Sophie's Pi

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.

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!