le cordon bleu - day 30

Cheesecakes go hand in hand with my love for cakes and baking. Chilled cheesecakes, baked cheesecakes, Japanese style cheesecakes, I’ve tried them all and at the same time, had a go at baking them at home. I can’t say that all the cheesecakes I’ve made in the past have been a huge success but nonetheless, there’s just something about cheesecakes which I just love and over time, I’ve relentlessly tried to perfect the art of making one. I read that cheesecakes are like 40% fat but eaten in moderation, I think it’s the one dessert that will satisfy cravings for something sweet and will definitely make bellies grown in appreciation. It’s perhaps a tad expensive to make at home and wasteful when you can’t really eat that much in one go, so I do recommend the Baked Cheesecake from Bread Top (yummy!)

My last class of Basic Patisserie at LCB was spent making both chilled and baked cheesecakes; the latter which is my absolute favourite. Actually, I was surprised at how the chilled cheesecake turned out; it turned out a lot better than I thought. My previous attempts tasted more like lumps of chilled cream cheese or rather, a swimming pool of cream cheese when the gelatine hadn’t set the cake as it should’ve. Anyway, to the person who sent me the message ‘Ur cheese cakes taste so good’ last night; I’m glad you enjoyed them; it’s encouraging to know that I am getting better at baking. If I’ve learnt anything at LCB, it’s probably how wrong I’ve been in the past and how bad I was at baking. I can’t say that 10 weeks of Patisserie has made me a pastry chef but at least I have a better idea of what baking really is.

So to sum up 10 weeks at LCB, I well and truly loved it! Yes, maybe I might’ve gained a kilo or two (I haven’t bothered checking but I’m guessing that in all likelihood, I would’ve), the early mornings were sometimes a bit crazy, cuts and burns galore (2 cuts making éclairs, 1 burn from an oven tray, 1 sugar burn), a scary teacher every now and then, but really, the friends, the food, the skills, the world of opportunities which has opened up more than made up for it. Hey, I even had the title ‘Assistant Pastry Chef’ for a couple of weeks; how awesome is that?! Seriously, I recommend anyone with a passion for patisserie to give this course a go; you won’t regret it!

Man…how can one resist a fridge full of cheesecakes…

le cordon bleu - day 29

I had fun today assembling my cakes :D. In particular, ecstatic that my sponges were thick enough to cut into three; the fact that I didn't cut myself in the process and I suppose, just the simple fact that I assembled a rather fancy cake from scratch. There's definitely a lot I still have to learn with cake decoration (seriously, I'm quite hopeless...I was probably looking at my cake for 10 minutes and then managed to pipe some blobs of poo which i ended up squashing down...and well let's forget that now, my end products look alright). The other thing is that my cakes are probably too tall to be French cakes; the French prefer more petite cakes compared to what you see here in Sydney and what my product ended up to be. Anyhow, I didn't want to waste my three layers of sponge so I'll remember for next time that 2 pieces of japonaise and 2 pieces of sponge will make a more decent cake. Lol...I can't wait till mum comes home so I can slice both the cakes and see how they turned out on the inside. *fingers crossed that the buttercream layers aren't too thick*

And well, what is buttercream? I'd always thought it was some combination of butter and cream whipped together and really, it goes without saying that buttercream tastes a lot nicer than frosting and icing sugar mixes. Well, I suppose I got half the ingredients correct; buttercream does contain butter, in fact, 750g of it in the recipe we used today. To that, you've got 300g of egg whites and another 500g of sugar syrup; just a bit over a kilogram of fat and sugar sweetness. Might I add, you're really meant to flavour buttercream otherwise you're eating a cake that tastes purely of butter. And did I tell you that I absolutely love praline paste and chocolate? Well I divided by buttercream batter into two and added a good heap of each into each batter. I don't even want to think about the number of calories that are in the buttercream alone. *shudders*

As a special treat from Chef Geraldine (a chef who is passionate about what she does and a source of immense knowledge - she's been one awesome chef during Basic Patisserie!), she made us a traditional Swiss cake which she has back at home. Far out, I don't know much Kirsch she soaked the sponge cake with but when I bit into it, a torrent of it came flying out of my mouth - literally. Surprisingly, I didn't go red in the face but then Justin tells me that there's not much alcohol in Kirsch. Anyhow, something I've learnt is that the Swiss are big on their alcohol. Then again, I've never been a big fan of alcohol but still, that cake was yummy!


