Sugarland

The last two weeks have been all sugar, all the time.

I've been hard at work on my pulled sugar rose, and it's really encouraging since it feels like there's definite improvement the more I work with it. Thankfully, we had ample time to practice before our assessment at the end of the sugar module.

The actual assessment was pretty low key, and we had loads of time to form a rose and three leaves. Most people had enough time to make more than one. I made two, and I hemmed and hawed a bit about which one to present, but I think I chose the right one.

My very first sugar rose (over cooked due to wonky thermometer, hence the yellow colour):

My final rose for the assessment:

I didn't have long to relax as our centrepiece assessment was the following day. Luckily for me, we had another practice session after my first disaster, and I was pretty pleased with what I managed to produce. 

I tweaked a few things in my plan for my piece for the assessment, but of course things didn't go according to plan. My arm caught on my large background piece, and the thing fell over and smashed to bits. I rescued what I could, and I had to rethink how I was going to put all the pieces together. Fortunately, I managed to cobble something together that wasn't horrifying and showed six different techniques of poured sugar.

The small blue piece on the right is the salvaged piece, and I was a bit sad since it was my favourite. It had swirls of blue, violet, and green, with a clear piece on top to mimic a foaming wave. Sad.

In any case, I'm glad that the assessments are done, and now I could play with sugar at home! One of the chefs managed to finagle me an awesome deal on a proper sugar lamp, and now I've got one at home!

I still need a few more things, but I'm really excited to play around with things on my free time at home. Sugar is no joke, most of the kids in my class really, really hated it. It's very difficult and demanding work, and there's always the fear of something shattering beyond repair. However, the nice thing is that it does feel like you're improving the more you work with it and understand how it behaves. 

I'm eager to see if I could improve on my ribbon and blown sugar on my own time. We had some fun sessions where we just made some stuff that weren't going to be on the assessment.

My blown apple (it's hard to tell from the pic, but the thing turned out to be a monster!):

And I think I'll work some more on my ribbon. The one I did in class was just silly looking - word to the wise, it's better for just one person to pull sugar. Especially if the other person hates sugar work.

Back to the Real World

Summer's over, which means it's back to business as usual in London. Everyone's back from their August holidays, and the city feels like its usual self again - busy, hectic, and on-the-go.

Luckily for us, things didn't kick up to high gear straight away, so J and I had time to join a gym to try to undo some of the damage of being fat and happy. The pitfalls of a happy marriage is an ever expanding waistline and a preference for a cuddle on the sofa watching Sherlock over a workout at the gym. But we're working on it and going to the gym together has become our new weekend activity.

We may have undone all of our hard work when we went out to Dinner at the Mandarin Oriental in Kensington to celebrate J's birthday. But we agree, it was worth it! We went there last year, and it has firmly cemented itself as J's favourite restaurant. It's a good thing we go only once a year, as I don't think I would like to have more chins in addition to the one I've got.

I also made a cake to celebrate the occasion. J told me he just wanted something chocolatey, which isn't really much to go on. I ended up making a chocolate cake with chocolate mousse and ganache with a salted caramel glaze and a toasted italian meringue topping. Whew. I dropped it by J's office, and I got a good workout just from carrying that cake around. It was ridiculously heavy, but everyone said it was yum so I guess it was worth having my arms just about fall off.

Autumn also means I'm back in school to finish up my last term at Le Cordon Bleu. I was originally planning on returning in January, but I got a bit anxious to get back and finish the damn thing so I decided to return at the last minute. My old classmates just graduated, so I'm joining a different group.

I'm really lucky as the new group turned out to be lots of fun, and it made the transition a lot easier. Most of them are fast-trackers, which means that they've been doing the same course as us regular folk but on a compressed schedule. Everything we've done in six months, they've done in three! But everyone has to go on the same schedule for the last bit, Superior term, so we're now all in the same boat. This term is a bit different from previous terms in that we no longer have demonstrations followed by practicals. Now, we go straight to the kitchen for a workshop, which consists of a short demo and lots more time with hands-on work.

