A Graduate of Le Cordon Bleu London

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.

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.

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. 

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!

Intermediate Term Is Over!

It's been a crazy week, but I've managed to make it through somehow. It's been busy what with exams, selling our condo, and getting tested for my laser eye surgery.

The practical part of my exam went pretty okay. I thanked my lucky stars that we got the opera, woohoo! It's supposed to be the fastest cake, but also the most technically difficult. I've done better operas at home, but I think the one I did for the exam was enough for me to pass. I didn't start studying for the theory exam until the day before, and it turned out that none of the things I studied were actually on the exam. Doh! But I filled more blanks than left empty, so I'm not kicking myself too hard over it.

After the exams were finished, we got a taste of what to expect from the superior term. One of the chefs demonstrated the making of a chocolate box with tempered chocolate, and the end result was beautiful.

I'm almost tempted to give it a go, but maybe after I've recovered from exams.

We had the last few classes to decorate the fruit cakes that we had made earlier in the term. The chefs have been feeding them rum on a regular basis, and I tasted a bit of it. It tasted better than I thought it would and reminded me a lot of Christmas spices with the dried fruit and rum. It is, however, hard as a rock and quite dense.

In any case, we got to work on decorating. We had two technicals demonstrating how to decorate using flowers, but I just could not get the hang of it. I squeezed and rolled the same piece of paste for two hours before producing a few pitiful looking petals and giving up. I think it's become a mental block dealing with those fiddly little things, and I'll get to practicing again when I no longer feel like putting my head through a wall.

It was just as well that my cake didn't call for flowers, and I chose to do a stained glass inspired cake instead. I ended up taking the cake home to do a bit more work on it, and Casper decided to help by tasting my food colouring dust. I think I laughed for twenty minutes straight before I finally got back to decorating my cake.

I finished my cake just in the nick of time at the last practical, although there were some finishing touches that I would've liked to added. I was piping like a madman for the last thirty minutes or so, but I was actually pretty pleased with how it turned out! The chefs were also really complimentary, and it made my stone cold heart all fuzzy and warm inside.

It's hard to believe that intermediate term is officially over. Especially since the current plan is to take a break during summer and return for the autumn term. I'm maybe reconsidering that plan since the chefs told me autumn is going to be manic busy and super crowded. Ugh. I can't imagine the locker room fuller than it already is. That's one thing I'm definitely not going to miss. But I will miss my group and hanging out with the chefs. But it's not goodbye, just see you later, especially since I live so close to school, and I'm planning on volunteering regularly for the short courses. In fact, I'm volunteering for the boulangerie course that's scheduled to begin on Wednesday! 

Some of the other girls are leaving as well, but are actually leaving the country, and everyone got together for a dinner at the Savoy to say farewell. It's the sad part of being one of the few that actually lives in London. Pretty much everyone else is from far away, and it feels odd to feel like you're being left behind when school comes to an end.

Some of the girls got me flowers since I won't be returning for Summer term, and I'm going to miss going to classes with them. I really can't imagine being part of a funner group.

But I've promised to visit them lots over summer, with the cats and champagne in tow!

Practically Over

We finished the practical exam portion of the Basic course today! Hooray and Hallelujah! 

We were all dreading the possibility of getting the genoise for our exam dish, so of course, that's what we got. To tell the truth, I was bumming pretty hard when I saw the recipe but it didn't turn out as bad as I feared. My buttercream could've been less yellow, but there was nothing else I could've done better. I feel like I left it all out there, and that's all I can do. I'm just so freaking glad it's over! Now I can stop filling my fridge with sweets that I'm sick of eating by now.

I could've practiced more, sure, but I spent the day before at the salon looking like this:

And now I look like this:

Sorry, Mom! At least I didn't shave it!

And now I'm off to spoil myself with some of the best macarons in the world per our chefs. Apparently, you can't get them out of Switzerland, but J just happened to go to Geneva for work, and brought me this!

I am a lucky, lucky girl.