Hmmm...cheesecakes tomorrow, can't wait!

le cordon bleu - day 28

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...

le cordon bleu - day 25, 26 & 27

What a relief that the theory and practical assessments are over! It's been a week of early mornings, strange happenings and some near misses. And well, I passed! Not sure exactly how I did and what mark I got but I gave it my best shot. I made mistakes but at the end of the day, I'm human and the teacher's are human too :P Thank god for that! But I got to say though, the beady eye of the assessor today made my stomach flip and half the time, made me think I was doing something wrong when what I was doing was perfectly fine. Funny enough, she seemed a lot nicer when I got my personal feedback at the end (maybe it was just me during the exam thinking she hated me and was going to fail me). Well, I'm glad it's all over; exams make me nervous :P

Anyway, I was speaking of strange happenings. I'm not sure what happened but on Monday after class, there was a note left on my car windscreen which said 'All entrants to Ryde college must pay parking fee' which was addressed to me from security. Well I always pay my parking fee but that morning when I drove to the college, I swear there was no one sitting in the toll booth, the gates were open; any sensible person would just drive through right? And really, if the booth was unmanned at the time, surely they couldn't chase me up for the $2 parking fee? So that got me thinking, was I so asleep that I drove through the booth with the security guard watching me? Well my classmates seemed to think so and I'm starting to think I did too :( *quite embarrassing actually* Anyhow, I didn't get chased for the $2 when I drove out. *strange enough though*.

Near misses: Argh...I absolutely hate fondant! And I officially hate eclairs! Not only did I slice my finger once again cutting open an eclair, I was nearly going to have to do a resit of the exam because my fondant wasn't shiny and hence made my product not as presentable. Seriously, my history with fondant does not look good and I doubt it will improve. I don't even understand how someone designed this product let alone eat it! Fortunately, the rest of my product was perfectly fine and I finished on time. It was actually quite a hectic day making the eclairs; about half a dozen people managed to cut themselves to varying degrees and this was made worse with a good half of the class not being able to finish on time. So a near miss yesterday and near miss today. One of my classmates blind baked my tart before it had rested properly and it just shrunk like mad. The good thing was that I still had some short pastry to do it again and can you believe it, it still shrunk despite resting it for a good 20 minutes. When I spoke to the chef, she says I've already lost marks for it which is fair enough. But hey, I still managed to get away with it at the end when I garnished my tart, you could hardly tell that it had shrunk and my tart was one of the tarts that the chef pointed out as one that someone would purchase in a store. yay! But it was definitely a close one.

And off the topic of class, I still have to thank everyone that came to my graduation, sent their well wishes or came to dinner afterwards last Friday. I'll put grad photos up on facebook soon. Simply said, Thank You!

le cordon bleu - day 24

I think I have enough croissants to open up a shop (well minus the 2.5 croissants which have gone into my stomach since I've come home from class). I noticed that the TAFE cafeteria was selling croissants for about $3.80 each; that's almost $150 worth of croissants that I brought home today, also equivalent to about 2.5kg of croissants in weight. And well, I reckon I did a pretty good job (taste is SUPER!!!) and I've got an offering of Plain Croissants, Cheese Croissants, Ham & Cheese Croissants, Marzipan Croissants and should you like, I can even do a Frangipane filling to fill up the plain croissants and have them toasted with almonds (hence an almond croissant). The chef was saying how almond croissants are usually the product of day-old plain croissants, in industry they just heat them up with the almond feeling the next day. Regardless of whether or not they're old or not, almond croissants have got to be the yummiest things!

Anyhow, I need to remind myself to be patient and make sure I plasticise my butter to get it the same consistency as the dough for both puff pastry and croissant dough. Whilst my croissants came out fine today, I still had a lot of butter running out onto the tray like with my vol au vents. Fortunately the butter didn't burn the bottom of my croissants like they did with the vol au vents. phew! I really don't want to have to resit my practical next week just because my puff pastry has lumps of butter in it. *shudders*, our chef today made the exam sound so scary!

