Funny Hair and Serious Studying

The best thing about being blonde is not being blonde. I've been cycling through the rainbow, and I think the purple could be my favourite. The girls at school have been making requests, and it looks like turquoise is next! People at work haven't batted an eye at the uncorporate colour, which I see as tacit permission to sally forth.

Don't worry Mom, it'll be a human colour by the time I'm back home. I'll try, anyway.

I have a day off today, which means chores, chores, and cakes! Laundry is nearly finished, which means it's back in the kitchen for me. I feel fairly confident about the Fraisier (minus the royal icing piping), but I get a bit wobbly about the Alhambra and Opera. I don't really like practicing the Alhambra just because I don't think it tastes very good. I don't want to eat it, and I don't feel right about giving someone a cake that I don't think is that good. But I've decided to just do the damn thing.

Let's just say I'm no longer a fan of roses.

It's getting to the end of term so I thought I'd get the chefs a little token of gratitude for everything they've taught me thus far. J and I ended up going to Harrods food hall, and I'm never going back. The service is great but the place is an absolute zoo and heaving with tourists. We couldn't get out of there fast enough! I didn't feel so guilty about taking J there since we also stopped by Bar Boulud for their amazing burgers.

Exams are only a week away, and I feel like I haven't prepared as much as I did for the Basic exam so that means buckling down for the next week and studying and practicing. I guess I couldn't deny my slacker nature, but fingers crossed that I'm still good at cramming!

Casper on a Diet

Casper just had his first birthday! He wasn't so keen since it meant it was time to go to the vet for his booster shots! He was remarkably calm during the whole thing, even though he was surrounded by dogs!

It's been quite eventful lately, but we had time to squeeze in brunch with my cousins and get an update on their upcoming wedding in Colombia! I'm so excited! And we got to eat Js favourite, the Welsh rarebit, at the Wolesley.

And as always, I've been baking up a storm!

I've been sharing the goodies with Js office mates, and one of them was kind enough to buy us a bottle of Constantia wine. I was super excited as I'm a huge Jane Austen nerd, and she mentions this wine in Sense and Sensibility. Jane Austen knows what's up, the wine was delicious!

J had to go to Chicago for a quick work trip, and I was supposed to tag along, but I was dreading the thought of a long flight so I ended up cancelling. Oops. Besides, I was busy in the kitchen the entire time he was away. I ended up making birthday cakes for Js colleague, which gave me a chance to practice two of our exam dishes. The third was a Black Forest cake that I just had to make since the birthday boy is German.

I was in school for the majority of the day on Saturday as one of the chefs asked me to assist during one of the short courses for breakfast breads. We basically had to make sure the students had the right equipment and ingredients for each of the dishes they had to make, and I was insanely jealous since we have to do that for ourselves during our practicals. They also didn't have to wear our super stylish uniforms.

It was the first time in a long time that I spent so much time on my feet, and my legs were dead by the end of the day. Despite all that, it was a lot of fun, and I was really flattered that the chef asked me to assist. In fact, I'm assisting for another chef this Saturday for a different short course. I feel like I'm getting a complimentary appetiser plate of Le Cordon Bleu classes! 

Cakes and Bread

Our last exam dish, the Opera! It's made with a hazelnut sponge with a chocolate ganache and coffee buttercream and topped off with a chocolate glacage and piping. It's pretty fast to make in comparison to the others, but the chefs consider it to be the most technically difficult.

I was a bit over zealous with the trimming, so it turned out a bit undersized (like me), but it was still good enough for J to not share it with anyone. He's very keen on me practicing lots! 

We've had another gateau since, the Sabrina. It's named after Audrey Hepburn's character in the film of the same name. It's a rather girly cake, which isn't really my thing.

It's a sponge filled with strawberry mousse and strawberry pieces finished off with a chocolate glazed marzipan disk. I'm not that keen on the design, the piped batons with chocolate squiggles looks a bit strange. I didn't have any of it, but my partner didn't think it tasted that great with the exception of the chocolate-covered marzipan. 

We also had a boulangerie class wherein we made baguettes, focaccia and a rye loaf. I'm not such a fan of making bread, I find it a bit boring. We've had tube strikes, which meant I ran home that day with all that bread strapped to my back. Was not worth it, especially the rye loaf, but the focaccia was delicious!

