Weeks 9 and 10: Exams, Macarons and Chocolates

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SORRY FOR THE LACK OF UPDATES AND RECIPES!!!

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The past two weeks have been a little mad with exams and getting revision done, so I thought that I would just compile the two weeks updates into one. Cool? Cool.

So last week in our last practical before our exams started we made macarons. Not just one type of macaron either. We made both Italian macarons (the green ones) and Nancy macarons (the white ones with an almond on top). The Nancy macarons are the more traditional macaron, how they used to be made centuries ago, with no filling or colouring, just almond flavouring. Nowadays you wuoldn’t really recognise a Nancy macaron as a macaron, as we all think of the Italian two shell filled ones that come in all different colours and flavours (mine were filled with a chocolate ganache). I was pretty proud with how this practical went! The eagle eyed among you may have spotted a colourful florentine or two nestled in amongst my macarons, but they weren’t my finest work or the real focus of the class, so. Not very interesting really!

Then our exams began. We had our theory exam last Friday in which we had to answer a load of questions about everything we had learned in both our lectures and practicals throughout the term, including writing out the recipes, including ingredients and quantities, for a sweet shortcrust pastry and an almond cream. Fun. It wasn’t too bad really, so fingers crossed.

Then the practical exam came around on Thursday. Before the exam we had to learn three recipes off by heart to be able to reproduce just one of them on the day. We didn’t know which it would be until we entered the exam room. Thankfully, all of our hoping and praying had come true and our class had to make the lemon tart. Phew! No eclairs or charlottes in sight! I think it went ok, but I will find out my final mark this Monday, so we’ll see!

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Then we had our final practical yesterday. A very chilled out and enjoyable introduction to chocolate. We made white, milk and dark truffles within teams of four and then shared the results out at the end. It was such a lovely note to end on, with all of us bantering within our teams and just enjoying being in the kitchen with no exam stress! And the chocolates weren’t half bad either…

So this final week all I have is my debrief, in which I find out exactly how I have done, and my certificate ceremony, which is exactly what it sounds like. I’ll let you know at the end of the week how that all went, which will likely be a much shorter post than the usual update, but I’m sure some of you would like to know how it all turned out? See you at the end of the week!

Week 8: Another Charlotte and Biscuits

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Sorry there hasn’t been a new recipe up this week! I have been so run down with a really horrible cold that I have had no energy to bake out side of school and revising recipes for school. I’ll hopefully have one up fairly soon!

This week we learnt all about chocolate and where it comes from in our ever informative lectures. Some of the videos that get shown in those are truly bizarre. But the chocolate theme carried through to the first practical of the week, a chocolate and chestnut charlotte.

The chocolate charlotte was fairly similar to the mango one, but oh my, it did not go anywhere near as well. My mousse seized up as my chocolate was too cold and I almost sort of accidentally threw my whole cake across the kitchen when trying to get it out of the mousse ring. It didn’t help that I was warming up the mousse ring with a blowtorch when it almost went flying. It was just one of those days I guess. Still. It still looked pretty. I even got a “Your piping, it’s not bad.” Extremely high praise!

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The second practical of the week was on dry petits fours, aka tiny biscuits to eat with your tea. No bigger than two bites. Not anywhere near enough biscuit if you ask me. We made two styles, a “fleur de lys” almond biscuit, and a chocolate checkerboard biscuit, otherwise known as sablés à la poche and sablés hollandaise respectively. These went a hell of a lot better than the charlotte and I’ll definitely be making some of these again. Was pretty happy with how these turned out!

My week however did not end there. I was asked to help out at a macaron masterclass on Saturday and I jumped at the opportunity! I spent the majority of the time in the back room making marzipan and chocolate decorations for the guests to decorate their eventual macarons with. It was a pretty fun day in general, although busy, and the chocolate decorations didn’t work anywhere near as well as we had hoped they would. Oops. But still, all in all I had a good week!