So I guess that brings us to the end of croissant week and our week of rich doughs. It'll be final exam time next week so no new recipes till the following week!

le cordon bleu - day 23

I suppose I learnt a few things about myself today; both the good and the bad.

The good: I'm not that crazy with my bookshelves of recipe books, recipes, food magazines and food collateral. It's really just been the past 2 years for me whereas someone I talked to today has been collecting, archiving and sourcing all things food related for the past 10 years :P Not only is he a guy, but he even scabs the recipes out of his cousin's Marie Clare once she's done with it (Btw...I do recommend the recipes that Marie Clare publish - they're really quite aesthetically appealing even if you don't cook :D) So anyway, I'm pretty normal for the time being. Give me another couple of years and I'll probably have recipe books, food magazines and the like cramming bookshelves to the brim and filling up the garage. Till that day, I'm normal :D

The bad: I have a short temper and can be unforgiving for the smallest of things. A long story cut short, I was annoyed this morning at one of the girls in my class. What happened was she kept asking me questions as to what we were doing first, what needed to go in first etc. and well, we basically spent the morning watching a demo and this was already explained quite clearly to us. Not only that, the workflow was written extremely clearly on the board and so really, all I did was let her know that everything was on the board (maybe not in the nicest of tones but then I was too annoyed at that time to care). Argh...plus I already had to duck from her flying shards of butter which she sent my way as we were plasticising the butter for our croissant dough - there's really a limit to what I can handle. And well, after the class ended, I nearly had a heart attack because that particular girl said she wanted to speak to me. I wasn't sure what to expect and what came out of it was something I least expected. The girl apologised to me for asking me all those questions and admitted that she was clumsy and actually thanked me for helping her. So the outcome, I was a bit confused and then ended up feeling like crap; and hence I remind myself to control my temper and to take things easy, and to just be that bit more forgiving. I will definitely remember today.


Might I add, I'm also a little forgetful. Photos will be up tomorrow for today's brioche. Brioche filled with lots and lots of chocolate is tres yummy!

le cordon bleu - day 22

So I was saying how I couldn't make it for my Theory test this Friday; they gave me the option of doing it next Monday at 7am in the morning. $#%@! Next week also happens to be the week that my lovely, trusty alarm clock i.e. my wonderous mum is away in New Zealand. Wish me good luck and that I actually wake up for the exam. Anyway who wakes up at that time, please give me a buzz?! please? And far out, it feels like it's back to HSC days. We were given this sheet with a set of dot points which we need to study for and between me and two other girls, we've divided the dot points so we've got them covered. Seriously...

Anyhow, to make up for the unpleasantness of early mornings and an impending final exam and practical, we've got quite a nice line-up this week on the baking side of things. This week we're working with rich doughs i.e. doughs that are high in fats, so you've got all those yummy things like brioches, filled brioches, chocolates croissants, almond croissants, ham and cheese croissants...you probabbly get the picture. I am definitely someone who won't turn down a croissant so a croissant in its many forms is more than welcome! Well, that's not till Wednesday. Today, we simply did some plaited loaves and the brioche dough which we're using tomorrow. Yay! I was the first person today to finish doing my 4 strand, 5 strand and 6 strand plaits. You can see the before and after in the photos (stupid me stuck my towel on the dough after I egg-washed it so one of the loaves doesn't have as nice a finish :( oh wells...)

