le cordon bleu - day 6

Today marked another week at LCB; time that seems to be passing way too quickly. I'm starting to understand why so many students, having finished either Cuisine or Patisserie end up spending another 9 months completing the respective other. A classmate asked me if that was my plan but I think for the time being, it's still too early to say. All I know is that I'm having a ball at the moment and it's good to know that there's something to look forward to each week. Despite the struggle to crawl out of bed, classes are well worth it and rewarding in many respects.

Funny enough, what's been most stressful hasn't been the classes, nor my classmates nor my inability to produce products that match the one's that the chef makes, but rather the volumes of food which I'm bringing home each day. Today, I found myself bringing home a bucket of biscuits; I already started eating them on the trip home but that's really done little to deplete what's left. I reckon if I ate 3 biscuits a day for the next month, I'd probably still have some left. Unfortunately, these only last a maximum of 2 weeks. From past experience, cookies are usually best eaten on the day you bake them :( (I'm missing a photo of one set of cookies)

So today we had Viennese biscuits, Diamantes', and Sables'. So much effort went into getting that checker-board design that I'm not sure if it was even worth it. For sure, they are lovely to look at and encouraging to eat, but for the time and effort required to make them, it's a real shame that people just pop them into their mouthes. Chef Karin already stressed that because of this, you're unlikely to find cookies like these in the shops. It makes sense though and for reasons like these, it's really got me to start thinking about the actual practicalities of running a shop. As a patisserie student now, I can see the importance of quality ingredients and visually appealing products but as a potential businesswoman, how can you achieve this with limited time and resources?

Burnt myself today as I was taking my tray of cookies out of the oven. Fortunately, I kept it under cold running water so it hasn't blistered; still looks like there might be a scar though. Sigh...I really got to be more careful. Anyone for cookies or cakes from this week?