I just hope next week goes as well with my theory exam… Wish me luck!

Week 7: Cake, Bread and Charlotte

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This week was a real mismatch of activities. We usually have a theme, like cake or custards or tarts, but this week, anything went. It was also unusual in that we ended up having two practicals in one day and three practicals over all in the week. It was plenty busy for me.

Our first practical this week was a black forest gateau and I am actually really proud of how mine turned out. We worked with tempered chocolate for the first time to make a collar for our cake and pretty much everything went well. I ended up donating both my black forest gateau and my mango charlotte to my rugby club’s bingo night ad raffle fundraiser as prizes and they seemed to go down well!

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Next practical was bread, where we made soda bread and dinner rolls. I neglected to take pictures, oops. I was pretty happy with how mine turned out though. I filled some of them with sun-dried tomatoes and olives and the rest had to be in various different shapes, such as crowns or knots or whatever else we fancied trying. It was good fun and one of the most relaxed practicals we’ve had in a good while.

Then on Friday we made our final exam dish. The mango charlotte. Oh man I hope this one comes up. I loved making it and want to again and again to be honest. It was great. We made a thin biscuit cake base and sides, then filled it with mango mousse, a coconut cream insert and then topped it off with more mango mousse and a passionfruit glaze. It was just incredible and so much fun to make!

All in all, good week had. Would do this week again.

Week 6: Cake week

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My chocolate orange marble cake

My chocolate orange marble cake

FINALLY. CAKE WEEK. You would have thought that cake week would be pretty early on, but apparently not. I suppose it makes sense that on a patisserie course we focus on pastry first, but still. Cake is pretty important. In the grand scheme of life at least.

Some of my madeleines

Some of my madeleines

We started the week with a lecture all about dairy products which was not bad at all. We had Chef Matthew who is just great, and really tries to make our lectures fun for us which I appreciate. We got to make our own butter by shaking up jars of double cream and then eat it on bread and have clotted cream on scones. It was pretty great as lectures go.

Moving on to the exciting part of the week, the actual baking. On Thursday we made a marble loaf cake and madeleines. I’m not sure why, but I found the practical went immensely smoothly and I just had fun doing it. Often there is a little sense of panic that I might be doing something wrong or not fast enough, but cake is my home ground. I have no worries when it comes to cake. Bring it on.

Both my marble cake and madeleines were pretty tasty and didn’t last too long!

My genoise sponge

My genoise sponge

On Friday we made genoise sponge. Thursday’s high didn’t quite carry over, but it was still ok really. Genoise sponges don’t have any raising agent, and so all the rise comes from beating the eggs, which is a bit of a work out. Who needs arm day at the gym?

While my chocolate piping obviously needs work (my piping bag fell apart a bit towards the end, not ideal) I’m pretty happy with how my cake turned out. I had good reviews from my friend Jacob, who I gave it to to share with his family. I already had so much cake at home, I really didn’t feel the need for more. Especially not one with raspberry jam in.. Not a big raspberry fan.

All in all though, I think this week went pretty well! Bring on more cakes please.

P.S. I REMEMBERED TO ACTUALLY TAKE PICTURES THIS WEEK AND I AM VERY PROUD OF MYSELF.

Week 5: It's all about choux

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The chef’s coffee eclairs, they were delicious.

The chef’s coffee eclairs, they were delicious.

This week has been all about choux. And one lecture on nuts and spices, but you don’t want to hear about my lectures. Apart from the fact that the lecturing chef said “I am not a vanilla boy, I am very spicy”, which obviously caused us all to go into almost hysterics.

On Thursday we made our Pâte à Choux recipe for the first time, when we made our second possible exam dish, coffee eclairs. Mine did not get photographed again, mostly because I forgot, and partly because they were a bit of a mess. I had an issue with my choux pastry that the chef had never seen before and wasn’t sure why it had happened. I am nothing if not unique. Weirdly, my choux pastry did rise in the oven as it is supposed to, but the bottom rose us with it, creating a sort of half cylinder of very thin, unfillable pastry. Not ideal at all. Had to present them, iced, but unfilled with my coffee cream just on the side. I have no idea why this happened and I am so, so hopeful it does not happen in the exam.