We started our term with the sugar module, which is focused on creating centrepieces made with pulled/ poured/ blown sugar. It's really, really hot work. You're cooking sugar to really high temperatures and working under a heat lamp most of the time, which means I've been sweating buckets. I'm pretty sure my partner must be grossed out by the puddle of sweat at my feet at the end of every workshop. Oh well, some things just can't be helped.

My hands were really red and raw after the first day of pulling sugar, but things have improved with the addition of a few things - cotton gloves with multiple layers of latex gloves on top, with a set of rubber dishwashing gloves on top for when the sugar is really hot. I'm actually pretty happy with the pulled sugar rose that I've made, but I think there's still some room for improvement.

First attempt.

Second attempt.

Most recent attempt.

The poured sugar centrepiece was a complete fail the first time around. My thermometer was going bonkers, and I ended up overcooking the sugar, which meant it took on a ugly brownish tone. That wasn't so bad, and I managed to rescue it with some food colouring, but then the whole thing kind of slowly keeled over when I wasn't looking. I'm not sure if it was the humidity or if the sugar was too soft from overzealous blowtorching. Sigh. I'm looking forward to next week when we get to have another go at it, and I've got a brand new thermometer all ready to go.  Fingers crossed!

Here's what chef made to give us an idea of all the different techniques we can use in poured sugar.

I got to keep chef's centrepiece, so I took it to J's office so he could use it to decorate his shelves. People do tend to look at you funny when you're carrying a sugar sculpture through the city on the tube, just as a warning. 

A Wedding in Paradise

There was nothing on the schedule for Saturday, other than the wedding later in the afternoon, so J and I had a chance to sleep in and enjoy breakfast before heading out to the city to explore. We got a map from the concierge that outlined a historical walking route, and we started out in the hot and humid weather to see what we could see.



Cartagena is absolutely beautiful, and most of the colonial architecture is still intact even though some of the buildings are in desperate need of repair. The colours suit the Caribbean climate, and the profusion of flowers growing on the balconies lend a romantic air to the city.





There are lots of open plazas scattered throughout the city, and we came upon one that was charmingly populated with metal sculptures.



The city itself is surrounded by a wall, with the ocean just outside the perimeter, and you can see people hanging out on the walkway on the wall.



The only fly in the ointment is the constant barrage of solicitations. And it really is constant - it gets really tiring to keep turning vendors away, and some of them don't take it well that you're not interested in whatever they're selling.

Before we knew it, it was time to head back to the hotel to get ready for the wedding! I think we all scrubbed up rather well!



The wedding ceremony was to take place on the solarium of the hotel, and it was beautifully decorated in white flowers.



And the view? Amazing!



We weren't waiting long before the beautiful bride made her entrance. She was just glowing, and my uncle looked so happy to be walking her down the aisle.



It was a lovely and emotional ceremony, and it ended with the guests throwing white rose petals over the happy couple as they walked back down the aisle as newlyweds.

We all then marched out into the city for a parade! Yup, a parade. We were led by a quartet of musicians and a group of dancers throughout the city as we all cheered and boogied down the streets.





And we paraded for a while! My feet were killing me from walking in heels on cobblestone, so I held onto J the entire time. We made it all the way to the city walls before turning back to the hotel!





Then it was time for a well-earned rest poolside where we downed drinks and nibbled on delicious local specialties before the actual reception.



The reception was great fun, and the food was amazing! We ate until we couldn't budge and had a great time hanging out with our family. We were much too full to participate in the dancing that followed after, and we called it a night after watching the newlyweds cut the cake and dance their first dance.

The next morning, we were all packed and ready to return to the airport to fly back to Bogota, then on to Madrid, then finally to London. Whew!



It was a lovely trip, and everything I could have hoped for. Colombia is a beautiful and amazing country that has such a great variety of things to offer. I never felt unsafe the entire time I was there. I was glad to have a smattering of Spanish, as I think it would've been much more difficult otherwise. Everyone we came across was so accommodating and patient with our struggles with the language, and I would definitely return in a heartbeat.