And I suppose as a word of warning, I really don't recommend anyone to each too much of your sweet dough. Just like you watch the bread prove (i.e. grow bigger from the growth of the yeast), just a little piece of this stuff makes your stomach grow. Take me for example, I ate about 4 pieces (evil/nice teacher made us afternoon tea consisting of filled brioches) and at the moment, I still feel/look as if I'm about 3 months pregnant. They were nice though; although maybe your Asian 'Lai Wong Bao' is a tonne better than brioche dough filled with creme pat. Oh, and I would definitely put more chocolate if I was filling up my brioche :D

And yay, hail to the end of fall-asleep theory classes on a Monday afternoon :D

le cordon bleu - day 21

Save for the baked apple which didn't look too appealing to eat (both when I started making it and when it came out of the oven), I've eaten the tarte tatin, the almond and orange pudding as well as the creme brulee all today; my tummy is quite satisfied :P My favourite has got to be the tarte tatin; it's actually always been one of my favourites for some strange reason. Come to think of it, I've never actually made it before in my life. I might've tried once, having mistakingly used shortcrust pastry for something that distinctively uses puff pastry to give it it's crunchy fluffiness but really, the appeal of this dessert has come through to me in TV shows, recipes and more recipes. You can make mango, banana, pear, pineapple, you choose your fruit for this dessert; really quite a versatile little thing. I imagine there's a number of ways you can make a tarte tartin so I suppose I was a little surprised at how we made it today. Yet regardless of how you make it, I'm sure this dessert will always taste just perfect; trust me! :D

Anyway, excuse my lame effort at plating my desserts. We had to do that today so the chef could mark us on the lesson. I'm not sure what exactly I was thinking; in part I was hoping to use as much of the berry compote we made on Monday (hence the berry drizzle and blueberries) and then using the range of fruits we had available in the kitchen. Does the one at the back of the photo remind you of a tamagotchi pet as it's growing (I think it's when you feed your tamagotchi too much and it develops into this fat lip thing?). So yeah, that's what it reminded me of and it still does when I look at it. The chef made a few comments; the main one being I need to wipe down the side of my plate (haha...actually I was half asleep and didn't see the berry smear that I must've made with my towel as I thought I'd wiped it down :P).

Gosh, I think I'm really going to miss class!

le cordon bleu - day 20

This has to be one of my favourites since I've been at LCB. I know I said I wasn't a big fan of poached fruits but I'm taking it back; this tart is beyond yummy and it's garnished with a rather splendid array of poached pairs in red wine :P And no, my face doesn't go tomato red when I eat it (I imagine most of the alcohol would be boiled out when you poach the pears). Finally, alcohol which I can consume and which doesn't make me look silly! *yay* By the way, it's a poached pear tart filled with pastry cream (or creme patissiere) and a dacquoise base and topped with poached pears in red wine. It's got a syrup glaze which gives it a nice finish and off course stops the tart from drying out and hence improving its shelf life (I've learnt that apricot jam does a similar job in the absence of glaze).

Anyway, it's nearing exam time at LCB and I'm getting a tad nervous. Not only does the theory exam fall on my graduation day next week (hence I've requested to take the exam early), it's actually been a long while since I've properly studied. Those spot tests which we've had for our other theory classes don't count; I've managed to fudge my way through those cause they're not too hard (or more that I cease to care every Monday afternoon cause I'm desperately calling for sleep :( Speaking of which, this week has been quite a struggle; not too sure why.) The fact that I've been addicted to the TV doesn't help either :(

Yay to creme brulee, tarte tartins and puddings tomorrow! :D

le cordon bleu - day 19

I was never a big fan of poached fruit and after making it in class today, I'm not even the slightest encouraged to make it again. Haven't tasted it as yet but I'm pretty sure it's not that great (as confident as I am about my cooking skills). I looked at the poached apples and oranges swimming in my container as I was coming home; and really, I can't see how you can class it as a dessert?! The chef seemed to think that your poached fruits are quite a multi-purpose sort of thing - you can have it for dessert served with other fruits, with cream, by itself or alternatively, as a bit of a treat for breakfast. Anyhow, now that I know how to make it, I don't think I'll be ordering it off any restaurant menus; regardless of any good reviews. We made some poached pears for a tart tomorrow; that should be slightly more exciting :P