The chef’s gateau

The chef’s gateau

My gateau. Close enough right?

My gateau. Close enough right?

Friday’s class had us making Gateau Saint Honoré. I know, I had no idea what it was either. Essentially it’s a monstrosity of cream and pastry and extremely tasty. Would recommend. We did ours on a shortcrust base, with choux pastry balls (pretty much profiteroles) dipped in caramel and a choux pastry swirl in the middle. I promise it’s not ALL cream… Our cream was orange flavoured and was just immensely tasty to be honest. I would highly recommend making or buying a Gateau Saint Honoré if you have the chance and a massive sweet tooth. Although if you can get your piping neater than mine, that would be a step in the right direction.

In other life, I’ve had a pretty decent week this week and am really enjoying living in my new house. When I’m there at least. I’m currently writing this update from a friend’s house in Durham. Back up to visit for the weekend and love being here so much. The gateau did manage to make it up to Durham, and was happily mullered by the rugby girls. I miss being here with my friends, but am happy to just come for visits. I feel absolutely no desire to come back to university, been there, done that, DON’T need that stress again.

Hope you’re all having great weekends too!

Week 4: Puff (not the magic dragon)

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This last week has not been a great week in my personal life, so this update will probably be a little short. Sorry about that.

This week’s focus was puff, and oh boy, this was really not what I needed with a damaged wrist. The amount of rolling that I had to do, I could literally see the bruising being pulled further down my arm as I pushed my forearms over the rolling pin trying my best to get my puff pastry to roll out. Rolling puff pastry is a great work out if you want one!

Part of my plum and almond jalousie, didn’t feel the need to bring home the whole 2 feet.

Part of my plum and almond jalousie, didn’t feel the need to bring home the whole 2 feet.

The chef’s 2 foot whole jalousie.

The chef’s 2 foot whole jalousie.

On Thursday we made plum, almond and ginger jalousie. A jalousie is a type of blind or shutter with rows of angled slats, and apparently that’s where the name for this pastry comes from, as that is what the lattice work is supposed to look like. The chef in our demonstration told us quite a rude story about where the term jalousie comes from, a bit too rude and bizarre to share here. My mother reads this after all.

My jalousie went down pretty well, and I might well make it again with something other than almonds, as I am not a huge fan.

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Above: The chef’s mille feuille.Right: My cut up mille feuille. I really need to remember to take pictures of my food at the end of practicals…

Above: The chef’s mille feuille.

Right: My cut up mille feuille. I really need to remember to take pictures of my food at the end of practicals…

Caught in the act… (Credit: Khyati, “@_the _misfit” on instagram)

Caught in the act… (Credit: Khyati, “@_the _misfit” on instagram)

Our Friday practical was spent making mille feuille. It was flipping nice. AS you can tell from the candid my classmate Khyati got. If it doesn’t all fit in the box, it shouldn’t go to waste right? I really enjoyed this practical to be honest and think it was probably one of my best practicals so far in terms of how I did, not to toot my own horn. It always helps when we’re making something that I immediately want to ram in my face.

Hope you guys all had a good week! There’ll be a recipe coming in the next couple of days using puff pastry, but a recipe that you can do really easily at home with store bought puff pastry. Will post a recipe for make your own puff underneath, but to be honest, store bought is absolutely fine if you don’t have two hours or the upper arm strength to roll it out while making it. I would not recommend.

Week 3: Tart, tart, ouch that smarts!

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Week 3, and I did not survive in tact. One little trip to A&E later and I have the world’s smallest scar on my right wrist. The fact that I’m right handed and managed to stab myself in the right wrist did not escape the notice of the extremely baffled nurse. I was a little baffled too, but more over how I managed to not faint. It’s pretty much all better now!

