Basic Week 6 & 7: Petit Fours, Truffles and Exams!

This is a combined post of week 6 and 7.
Week 6 started with theory cum demo lecture on Ice creams and Sorbets. Chef briefed us about the history of ice creams. Learnt about the composition of ice creams and sorbets. He demonstrated a Champagne sorbet and milk based ice cream, mmm..yummy!

Creme glacee (milk based ice cream)

Champagne Sorbet

After this, we made the third and last, potential exam recipe, Charlotte au Cassis, the most beautiful looking cake we made till date. It is a nothing but blackcurrant mousse encased in light sponge, decorated with blackcurrant glaze, fresh fruits and white chocolate piping. Per chef, I should have used less number of fruits, otherwise it’s a good presentation.

Charlotte au Cassis

Then came biscuit based Petit Fours. A petit four is a small appetiser, a small fancy french biscuit or small cake often served at the end of a meal. We made Almond Meringues and Sables Hollandais. It was a fun practical. I over-colored my sables a bit but meringues were perfect, per chef.

Sables Hollandais and Almond Meringues

Next up was the much, much awaited Macarons!
It was on my todo list for loooooong time but never got a chance to try them before in my 4yrs long baking journey. Finally I made macarons and that too successfully in the first attempt only! Yipee!!! It has got very nice crust and feet. Both the flavours, chocolate and pistachio turned out awesome. This was my best practical till date. I took so many photos of them that it was difficult to decide which one to post here, so I made a collage of best 3. :))

Macarons - Chocolate and Pistachio

Week 6 ended here on Saturday with a box full of macarons. I distributed them with friends and my housemates.

OMG! Exam is just a day away!! Monday, 15th is the theory exam and Tuesday, 16th is practical exam. You will be surprised to know that we all have been studying in-between these demos and practicals all along; and you won’t believe we have a last recipe demo lined up just before the theory exam on Monday! Grrrrr! It’s a bit weird but yes, we have last recipe after the exams (which means it’s not going to be counted for marks) :)

So, as I just told, we attended our last demo of chocolate truffles - dark, milk and white.

Immediately after that we appeared for the theory exam. It was an hour long straight forward knowledge test. The paper looked lengthy but everyone finished it approx 30 mins ahead of time.
Couldn’t believe its over!! I’ve been stuffing my brain with information for the last few days, there are a LOT of things to study and remember like, temp of fridge, freezer, sugar temperatures for all stages, temp of egg coagulation w/o dilution, with dilution, french terms used for techniques, 20+ recipes to remember with all ingredients and exact quantities and lots & lots more!

Next day was the practical exam, we will be given the name of the recipe after entering the kitchen.
So we had got Tarte au Citron/Lemon tart. We got 15 mins to write a short exam of ingredients and quantities of the tart and exact method. Got couple of mins to setup the station and started making it!

Had to finish and present the tart within 2.5 hrs including a small assignment of piping. I finished 30mins before the time and was feeling pretty good about it except the thickness of my tart. Also being it for the first time I was not sure what to expect. There were 2 chefs in the kitchen monitoring us, doing rounds of all the stations and noting down something continuously! Made me so nervous!!! Huh, too much of pressure!!! :(

Hussshhh!! Finally it’s over. Immediately after the exams, we friends went out for much deserved break, had lunch and hanged around for some time.

I had last practical next day. Made 3 types of chocolate truffles. Tempered the chocolate correctly without using thermometer, it’s very crucial to temper it to right temperature before using.
This was complete fun practical and we enjoyed it thoroughly as everyone was relaxed after the exams :)

Dark chocolate truffle, White chocolate truffle and Milk chocolate muscadines

At last, it was the results time! Yayy, I passed with 76%! Got the certificate for basic and for food safety.

Don’t you think that was fast than a bullet train!!! It’s hard to believe the Basic term is over so quickly, 6 weeks literally flew away!

Look forward to Intermediate from Tue, 23rd! :)

Basic Week 3: Huff and Puff!

Last week ended with legendary puff pastry demo on Saturday.

Thank god! This week is bit relaxed with a day off on Wednesday and only 3 practicals as compared to 5 in the last week!!!

Monday, it started with the lecture on "Examination Procedures". Chef Julie, the only lady chef amongst all chefs conducted this lecture and she explained us all about the exams and rules.
What?...exams? Yes, exams are coming up soon for us, the "intensive" people. We have our Final exams for Basic Level, which we'll be finishing just within one and a half months. The written Theory exam is on 15 Feb and Practical exam is on 16 Feb.
Practical exam can be on any one of the 3 - Lemon tart, Genoise with raspberry, Blackcurrant mousse cake (out of which we have learnt only lemon tart, so far).