The technicals thus far have been quite good. We had a class on savoury dishes, and we got to sample the chef's creations. It was a good thing I didn't have breakfast that day as I stuffed myself with sausage rolls, bouchees, and salmon puffs. Yum!

I find that I much prefer savoury to sweet these days, which also happened to a lot of other kids in my class. I guess you get tired of sweet things after being around them all day. 

Thinking About Exams: Alhambra and Fraisier

It's pretty early in the course, but we've already been introduced to two of our three potential exam dishes. I guess it's never too late to start practicing!

First up, the Gateau Alhambra. It's basically a chocolate cake filled and masked with chocolate ganache, enrobed in a chocolate glaze, and decorated with piped chocolate writing and tempered chocolate pieces, and topped off with a marzipan rose. Have I mentioned it's got chocolate? 

Needless to say, things were a bit frantic in the kitchen trying to do everything, and our group finished way over time. We had a relaxed chef for the practical, which can be a blessing and a curse. A blessing since it's a lot less stressful, but a curse as you tend to take time that you won't have during the actual exam. 

All in all, I was pretty pleased with how the cake came out, but my chocolate piping can still use a lot more work. I ordered 5 pounds of chocolate, so I'll definitely get some more practice in unless I eat it all first! I also need to practice tempering since chocolate can be pretty finicky to work with, and we're not allowed to use thermometers while we're trying to warm the chocolate by only a few degrees. The chocolate will "talk" to us and tell us when it's ready. Um, okay. I must be deaf or we're not speaking the same language. 

Our other exam dish is the Fraisier. It's a genoise sponge filled and lined with strawberries and creme mousseline. It's topped off with a marzipan disk and rose and decorated in royal icing. 

This time, we had a chef who pushed us constantly on time, which meant we finished early and had some time to practice piping with royal icing. I hate it. It's completely different from chocolate piping, and I think it may even be worse, but that may be because we have much less experience with it. I'm just glad I got the spelling right! Let's just say not everyone did.

Chef was pleased with my cake except for the fact that I murdered my sponge when I removed it from my ring mold, and I need to remember to be less vigorous with my knives. As if my poor finger wasn't reminder enough. The marzipan was also tricky to work with and kept sticking to everything, making it nearly impossible to remove from the workbench without ripping. I'm just glad I eventually got everything on the cake!

Our technical this week was quite fun as it was similar to a demonstration rather than just a lecture. The topic was confectionary, and we learned how to make caramels, nougats, and jellies.

The best part was the tasting afterwards! I'm starting to wish school had a gym...

Intermediate Patisserie

I'm two weeks in my Intermediate Patisserie course now, and things got off to a bumpy start. First, there's my stupid finger - I had to wear a glove over my bandage for the first week, and it drove me crazy. I couldn't feel anything properly, and one of the best things to happen all year was taking the damn thing off. My finger's still alternating between being numb and sharp pain when there's any pressure on it, but anything's better than the bandage. Second, our group has increased in size to fifteen people in the kitchen, which means things are even more hectic and crowded with everyone rushing around to get ingredients. Third, the weather's been warming up, which means it can get hawwwt up in the kitchen. It doesn't help that we're wearing thick chef jackets, aprons, two tea towels and a hat, all made out of extra thick cotton. I'm seriously contemplating cutting out armpit holes to air the business out. 

On the plus side, I attempted my first mini mock-up of the wedding cake that my brother's fiancee wants for the wedding. I was pretty surprised at how well it turned out! I'm still working out the little tweaks in the design, but it looks like all systems are a go!

Now, I just have to carry it off on the actual day. Scary!

School's been going well, I think our new group is getting into the swing of things and figuring out how to work with each other in the kitchen. Since my old partner went back to Malaysia (sad), I've been working with my new partner, and things have been going really well. We get on, and we both work at the same pace, so I'm pretty happy. She's also another "tall", which means I still have someone to reach the high shelves. Teehee.

Oh, and here are the brioche, croissants, and danishes I made last week. Chef told me my bear claws were the most ferocious pastries he's seen in a while. I'll take that as a compliment, thank you very much. I think he was a bit confused though when I swiped at him with one with a loud meow. That's right, bear's can meow if they want to. 

