le cordon bleu - day 2

Once again, I was up nice and early. I think mum will be impressed when she sees how disciplined I am with waking up in the morning; it takes me as little as 15 minutes to wake up, get dressed, brush my teeth, eat breakfast and move all the things I need to get to class. We already had a few latecomers today; it seems the course is already taking its toll on a few of us. I'm a bit worried too: I'm not denying that it's hard to wake up in the morning.

On the agenda today were more scones (Date as well as Cheese Scones), Madelines and Friands (also known as Financiers). I must say, I could definitely see the improvement since yesterday. My scones came out fluffy and moist as opposed to the slight hardness I got with yesterdays. The friands turned out well too (a shame that we didn't get to put some blueberries in it). The madelines didn't tickle my fancy; the French call them soft, moist cakes but it ended up tasting crunchy and considerably drier compared to the Friands. I asked Chef Karen about this and even she agrees that the Madeline is ill-defined. By the same token, a classmate asked about the Gateau Weekend which we're making tomorrow; turns out the name originates from the fact that people usually eat this cake on the weekends in France. Basically, a Gateau Weekend would be equivalent to a Sponge or Pound Cake in America. So really, one cake can have more than one name; bizarre.

I'm also starting to find my way around the kitchen and learn where everything is. Remember also how I said we had kitchenhands who help us clean up? Well today, I just said thank you to the lady (Lily) everytime I dropped off my dirty bowls and when we finished our Madelines (and were meant to wash the tray ourselves), Lily offered to wash mine for me. So nice! Chef Karen later pointed out how politeness to your kitchenhands really pays off when you're working in the kitchen (and I totally believe in it!) Anyway, that more or less sums up my day. Bit annoying how we have to wait for ages to get our ingredients measured out; I need to get my own digital scale like some of my classmates have already. More from me tomorrow!