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!!!!