The other things we made were fruit jelly and a berry compote, and watched the chef demonstrate a raspberry coulis. The latter are for the plated desserts which we're doing on Wednesday. My jelly turned out nicely but again, not rocket science so I won't go into the details. I quite like the gelatine leaf which we used; does anyone know where you can get some? I agree with the chef and recommend that anyone making the fruit jelly should use aluminium containers or non-stick loaf pans and avoid the teflon. It's a lot easier to unmold (you should've seen the class hold their breaths as we watched the chef unmold hers - after much effort, it unmolded in a splatter of water but still fixable). And once again, I nearly fell asleep during theory; have no idea what I wrote on that test paper but hopefully it was something that made sense :(

le cordon bleu - day 18

There's some kitchen politics going on at the moment which I'm glad I'm not a part of. The head chef has gotten involved, the teachers are wary, and for the rest of us; we seem to have either gotten involved or have noticed the conversations but aren't involved. Fortunately, I belong to the latter group and really, that's the best place to be. Honestly, I'm not too sure what's the commotion is about and I guess one question I would ask is, what's the point? Speaking of which, it's already been 6 weeks for me at LCB; Basic Patisserie is shortly winding up. We've already gotten our assessment timetable plus made all our assessment items; another week or so I've got to sit down and actually do some study and keep my fingers crossed that I'll do ok in the practicals *touchwood*. Time has really flown!

Anyway, today we continued with our puff pastry. I made about 2 boxes of products and still ended up with a good deal of puff pastry dough to take home. One of my classmates gave me her dough as well so I think there's about 1 kg of puff pastry dough which I can still use. Might work on it tonight if I'm not too tired (lol...I'm the biggest bum on a Wednesday afternoon after class :P). As bad as it sounds, I'm a couch potato for at least 3 days of the week :(


So today we had apple turnovers, pithiviers, cream horns and palmiers. My streak of good luck continued with everything coming out of the oven nice and golden brown. A slight drizzle from the lumps of butter that were in my dough but nothing too drastic or awful looking. Seriously, it's such a relief to see your things come out nice after spending so much time and effort on it. Hehe...I reckon I did a pretty good job with the Palmiers; they taste good!

All in all, a rather good week. It's actually really exciting to learn something new everyday and really, I just don't want it to end. Not only am I rewarded with the things I make, the things I've learnt have just been invaluable. It was a hefty price to pay for the course but man, I'm not regretting it one bit! *jenny jumps up and down*. Should be an interesting week next week with all your individual desserts like poached fruits, tarte tartin, creme brulee...hmm...what happens when all that goes in my stomach? :P

le cordon bleu - day 16 + 17

It's puff pastry week as well as a week of savouries; a most welcome change to the sweets of the past 5 weeks! Spent yesterday making our puff pastry dough and today assembling our assorted goods; a beef bourguignon pie, chicken vol au vents, vegetable parcels and a salmon en croute. Despite my dough having lumps of butter in it (the result being running butter on my tray as my things were getting baked), my end products ended up looking alright. My puff pastry managed to lift and rise quite evenly, and all my tops managed to stay on and not pop off; the life and dramas of a patisserie student! lol...you've got to love the fat lips on my fish pie (courtesy of our rather funny Chef Geraldine :P)


We're only about half way through our puff pastry dough so there's a lot more to come tomorrow. It's funny though; having been in class for so long now, I cease to be amazed by the amounts of ingredients which we're using. My mum was asking me about the butter we use and I simply said 'We used 2kg of butter for the pastry' and really, I didn't think much of it. You should've seen my mum's jaw drop and her mouth open and close like a gold fish. Hmm....puff pastry is quite unhealthy yeah?


Once again, I nicked myself on the finger with the knife. I really got to be more careful :(

le cordon bleu - day 15

I just remembered the joke one of the chef's made the other day 'They did tell you to buy your uniform at least 2 sizes larger so you could grow into it, didn't they?' This was met with considerable laughter but realistically speaking, it's more of a statement than a joke. The amount of sugar, butter, cream, milk and eggs I've seen this week has been astonishing! Perhaps it's been my upset stomach, ringing headache and occasional feverish state that I haven't really responded well to the products we've made this week and hence my slight aversion to the afore mentioned products. I really hope my stomach turns itself around next week so I can enjoy my sweets; it really sucks at the moment.