Weightage of marks for final assessment is,
45% of the regular practicals (19 recipes) evaluation
45% of the final practical exam
10% of the theory exam
hmm..suddenly we were feeling some tension in the air!

We had another demo after this lecture, and that was of Mixed fruits puff pastry. I love puff pastry and I was waiting to try my hands on it but the practical was scheduled only on Thursday directly.

Tuesday, we had Cheese lecture. It was very interesting. I came to know so many things about cheese, making of it and history. A very experienced and knowledgeable cheese expert guy called ‘Tom' conducted it and the way he told us about it, I have no words to explain, I just loved it!
We tasted almost 15 types of cheese and there is a great story behind each one.

Cheese Lecture

I am not a cheese lover person but the lecture changed my whole perspective to look at it. If found time, I would like to dig in more about it.

After a day off, we were all ready for Puff pastry practical, but before that we had to attend another theory lecture on "Flour, Sugar & Honey" on Thursday.
Finally we were back in kitchens to make puff pastry!
It was the last slot of the day, i.e. 6:30 to 9:30pm. We were supposed to make a butter puff pastry from scratch with 6 folds, label and store it for use in the next practical. Then, make a Pear & almond cream Jalousie using a pre-made puff pastry.
It was a bit tough, my palms were sore after all of the rolling for 6 turns but overall, it was fun. I enjoyed doing the Jalousie. Buuuuttttt, in the course of making it as desired, we all actually took longer than required to finish the practical. We finished it around 9:45!! Chef was not happy with that and we again got a dose of instructions and advice! :(

Ideally, we are supposed to finish any preparation in 2.5 hours and rest 30 mins are dedicated to evaluation, cleaning up, resetting the kitchen (yes, each student has to setup the workstation with necessary equipments for the next class coming up in that kitchen).
Now only thing worrying me was, how will I get back home so late! I couldn't take a decent picture of my Jalousie because of it.

Jalousie aux poires et creme d'amandes

I reached home as late as 10:50pm that day! Thank goodness, there were few people around in train as well as on my station and my house is not too far from station!
Gobbled up an orange and hit the sack as soon as I reached as I had to be in the school next day for Fruit puff pastry practical at 7:50am, that means leaving house at 6:50am!
(We have to report in the kitchen minimum 10 mins before the time. We need extra 15 min in advance, to get dressed in the proper uniform…and I have 30 mins of travel time. So all in all, I need to leave house an hour before the class time including the walking time.)

Next day, Friday, I reached school on time for the practical. We had to make the "Fresh Fruits in Puff pastry" out of the puff pastry we made last night. Inspite of knowing that I've done it correctly, I was little worried about how will it turn out after baking, whether it will puff properly? Will it have decent amount of layers, and all.
I was relaxed to see it after baking, it turned out pretty good :) Yayy!! my first successful puff pastry!

Bande Feuilletée aux Fruits de saison

We had 3 hours gap before the next session, so we friends decided to go out for lunch to a place near Oxford Street, which is famous for its burgers. Burgers and fries were really yummy!

I went to Oxford Street for the first time and would love to go back there again in leisure time ;) We took a bus on our way back to the school and I rode a bus in London for the first time :)

We back at school for the demo of Eclairs! Another legendary dish! Chef told, this was one of the exam dishes till last batch. It's no more an exam dish for us, but I have heard that it is not easy as it looks. Let’s see it tomorrow, now looking forward to go back home and catch on some sleep!
Captured this beautiful view on my way to Holborn station at 5pm!

Darkness and full moon at 5pm! :)

Back in the kitchen on Saturday, we have to make 12 identical Coffee Eclairs. We had to take care of making correct choux dough with proper amount of eggs in it. Only then the eclairs will puff properly and will make a hollow channel inside. Everything went well for me until I started applying the fondant (this is fondant icing and not the rolled fondant we use for cakes) onto the eclairs. It was tedious and messy job to frost them. I managed it somehow, decorated them with chocolate piping and finished making them. Chef commented they are baked and filled nicely and fondant is shining well that means it is applied at the right temperature; Only thing is they are not of identical height.

All this was recorded in the journal. I think it was not so bad apart from the icing part as opposed to all the fuss I heard about it. 

Coffee Eclairs

Next we had demo of White bread - an introduction to bread making. We learnt how to make basic white bread dough, how to shape dinner rolls and how to make an Irish soda bread. The practical will be on next week Monday.
End of another happening week, now just want to relax for tomorrow and do nothing! :)