And don’t worry.

The tarts I made were A ok.

We started last week with a three hour evening lecture on cheese. Cheese. I did not know that anyone could talk about cheese for three hours, but then again, having been brought up in a very cheese averse house and being lactose intolerant, my knowledge of cheese mostly stops after Lactofree Mature Cheddar (which some people say doesn’t even taste like cheese…). However, I found myself enjoying the lecture in spite of this, although I passed on most of the samples. I ate a lot of bread. The man giving the lecture, Tom Badcock (His Pinterest board Many Udder Things will be a delight for cheese lovers) was immensely passionate about the subject and kept up the same level of enthusiasm from start to finish. If you ever get a chance to talk to him about the history of cheese do. Just maybe not if you’re in a rush to get somewhere.

The chef’s, not mine. Didn’t get a picture of mine whole.

The chef’s, not mine. Didn’t get a picture of mine whole.

We then spent the rest of the week focussed on tarts. An apple tart first, although frankly, I prefer my recipe (18. Cinnamon Apple Pie) than the one we did in class. The one we made at school included an apple compote. I do not like apple compote. But it was definitely pretty at least.

Friday was lemon tart day. Everyone was a little nervous and excited as the lemon tart is one of three recipes that could come up in our final practical exam. It is a recipe that we have to be able to recreate by heart if necessary.

I won’t lie, my lemon tart was banging. My italian meringue needs a bit of work (I don’t know why it came out not very stiff, it’s not a problem I have ever had before), but that’s ok. I still have plenty of time to master it before the final exam. I got through the practical unscathed, presented my tart to the chef, got a good mark and then went to go pack away. At least I’d finished for the day before I slipped while putting my knife away. Oooooopssss.

My lemon tart, a little worse for wear after transport home.

My lemon tart, a little worse for wear after transport home.

Me, a little worse for wear on transport home.

Me, a little worse for wear on transport home.

Nevermind, lessons have been learned and mistakes, hopefully, won’t be made again! Hope you guys had a good week too! Did you know that I went through all my recipes and edited the ingredients to be in both grams and ounces so you don’t have to convert them? Well, you know now! Why not give one a go this week? I have a couple of good autumnal recipes up, I’d love to see your results! Give me a shout on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter if you make any!

Week 2: Custards, crèmes and a case of vertigo

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Need to work on that piping, straight lines aren’t happening just yet…

Need to work on that piping, straight lines aren’t happening just yet…

So, I mostly survived my second week. Mostly. This week the focus was on custards, stirred and baked, which meant that I got to make crème brûlée, crème caramel and crème anglaise, with a couple of extra bits on the side.

To start this week I had a two hour lecture on teamwork in the kitchen and the effectiveness of an action plan when cooking. It was mostly common sense, but that’s ok. It was still interesting to hear from a chef’s perspective how they seem teamwork in the kitchen. And how they plan their time. The action plan was kind of interesting, but also really pretty much just writing down a logical way of doing things. Still, pretty useful thing to have when you’re in the heat of the moment in the kitchen, maybe panicking a little, definitely could have used one last week…

My first demo and practical this week were focused on crème brûlée, tuile biscuits and making a coulis to go with it. We also had to think about plating for the first time, how were we going to present this dessert? We worked in pairs and individually to do different tasks throughout the practical, making 8 crème brûlées, one batch of tuile dough and one lot of raspberry coulis between two of us. However, we had to “brûlée” (the sugar topping) and make our tuiles separately and our plates were judged on an individual basis, not as a pair. I did pretty ok for my first marked practical!

Then after class I went and did some more flat/house viewings and after a month of looking, I found my new home! I’m very much looking forward to moving in next weekend. Exciting times!