Now that I've been doing the pastry thing for a few months, I'm starting to ask myself what, if anything, I'm going to do when the course ends. Most of the kids have firm plans to continue working in the patisserie field after they've finished their studies, but I'm not quite sure yet. I've heard lots of talk of long hours for pitiful pay, and something about that just doesn't appeal to me. It seems to me that you have to want to go into patisserie for the love of it and not so much for the cash money. Although J makes a good living, I still like to contribute my bit and help pay for the kitty kibble. I guess I still have to ponder it a bit more and continue to do some more research. 

On a separate note, I don't know what it is but my hair's been bugging the bejesus out of me. It's been in this godawful growing out phase for so long, and I just couldn't handle it anymore and then this happened...

Yeah, my hair really is that blond right now. But no longer on my head. Hahaha.

Basic Graduation

It's over! We took our written exam, which I didn't study nearly enough for, and we had one last relaxing practical where we made truffles, which meant we were elbows deep in chocolate.

And chef played a practical joke on me which ended up with chocolate on my face. I give him credit, I didn't think he had it in him!

Everyone was really relaxed, including the chef, and my partner got the chance to take some fun snaps.

The school put on a very casual graduation ceremony in one of the larger classrooms, and most of my section attended to receive our certificates and find out our final grades. I was more than pleased to receive Mention Bien! Woohoo!

Our section did quite well: about half of us received Mention Bien, which was harder than I thought as I saw that there were some sections that didn't receive any! School be stingy with their grades! 

The graduation was more of a photo op than anything else, but we were disappointed to find that only one of our pastry chefs was able to attend as the others were teaching classes. 

But that didn't deter us from hunting them down one by one and floor by floor. I'll never forget the look on some of the chefs' faces as they saw a bunch of girls charging at them from down the hall hollering,  'Cheeeeeeeef! Selfieeeeee!' They were all good sports despite us interrupting them and played along with some of our more ridiculous requests.

The hard part is saying goodbye to two of our classmates. My partner is going back to Malaysia, and I'll miss her and her always hilarious sound effects. She was also the one to reach the stuff on the high shelves. Sad.

We all commented on how lucky we were with our section, and we're all hoping that we get to stay together for the intermediate term. Fingers crossed!

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.

Ice Cream and Practice

I woke up bright and early Monday morning to attend ice cream class at school. That sounds weird, right? It was freezing cold, but I still managed to taste all of the ice creams, sorbets, and parfaits on offer.

I didn't have too much since I didn't want to walk out drunk and gassy. Why? Most of the ice creams were flavoured with alcohol and I'm also lactose intolerant. Oopsies.

I've been trying to practice the exam dishes such as the coffee eclairs, but I usually end up with more questions than when I began. The recipes are also a bit much so I always end up with leftover batter and stuff.

Wasting food is a pet peeve of mine so I made a gateau st Honore with the leftover choux dough and creme patissiere. I cooked up some caramel for the gateau and I used the leftovers to attempt some spun sugar. It turned out alright, but I definitely see the advantage of having a sugar tool for the job instead of just a fork. My kitchen shopping list keeps growing by the minute!

J's office couldn't believe their luck when I showed up with eclairs and a bonus gateau! I'm just glad that I have people willing to eat my practice pieces or I'd have to start rolling down the pavement!

Week 8: Cake and More Cake

It's been all about cakes this week, starting with the Gateau St Honore. It's a combination of pate brisee, pate de choux, caramel, and creme patissiere. I garnished mine with toasted almonds and crystallised violets. I was actually really pleased with how it came out! I just need to make my choux a bit smaller and make my piping more slanted for a more defined chevron pattern.

 

I really enjoyed making this cake as it tests a lot of the pastry making skills we should have by now and it's also an exercise in time management since you're constantly bouncing back and forth from all the different elements.

The next cake we had was the charlotte aux cassis, which is a cake with blackcurrant Bavarian mousse and a blackcurrant glacage with white chocolate piping. We watched as the chef demonstrated all the different borders that we could pipe on our cakes, and we were all depressed. Piping with chocolate is hard!

Luckily, mine turned out not as badly as I anticipated. Whew. My piping could still definitely use work, but I didn't feel the need to tear my hair out in frustration, which is a big improvement over earlier attempts!

