It's been a while since my last update, and I promise I have a good reason. When I started this blog, I thought my time in London would be limited, and I wanted a record so that when I was back in LA, I could look back and enjoy those memories. However, the circumstances of our stay have changed, and we have no plans to move back to the US in the foreseeable future. In that case, it seems like this blog has no particular purpose - I don't really want to maintain a record of my day to day life. BUT, I also feel that I should maintain this window into our lives that we lead so far away from our loved ones. In any case, the moms have asked me to keep it going, so I'm going to try my best.
We made lots and lots of brioche, which was delicious, but I especially enjoyed making our bread surprise! It's a box made of rye bread and decorated with bread flowers and wheat. The inside of the box is carved out and made into tea sandwiches. Functional and beautiful! I brought mine over to J's office for his lunch, and it mostly survived the trip on the tube.
Since my last post, I've graduated from Le Cordon Bleu with honours in Patisserie!
After the pulled sugar module, we had Restaurant Desserts, in which we had to plate two identical desserts for our assessment. As silly as it sounds, making two identical plates is ridiculously difficult! We had to include piping on the plate, a tuile, and a tempered chocolate design. I was pretty pleased with the way mine finally turned out, but let's just say I never cursed so much in my life.
Then it was time for our team to throw the tea party! Each term, the patisserie students throw an epic tea party, and we get to invite outside guests to come to the school and eat as much as they can of all the various desserts that we make. The chefs selected me as team captain, which was pretty stressful, since I had to make sure all of the desserts were ready on time and met the chefs' exacting standards. I'm happy to report that our team kicked major ass, and the tea party went off without a hitch!
We also had a bread module, which meant we had loads of bread to take home for a while. I was lucky since I had assisted the chef for the short bread course, so I already had an idea of what we would be making.
Our last module was chocolate. I hate working with chocolate since it's exhausting tempering chocolate by hand, and it gets everywhere. Don't ask me how, but I usually end up with chocolate on my hat, in my pocket, on my back - basically everywhere! But my chocolate box came out pretty alright - I designed it to look like a grand piano, and the lid comes off so you could fill the inside with truffles! We're supposed to showcase five different techniques, and I think I managed to get them all.
Another chocolate item we made was the chocolate egg. None of us were quite sure what to do with this one after we were finished, but it looked pretty nice so I took it home. I'm glad I took a picture since we had one of those rare sunny days in London, and my egg melted! Oh well.
We were all pretty excited about the candy making session. It was basically chocolate and candy as far as the eye can see, and we all took home loads and loads. I think we were all pretty popular with everyone we saw that day. I dropped mine off at J's office, since I was already sick as a dog from sampling everything during class.
All during superior term, we were all thinking of our final - the entremet. We were each given a list of ingredients and requirements and instructed to come up with our own entremet to present for our final exam. I did a lot of experimenting at school and at home, and I planned and planned so that I would be able to finish my entremet within the 4 1/2 hours we were each allotted.
I was really nervous about the time, and with good reason; I ended up using every last second! It didn't help that I dropped my tray of tuile during the exam, and I had to remake it. It was pretty funny when I dropped it, as I was pretty irritated, but everyone (including the chefs) rushed over to make sure I was okay and wasn't going to cry. Trust me, I wouldn't be the first if I did, but I'll be damned if I was going to cry over some biscuits. In the end, it all turned out okay since I passed!
Graduating was really bittersweet. I loved school and everything about it - all the new techniques, the chefs, my fellow students. It was hard to realise that I wouldn't be coming back - I had already assisted for most of the short courses, and I didn't really have any interest in taking any cuisine classes. So this was really and truly the end of one of the best experiences of my life. I would do it all again without a doubt!
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