So just a slight correction to yesterday's post, we made 'Paris Brest' and not 'Paris Breast' as I would've typed. Essentially, just more choux puffs filled with a Hazelnut Praline Creme Patisserie. Funny enough Hazelnut Praline smells just like Nutella :P Anyway, I didn't take many photos; here's one of the chefs.

And to bring everyone some sad news, Palm Beach Cupcakes has officially closed for business. Sarah and Rick are going to concentrate on other parts of their business. My new funky, casual job is up in the air (they might have opportunities for me in other parts of their business but I've got to wait). There's also something else in the air which I will speak of soon. What a dismal week of sickness, everyone being sick and the death of Palm Beach Cupcakes.

le cordon bleu - day 14

6 out of 6 of the people who tried my eclairs today said they were yummy but at the same time, the same 6 complained about the sickly sweet fondant that sat on top of it (Sorry everyone, it's not my fault. It's part of the class that we learn how to use fondant. You see, in industry, it's actually more economical to purchase fondant in a tub than to make it yourself. Essentially, fondant is sugar syrup that's been crystallised and tabled; the end result being this gluggy white glop that resembles your royal icing sugar. So basically with this tub, you can then break some spoons, pull a few muscles getting it out, warm it to no more than 37 degrees i.e. body temp, and add some flavour/colour to it to get what you're after. The first time I played with fondant I spent about 5 hours icing over 200 cupcakes; it's definitely something I will never forget. Why people like it and use it, it's quite beyond me. It certainly pissed me off the first time and it certainly aggravated a fair few today who used it for the first time. It's going to be one of our assessment items so regardless of whether we like it or not, we're going to have to live with it.) Wouldn't people prefer tempered chocolate on an eclair? By the way, the chef's ones turned out really shiny cause she stuck hers in the fridge (we're not allowed to do that :P)

And yes, I'm feeling much better since Sunday. I could be much better but I guess that will have to wait another day or two until I can get a bit of a sleep in. I was speaking to Swee (a girl who does Super Patisserie - find the link to her blog 'A Self Proclaimed Foodaholic') and she was saying how it's actually much easier to wait till your day off to get better than to miss class. And I agree with her completely; there would be just so much to catch up on (if that's possible). One of the girls in my class was away for the last 3 days and even the chef said to her, 'something really important must've happened for you to miss class'. So far, I'm still hanging in there and I'm promptly in class every morning. My body seems to wake itself up before I do now in the mornings. But gosh, I do miss my sleep-ins.

I told Emily just then that we were making 'Paris Breasts' tomorrow and now that I think of it, it sounds pretty bad. I've left my notes in my locker so maybe it's called something different. More tomorrow!

le cordon bleu - day 13

So much for fancy names; 'Choux' translates itself to cabbage in French. There you have it, Cabbage Puffs and Cabbage paste for lesson 13 at LCB. In all honestly, these puffs don't resemble cabbages any one bit. Even the chef made the comment that the French are a funny bunch. Although silly as it all is, I guess it makes cooking fun and key terms just that bit easier to remember. And all along I thought the word 'Choux' made things sound so much more sophisticated; I guess the alternative 'Cream Puff' makes much more sense. Anyway, here are the one's the chef made for the display (as well as for our consumption :P)


Well not a particularly exciting lesson today. Just a whole lot of choux puffs filled with creme chantilly, creme patisserie and chocolate creme patisserie. I did a perfectly good job with my puffs (the chef pointed out that I made them a good size! although some of the larger ones did collapse a bit because they could've been kept in the oven a minute or two longer) but really, my stomach just couldn't handle the smell of eggs and butter. This could've been to do with the fact that I was swept over with a fever whilst at work yesterday (ended up going home and sleeping for over 12 hours) and well, for the fact that it was a Monday morning and nothing really happens for me on a Monday morning (far out, the food they were serving at the cafeteria was absolutely disgusting today - I blame that on the Monday blues which most of us seem to have). And ok, I thought my fever was over when I woke up this morning but then my nose started running as I got into class (the air conditioning in the kitchen really didn't help). Fortunately the running of the nose came in bouts so I wasn't blowing my nose as I was cooking. So good day with my puffs but an awful day for myself. *fingers crossed* that tomorrow will be better.


