I finally managed to wake up by the end of the practical and eked out an alright looking bande feuilletee aux fruits de saison. Pretty fancy name for a relatively simple pastry! I've been trying out different cuts for the fruit garnish, but it's impossible to know what the chefs will like. For example, the chef for this demo wasn't such a fan of the diced mango. Who knew?
The hardest part for me is applying the egg wash, believe it or not. It's beyond annoying that such a small element of this dish is what's tripping me up. Arghhh!
What with all the pastries that I've been eating, I've been trying to step up my fitness. It's been a bit difficult since I usually work out at home, and Casper thinks all of this exercise nonsense is a bad idea.
I'm actually pretty glad I started running again since the tube has gone on strike this week and the next. It's nice to have running as an option in case the replacement buses are full. I've been fairly lucky with hopping on a bus for part of my journey since I've had a very early start most mornings, but it seems that lots of other people had the same idea. Traffic was pretty bad even before the sun came up!
Getting up so early for several days running has been a bit painful but necessary as we've had loads of demos and practicals this week.
We had our first bread session, which was pretty fun. I was a bit over enthusiastic about kneading the dough for our dinner rolls and slapping it down against the work bench. Chef said I had enough rage to get the slapping motion down pat. No pun intended. And it was fun shaping our dinner rolls into animals and plaits and even funner to munch on them while shopping on Oxford Street after class.
We also learned how to make another exam dish: coffee eclairs. They're fiddly little things, and I'm a bit terrified of them. I absolutely hate piping chocolate. I end up with chocolate in the strangest places i.e. in my hair, on my back, in my pocket, etc. In any case, I've got to get over it and practice, practice, practice!
On the plus side, they turned out alright and tasted great! I love coffee, and I was a bit worried about overdoing it on the flavouring so I asked my classmates to stop me if I looked like I was dumping the entire bottle in my creme patisserie.
Despite the week being pretty hectic and busy, I decided to stop by the school demo fair where we got to see some of the chefs in action.
Chef Javier with his sugar artistry:
Chef Julie and cake decorating:
It was fun watching the chefs in their elements, and the cherry on top was that we got to sample most everything. Yum! I'm still undecided about continuing with patisserie after the basic course is over since classes aren't exactly cheap and the lure of returning to work and making some money is pretty strong. I guess we'll see.
It was an exhausting week, and I was glad to see the end of it. I kind of just wanted to go home and catch up on my sleep but we had dinner plans with some friends at The Lockhart, a southern American restaurant not too far from our flat.
I'm glad I dragged my tired ass there as the food was amazing! I had shrimp and grits for the first time in my life, and J was in heaven with their buttery cornbread. We wanted beignets for dessert but they were out so we got the lemon meringue pie instead. It was interesting to compare it to what I've been making at home, and poor J let me dig through it before he got a bite. That's love.
Another plus is when you're passed out on the floor from all the rich food, you have a beautiful tin ceiling to look up at.
It's American-owned (obviously), and it really shows in the stellar service. We'll definitely be making a return visit soon!
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