This was the chef’s from the demo, need to remember to take actually decent pictures of mine…

This was the chef’s from the demo, need to remember to take actually decent pictures of mine…

Unfortunately, this went downhill the next day. I woke up feeling immensely ill and with a huge amount of vertigo. Because of this, I decided to stay in bed and miss my demo class and see how I felt later about going in for my practical. Thankfully, I felt mostly ok again, and went in. Unfortunately, I hadn’t realised that my attendance for my demo and practical were linked, so I would be down as an absence anyway and wouldn’t be marked in my practical. The chef would give me feedback, but couldn’t give me any formal marking for the day. I’m not at all sure I agree with this way of doing things, especially as I did a pretty decent job (my crème anglaise was banging…), but them’s the rules. The crème anglaise was pretty fun to do, as was the crème caramel, although mine and my partner’s were a little over baked. We also had to make sugar cages for our presentation, and mine was genuinely appalling. Definitely needs work…

Then Saturday came and my Level 2 Food Safety course took place. If you ever decide you want to do a Level 2 Food Safety course just for a laugh, don’t. You have to sit through six hours of really quite tedious lectures (however nice and funny your teacher is), and then sit a multiple choice test, which frankly you could probably have passed with just your common sense before the six hours of sitting in a classroom feeling not very well because your vertigo still hasn’t fully passed. Would not recommend.

But, I survived. Week 2 done, crèmes brûléed, new house found and apple pie made. All in all, pretty decent week!

Week 1: Fruits, meringues and forgetfulness

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First week of school done! I survived, just about. Thankfully I don’t get marked this week, or I would not be star baker, that’s for sure…

This week was mostly about getting us used to the kitchen and how our schooling is going to work, as well as getting us used to our knife kits and all the bits of equipment we will need to use. Oh, and making sure we know not to set fire to thins, health and safety is always fun!

Our first practical session was just spent making sugar syrups, fruit salads and doing “fancy cuts”. I got a bit too into the fancy cuts. I enjoyed myself far too much. Kinda wanted to just keep cutting fruit into pretty shapes for the rest of the day.

The sugar syrups were pretty standard, there wasn’t anything particularly exciting to photograph there, but we did have to do the hand test for the different stages of sugar cooking. The hand test is used to determine whether your sugar is at a soft ball stage, hard ball, crack, hard crack, etc etc. So you have your sugar syrup reducing down, getting hotter and hotter, and what you do is put your hand in an ice bath, then in the POT OF BOILING SUGAR SYRUP, pinch and put your hand back in the ice bath. Then if you can roll the sugar you pinched into a ball or crack it you know what stage you are at. We honestly could not believe that we had to do this when the chef demoed it, but turns out, not actually that bad. Still, gonna stick to the thermometer for now…

My fruit salad and fancy cuts were rated “good and also good” by the chef, so that’s something I guess.

Fancy cuts? Yes please.

Fancy cuts? Yes please.

The next day we did meringues, crème patissiere (pastry cream) and its various uses, such as crème diplomat or crème mousseline. The practical sessions mean that sometimes you have to stop what you are doing and gather around in a big group to listen to what the chef has to say. Things were going pretty ok up until halfway through making my creme pat, I went to go listen to the chef, came back and started trying to thicken it. Turns out, completely forgot to add the flour. Not a great start. Thankfully the chef helped me to the save it, but still. Need to make sure that I know exactly what I’m doing in future and not let myself get distracted…

The chef’s meringues and creams from the demo. Definitely not mine. Mine were not this perfect.

The chef’s meringues and creams from the demo. Definitely not mine. Mine were not this perfect.

All in all though, I really enjoyed my first week at Le Cordon Bleu. I’m a little nervous about it still, but I think that it’s just going to keep getting better. Plus I am extremely loving the uniform look, kinda want to wear it all the time. Do you think people would look at me weird in the street?

Gonna post a weekly update on what I’m doing at patisserie school from now on I think, but won’t be posting the recipes that we make in class for the most part. Might throw in some fun hints and tips that they give us though. Is that ok? Would you be at all interested in that? Let me know!