Chocolate Eclairs tomorrow. Emily, I'll do my best to deliver your batch to you tomorrow night. Let me know whoever else is interested for either tomorrow or Wednesday. In the meantime, everyone take care and try not to get sick. Turns out I'm not the only one, J's sick too as are two of my cousins (and these are incidents just in the space of yesterday!). Really not good!

le cordon bleu - day 12

I still remember back when I used to laugh at Andrew at work for eating florentines. These were things that old people ate; nuts and more nuts plus just that bit of chocolate. For awhile, I actually refused to touch these things. At most places, you'll find these for about $3.50 and frankly, wouldn't you spend this money on something else if you had a choice? Although one day, I did give it a go and since then, I've got to say that I've been converted. Out of all the ones I've tried, there are some slight variations but generally speaking, you can associate the words 'crunchy delight' with these morsels. You can't really go wrong with these things; both store-bought and supermarket-packed ones are equally crunchy. I would highly recommend everyone to head to Aldi for this particular brand which sell them petit four-sized with a mixture of various flavours. Otherwise, Kez does a rather good gluten-free florentine (the only downside being the price); I used to love getting these at the uni shops because it seemed like these were the only places that sold them.

So today I had a hand in making my own florentines and it was definitely much easier than I thought it would be. We were just saying yesterday how the classes seemed to be getting progressively harder and more complicated but making florentines was a breeze. I think half the class was making mistakes today just because we were getting bored. Lol...one of my classmates even started chopping his chocolate button by button because we had so much time. Anyways, I'm a very proud owner of 12 florentines (down to 11 now...hehe :D) and seriously, they taste really good! Does anyone know where to buy glucose syrup?

So I guess that brings me to the end of my chocolate week. I'm pretty alright with tempering chocolate. For some reason today, my chocolate set in my piping bag before I could even pipe it (rather bizarre!). My love for florentines has definitely grown and I definitely won't satisfy for less now. No more of that peanut and sultana stuff I get from cafes. Actually, does anyone know where you can get a good florentine in Sydney? I haven't really seen many around. I'll dig into mine for the time being.

le cordon bleu - day 11

A somewhat interesting day making chocolates; actually I thought the chef was perhaps a little stressed over finishing on time. We managed that alright but there was just something about the way the class was run today that got on most people's nerves. It could've been the fact that the chef questioned us on the nitty-gritty of chocolate making and the fact that we were made to do things slowly and much more pedantically; it just seemed so much easier yesterday to make chocolate. I guess one other thing was that it seemed like the chef was telling us off for doing things the wrong way when we learnt all of it from the chef yesterday. Well, seems like we've all learnt to keep quiet; at the end of the day, you adapt what you've learnt and do what's best for you.



I managed quite alright today. The chef complimented me on the shine of my chocolates; I didn't do anything fancy like some of my classmates did although should time permit, I'll have a hand at it tomorrow (I hear we'll have some time after we make florentines). My chocolates were dark chocolate filled with the assorted ganaches from yesterday; strangely enough my favourite is probably Wattleseed. I'm not quite sure what it is; my cousin tells me it's the seed of the wattle plant but anyhow, the important thing is that it tastes really good! Lol...I actually filled about half my chocolates with Wattleseed...today I managed to make 4 trays (I've been told that that could be worth up to $200!!!).

Other than that, not much else today. A bit of an early mark like yesterday and really, I'm grateful for it. Whilst my body seems to wake up punctually every morning at about 6.30am, I struggle to get through the rest of the day so it's actually a really nice feeling to get home early in the afternoon and rest. On dinner duty tonight so should probably get going on that.

le cordon bleu - day 10

The week of bread truly ended with mum tossing out a number of mouldy beings from our bread container this morning. I'm calling out for food recipients for the upcoming weeks. It seems that despite the assistance I have of 2 aunties, an uncle and their families, I'm still not clearing out the food I bake from class each week and really, it upsets me (all the good food going to waste!) So for those interested, give me a buzz and I can let you know what's on the agenda in the upcoming weeks. I assure you that no one will be turned down :P


