Today starts the countdown to the end of Basic Patisserie at Le Cordon Bleu. Sad? Yes. Restless? Yes. Puzzled? Yes. Undecided? Yes. Tired? Extremely. Still can't believe 10 weeks of class passed by so quickly. Figuratively and literally speaking, I've been soaking up breads and sweets like a sponge and it's been one amazing journey all the way; learning how to do things properly and very realistically, learning from mistakes and understanding what it means to be careful when someone tells you to be careful. I've worked with a diverse background of friends who I'm sure will be friends for a long time; we each have our quirky habits, craziness, weird antics but most of all, these are people who share my passions for patisserie and all things sweet in life. It's definitely been a sweet 2.5 months!
This week is particularly sweet with gateaux' and cheesecakes cooking (cheesecakes have got to be my favourite! Although I find that I keep saying this when I discover some new sweet. e.g. the Chocolate and orange cake from Lindt Cafe which I had yesterday night - absolutely scrumptious!!) Anyhow, one of my classmates made the remark today that this week is actually the first time we've assembled a cake since doing this course. It does actually come as a little strange considering that most people would think that doing a patisserie course, you'd be spending most of your time assembling cakes. I suppose a big part of Basic Patisserie is learning the foundation skills to building those cakes. Well let's say that I'm officially qualified to make a cake now :D By the way, the chef let me know that I aced the theory exam from last week...YAY!
So if you can see from the photo, today was spent making a basic Genoise Sponge and a Chocolate Sponge. I strongly recommend using baking paper to line the bottom of the tins; I ended up having to do another batch with a classmate cause I lost one of my mine (really, it's quite annoying!) On top of the sponges, we did those Japonaise discs - Japonaise is basically an almond meringue. Stupid me was really stupid today and used a small piping bag (owing to some stupid logic I had in my head and ended up getting meringue everywhere), hence I recommend everyone to use larger piping bags when piping these meringue discs. Aside from that though, my discs turned out fine so should be good for assembling the gateaux' tomorrow. Oh, and we spent the afternoon making chocolate garnishes. As usual, I left the class looking like I'd been swimming in chocolate. Really, I can't stand it. Even if I'm just using a little bit of cocoa powder, I can still somehow look as if I've been smearing chocolate all over me. Just one of those things you can't explain.
On the topic of chocolate, can someone explain to me why Godiva Chocolates are so expensive? Mum brought some back from her work trip and really, I can't justify why someone would spend that much money on a box of their chocolates. Perhaps not so strangely enough, it's all got to do with marketing and branding...hmmm...
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