Week 3 of Intermediate Pastry

Last week was a challenge for me, we had to make 2 tarts within 2 and 1/2 hours on our first day of practical class, and many petits fours on the second day.  However, I felt a bit better this week since we made less in class.  Also, our group (B) had practical class right after the demo, no 3-hour-time to organize notes before class.  During the weekend, Jason, Cindy, Cynthia and I practised piping, and made soufflé at my place.

 Practised piping with buttercream and St. Honoré tip on the back of baking pan

 Crazy piping by Cindy and Jason.. and me

 Cynthia and Jason preparing soufflé

January 14, 2013 Monday

Demo Class#3: Chef Eric Jaouan made two versions of Ambassadeur exotique (Exotic Ambassador-A Genoese sponge cake with pastry cream), one covered with marzipan, and one decorated with Italian meringue.  He also tempered chocolate for decoration.  I really like his chocolate piping work.

Practical Class#3: For us, we made the Italian meringue version of Ambassadeur exotique.  I think I did alright, except for the chocolate decoration was made too thin.  It was nice to make Italian meringue with KitchenAid mixer.  I was happy that I practiced piping using light margarine and St. Honoré piping tip at home.

January 15, 2013 Tuesday

Demo Class#4: Today, Chef Eric Jaouan demonstrated how to make Fraisier (Strawberry cake with Mousseline cream), one covered with marizpan on top, and one piped with buttercream.  How funny that most of my classmates didn't like eating the cake we made yesterday, but like this one, and they both had the same sponge cake base.

Practical Class#4: Sometimes I enjoyed the rush to finish a product, like today.  We needed to bake the cake, let it cool, and put it in the freezer after filling the cream, so that it had at least 30 mins to set.  Then we needed to cover the top with coloured (optional) marzipan, and make a marzipan rose, and 3 leaves, and chocolate piping as well.  Overall, I think I was alright, and I had fun.

January 18, 2013 Friday

Demo Class#5: Chef Eric Jaouan showed us how to temper chocolate properly, and made a circle chocolate box, and a tear shape chocolate box, for the chocolate bon bon that we will be making for next week.  (Tablage du chocolat et bonbonnière: Tempering chocolate for chocolate box and bon bon)

Practical Class#5: We needed to make a chocolate box today, so that we could put some bon bon inside next week.  Tempering chocolate was a pain in the ass.  I was lazy enough to not do the white chocolate in the beginning while most of my classmates started off tempering the white chocolate for decorating the side of the box.  I basically just wanted to temper and finish the dark chocolate for the whole box.  Then I would temper some white chocolate and do some piping on top of the box.  Most of my classmates had problem with the thermometer while trying to have the chocolate reach the proper temperature.  I just followed the reader of my thermometer and it turned out fine.  I actually made a piping mistake in the beginning, then I wiped it off with my finger.  It showed a bit but I just ignored it and kept piping.  In the end, I made another mistake! What do I do now? Well, I just piped more stuff to make it "busy"! I think it worked! :-)

January 19, 2013 Saturday

Hearty Stews Workshop: Cindy, Cynthia, Jason, and I attended to Hearty Stews Workshop in school at noon.  Chef Gilles Penot made Sauté de Boeuf Provençal (Provençal Beef Sauté); and Blanquette de veau à l'Ancienne, riz créole (Traditional veal blanquette with rice) I always like stews, but I don't have a cast iron pot now to make it :-( 

 Blanquette de veau à l'Ancienne, riz créole (Traditional veal blanquette with rice)

 Sauté de Boeuf Provençal (Provençal Beef Sauté)

After the demo, we went to eat at Elgin Street Diner http://www.elginstreetdiner.com I ordered Smokey Burger with soup, and shared Onion Ring Poutine.  Yummy!

 Onion Ring Poutine!!!!

Le Cordon Bleu Ottawa Culinary Arts Institute

Check this out, it's my school!

If you go to 0:47-0:48, you can see the back of my head!!! LOL

Pâtisserie Intermédiaire Begins! Week 1 and 2

January 4, 2013 Friday

Lecture: It was so good to see some of the classmates returning for the new term! Our Chef Instructor for Intermediated Pastry is Chef Eric Jaouan.  According to him, Chef Jocelyn Bouzenard is the nice one, Chef Hervé Chabert is the mean one, and Chef Eric himself is the crazy one. Today Chef Eric showed us how to temper chocolate using marbling method.  In order to make it work, we had to melt the chocolate to certain temperature (depend on the type of chocolate), then cool it down to certain temperature, and then bring it up to certain temperature again.

January 7, 2013 Monday

Demo Class#1: Our crazy chef demonstrated how to make Tarte fraise-cassis (Strawberry and currant pie), Tarte passion-framboise (Passion fruit-raspberry pie), and Tarte aux poires au flan caramel (Pears pie with caramel flan), and some chocolate decoration.  And he told us that we could use mixers in the practical class now, not like in the basic pastry.

Practical Class#1: It was a CRAZY class! First of all, we had TWO tarts to do in 2 and half hours.  You would have thought that having the mixer to make doughs would help? NOT! Secondly, we had 15 students in the kitchen racing to get ingredients, and to finish everything on time.  I was sent to work on the tiny little area beside the sink! When I was boiling the milk for pastry cream, a girl in my class tried to grab a mixing bowl from the shelf above my stove, and it dropped right on my boiling pot! Yep, milk spilt everywhere.  Chef Eric was so calm and told me to just start scaling again.  Anyway, I was glad to have the tarts done on time, and good work overall.  I was exhausted after my first day of this term.....

January 8, 2013 Tuesday

Demo Class#2: Chef Eric showed us Petits fours (Pâte à choux) in demo class today.  Basically, he made Éclairs au café et au chocolat, Salamô, Religieuses au chocolat et au café, Cygnes, Paris-Brest.

Practical Class#2: We needed to make 6 of each-Éclairs au café, Salamô, Religieuses au chocolat, Cygnes, and Paris-Brest, and also crème pâtissière, and crème Chantilly, and worked with fondant.  Something wrong with my scale, my pâte à choux failed twice!!! I checked my recipe and it was correct! Chef Eric was kind enough to help me out with the third attempt! Deja vu! I did pâte à choux in open lab last term, and it failed, and Chef Eric was there and helped me with the second attempt.  Deja vu! You know what, I started to think, maybe he's a curse! Yep, that's the bitter-sweet relationships between me and pâte à choux, I like eating it, but always fail making it.  Oh I must say, also with my new partner Jocelyn's help, I finished just on time.

January 9, 2013 Wednesday

Piping Workshop: I was excited to have this workshop, 'cos my piping skills suck!  Chef Eric showed us how to make paper cone, and how to fill it with melted chocolate, and of course some pipings.  Chef Eric was very supportive and encouraging, saying no one is perfect, and we all need to practise in order to have the skills.

Chef's:

Here's mine......

Thank God, we have 4 days off!!!!