serve these to!

Pain perdu (French toast) - served with caramel apples and salted butter caramel ice cream

Pavlova - a meringue shell filled with whipped cream and fresh fruits... perfect summer treat!

Croustillant de crème à l'anis - crème brûlée inside a filo dough purse and sitting on a bed of red berry sauce

That Friday, we had a special class with our art teacher, Pascal Niau. We learned how to make fruits from almond paste and also decorated an entremet with chocolate flowers!

my tray of fruits

my entremet with gold flecks - wish we did more stuff like this in class... usually we just do traditional decorations, if that. I just want to be a little more creative or modern!

This past week we had a practice exam, but more on that in another post... time for bed.

I love food fairs.

Le Salon-Saveurs des Plaisirs Gourmands. Even if you don't know French, I'm sure you can just guess that this was amazing... the words "Saveurs," "Plaisirs," and "Gourmands" are in the title. What else could you ask for??

I definitely filled up on countless samples of jambon de Parme, olive oil, foie gras, cheese, and various spreads...

regional olive oils

balsamic vinegar - varying ages

delicious smelling tea!

honey from assorted trees

one of the new fads this year - flavored oils to enhance your dish

jams and jellies for tasting

cheese, anyone?

she sure wants some...

reminds me of the pepper tree at home!

love all the colors

this was interesting... a blueberry flavored garlic mousse spread... not as bad as I would've thought. They also had fig/brown sugar, rose, and ginger.

more olive oils... from Greece, this time

the biggest Mortadelle I've ever seen!

mmmm!

centerpiece for the table? it's only 8€!

where I got my delicious jambon de Parme

I love these food fairs. Did I mention I thrive on samples? It was like Europain but with salty food as well!

the goodies I had collected by the end of the day: vanilla vinegar, fleur de sel and potatoes from Noirmoutier,

Bärlauch spread (made from ail des ours -- basically salad greens that taste like garlic), truffle spread and 3 editions of "Saveurs" magazine from 2009!

Ling (not Linnea) in Monet's Garden

Monet's Garden. Water Lilies. Giverny. Bike rides. Picnics. Sunshine. Laughing with Friends.

That's what one day a few weekends ago was all about. A bunch of us took the 45-min. train ride to Vernon and rented bikes for the day (only 12€). We originally intended to enjoy our potluck picnic along the way to Giverny, however, after renting our bikes and realizing the difficulty of riding with bags filled with wine and food, we ended up picnicking on a bench on the side of the road...

this is what I wanted to do: picnic in the field...


but this is what we ended up doing: picnic on the sidewalk (photo taken from the bench on the side of the road)

After lightening up our load, we biked through town and toward Giverny, sharing the road with cars. It reminded me why I don't attempt to bike in a crowded city... a simple country road was scary enough! We eventually found the bike/pedestrian path which was so much better.

our view from the bike path

looks like a mini version of my future driveway


as usual, I was lagging behind... but that's because I was taking pictures, right?


there were quite a few of these to maneuver through...

Once we got to Giverny, we followed the crowds of tourists to Monet's Garden.

trying to decide where to go


on the bridge!

look what I found on the bridge biking across the river... a ladybug!

That was a fun day, full of everything mentioned above and more. The weather's finally shaping up and hope to do another day trip soon!!

No more tempering chocolate, please!

So all of last week was dedicated to creating our chocolate showpiece. Originally we were required to follow a winter theme since most of the big patisseries are already getting ready for that season oh so far away (I guess Hallmark isn't the only one!). I decided on a gift basket, with the intention of reproducing those coveted Harry & David baskets... but then I realized that all the pears, boxes of bonbons, and bags of popcorn were just a little too complicated for my amateur hot hands. After considering a few ideas, I eventually decided upon a basket filled with ornament balls and presents.

On the first day, we cut and taped boxes together to create a life-size version of our showpiece and the necessary molds. The next couple of days, we just worked on tempering/cutting/molding/spreading/gluing/shaping chocolate. I think if you ask me what I disliked the most of what we did during this entire 5-month course, I just might have to say "tempering chocolate" (the process of raising and lowering the temperature of chocolate so that the chocolate will snap and be shiny when hardened). It's honestly a real science and can be complicated, much more difficult than just melting chocolate chips in the microwave. Here are the basic steps:

1) melt chocolate to at least about 45°C.
2) cool it down -- we used the process of pouring most of the melted chocolate across the granite and spreading it around with our spatulas, before scooping the chocolate back into bowl.... repeat this step until the chocolate reaches 28-29°C, most likely 2-3 times.
3) bring the chocolate back up to 31-32°C and use.

What those basic steps don't tell you are the difficulties that might arise when manipulating the chocolate: the possibility of having lumps in your chocolate is very high if you let the it cool down on the granite for too long time; trying to keep the chocolate at 31-32°C by keeping it near the oven can overheat it causing the the chocolate to heat back up to 40°C and requiring you to temper it again (spread it over the marble); the overall messiness of the granite, your hands, the bowl of chocolate, and the work area in general, and many more obstacles, those of which I do not care to revisit at this time... we can just say that after this frustrating period (including tempering chocolate for about 2.5 hours... don't ask), I finished my basket!

see the "lacy" basket??

we colored the balls with shimmery powder

my favorite present!

So that's what was going on ALL last week... except for one day when we started to review for our final exam. Ahh I can't believe there are only a few more weeks of school left. It has gone by SO quickly and is really kind of scary... with the passing of each day, I am closer to starting my stage (internship)!

Speaking of, at the end of the Anglo pastry program at Ferrandi, we can do an internship for 3-6 months here in Paris. After translating my CV and writing a motivation letter en français, I had a successful "interview" at Plaza Athénée. While the executive chef is Alain Ducasse (!), the pastry chef is Christophe Michalak, and he creates some amazing stuff. To tell you the truth, I didn't really know (and am working on expanding my knowledge of) many of the great chefs/restaurants, but after doing some research, I am very excited to start working on the chic Avenue Montaigne next door to Harry Winston and across the street from Valentino in early July. I'm very curious to see how that goes and compare notes with my classmates who are going to be all over, including at Le Meurice, Ledoyin, Lutetia, Pierre Hermé, Dalloyau, Hugo & Victor, and Potel et Chabot.

ok that is about all that's been happening. This week, we've been doing a lot of reviewing and practice for our final exam in a couple weeks. We had restaurant service last night, but that will have to wait until another post... time to enjoy the Parisian sun!