We had a bit of a scare in the kitchen during this practical. In order to remove the cake from its mold, it's necessary to lightly blowtorch the metal mold. Can you see where I'm going with this? We have a bit of a Disaster Jane in our class, and she ended up blow torching a piece of parchment paper that went up in flames. Instead of tamping the fire out, she tried to put it out by blowing on it! Um, not a candle! My partner and I ended up pushing her aside to put the flames out, and I approached her carefully to turn the blowtorch off, which she had on this whole time. Geez.

Better luck next week!

Week 7: Let Them Eat Gateau

It's been all about cakes lately at school, and I've been porking up big time from eating a cake a day! Classes end too late for me to drop them off at friends' offices, so J and I have been crushing them all by ourselves after dinner. Oops.

This is a Black Forest cake with griotte cherries and creme chantilly with chocolate decoration.

The cakes have almost been too pretty to eat, but I did say 'almost'. This is a chocolate charlotte with Bavarian cream and chocolate ruffles and pistachios for decoration. Yum.

As you can see, we've been working with chocolate this week, and it's been extremely messy. I ended up with cocoa powder on my hat (how?!), but I had  more ingredients in my cake than down my front, which I count as a win. But it's definitely time for a good wash of my uniform.

We've got gateau St. Honore next week, and it's a good opportunity to practice a lot of our skills since the cake has a lot of elements. Pate brisee, choux pastry, creme patissiere, piping, caramel cooking, it's got it all. Chef's creation that we're supposed to replicate: 

Um, we'll see. Gulp.

The weather has also been on the up and up, and we've actually had some dry days. It was mild enough for me to take Casper to the park this past weekend, and a cheeky little sparrow came right up to me to ask for food. Spring really is coming!

Valentine's Day and the Lone Wolf

J and I make a pact each year to not celebrate Valentines day. I think it's kind of a corny holiday, and I sympathise with the ridiculous amount of pressure most guys are under to make it the most romantic day of the year. The overpriced bouquets of flowers, the prix fixe menus, the obligatory box of chocolates, and all the damn pink and red - just ugh.

So it's pretty funny that I ended up with flowers and chocolates by happenstance. J had to go to Geneva for work last week, and he brought me back some frighteningly good chocolate. It's not like you can go to Switzerland and not buy the chocolate. 

I've been actually scared to eat this chocolate since I don't feel worthy, but I finally worked up my nerve so that the box is currently near empty. I guess I got over that real quick!

And we also picked up some orange roses on our weekly grocery run on Sunday. Major score, and without having to pay a 900% markup! 

They really perk up the flat, especially during the wettest winter on record. It's rained pretty much every day since November, and the winds have been so bad that Heathrow flights have been cancelled this past weekend. Absolutely nutso. It doesn't help that our boiler has been on the blink lately. I'm just grateful for hot water bottles and fireplaces until we can get the boiler sorted.

We did have one sunny day, and everyone was out and about. Who knows when we'll see sun again?!

School has been going fine, but I did have a bit of a meltdown last week during our practical for an exam dish, the genoise a la confiture de framboise. In plain english, raspberry sponge cake with French buttercream. Chefs creation:

It was this ridiculous comedy of errors where someone accidentally took my cake, so I ended up accidentally taking someone else's cake and not realising it until I was nearly done icing it. Then I had to scrape all my icing off and start again with my actual cake once I sorted out who had taken it. And I had to make 3x of everything between my partner and I because someone didn't have a partner, which slowed everything down considerably so I lost the time I had gained doing all of my individual tasks ahead of schedule. Argh! I was so disgusted with everything by the end of class that I just got out of there ASAP before I scratched anyone's eyes out. 

I was so irritated with the whole debacle that I remade the dish by myself once I got home, and it turned out wonderfully. J didn't like the cake I brought home from school, but he loved the cake I made at home. It not only tasted better, but it also looked a million times better. I'm still annoyed, but I no longer feel like punching walls. It's ironic that I usually get top marks in teamwork, but I absolutely hate it with a fiery vengeance.  Hear this lone wolf howl!

A Busy Week 5: Puff Pastry, Bread, Eclairs, Tube Strikes, and The Lockhart

An entire weekend passed between our demo and practical, which meant I walked into the kitchen early Monday morning bleary eyed and a bit hazy on what I was doing there. Luckily, I had my notes to refer to and really nice classmates to help me along the way. I was meant to be whisking furiously while making the creme patisserie, but I wasn't capable of doing anything fast that early in the AM.

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!