So after a week of bread, it's a week of chocolate! I don't even want to remember how many chocolates I ate in the space of class today and how many dribbles of chocolate I plopped into my mouth because at the time, it seemed like the best place to put it. If you see my uniform, there's every evidence of our chocolate lesson (as I would've expected) and fortunately, I didn't leave the class today being the grubbiest of them all. Well, I did cheat a little by wearing an apron but that was after I remembered I had one in my bag. Stupid me! In a nutshell, the whole lesson was spent tempering chocolate via the addition method and the tabling method. One of the other methods which the handbook speaks of is the Microwave method. Obviously, we weren't going to be spending our lesson doing that. And well, after doing the tabling method once, I resorted to tempering the rest of my chocolate via the Addition method because it's so much easier and you lose less chocolate (basically you melt half your chocolate and add the other half chopped into it). With the tabling method, you're spreading the chocolate out on a marble slab to cool it down. Far out, that piece of marble is so heavy I don't understand why you would want to use it!

In addition to tempering chocolate, we made our ganache fillings for tomorrow but really, it was a short lesson. I've got to say that I'm still a big chocolate fanatic and I haven't been put off by a day's worth of chocolate making. Although making chocolate isn't exactly the most exciting patisserie lesson; maybe it'll be better tomorrow when we make filled chocolates. Looking around the class, you could really see some people getting quite bored. For me, I was happily chocolate-ing away and the double goodness was that all my trays of chocolate came up with a nice shine. Hmm....I can't exactly say that about everyone in the class. I think a lot of people were rushing their chocolate and not doing it properly. I suppose the annoying thing for me is that I have warm hands so every time I was picking up my chocolates, I needed to soak my hands for a little while in cold water. Oh...and my moulded chocolate chef, it's head kept coming off. Quite disturbing!

A good day but quite sleepy now. To everyone who celebrates Chinese New Year, Happy Chinese New Year to you all! I hope we all got a lot of red pockets :D

le cordon bleu - day 9 + happy valentine's day

Happy Valentine's Day everyone! I hope everyone spent the day with something sweet and nice to remember :D For myself, I spent another day making bread and of all days, today happened to be the healthy bread; wholemeal as well as pepita (or seeded) bread. Quite a different day to yesterday; we ended up skipping lunch to get everything baked and out of the oven so we could leave half an hour before our usual finish time. I reckon I'm a bit of a master at making bread now but really, just glad that the week of bread is over (I've been told that I'm really starting to look like a panda now - do pandas eat bread??) I've been told that about 300 chocolates are on the agenda for the next week as well as one of my favourites; florentines. Next week is definitely one to look forward to. (Actually we did spend this afternoon piping chocolate...the chef insisted cause we finished too early. lol...most of us got so bored we ended up piping the chocolate into our mouthes..it was yummy!)


And well, after a week of making bread, I got to say I'm awfully amazed at how much I've achieved. It's definitely not one of Einstein's equations or some really complicated mathematical formula to further science, but just new kitchen skills for me and some new knowledge about the food I eat. I think my family has benefited greatly from the mounds of bread I've brought home every day and I've really got to thank my relo's for helping us out in that respect. It's an awfully good thing to have teenage boy cousins cause they eat bread like they eat chips. Thanks Bernard and Andrew for your compliments as well as help in eating all the bread :D

Anyway, so when I got home today, I thought I'd compare a loaf of store bought bread and one of my 500g loaves I made in class. It was crazy how big a difference there was. The store bought one was slightly heavier but size-wise, it was so much bigger and airier compared to the loaves I baked. They really rort you on ingredients for the $3.50 or so you pay for a loaf of bread. In saying that, it's not like I'm going to be kneading bread on a daily basis just to get my nice bread but man, the baking this week has really got me to think about what really goes into the baked products that we buy from outside.

So how did I spend the rest of Valentine's Day? J came over for dinner tonight and I made a Chicken and Creamy Bacon Heart Pasta for everyone. Mum managed to find this cute pack of heart pasta when she was shopping at Aldi. I'm actually quite keen on visiting Aldi some day; mum seems to always return home with all these interesting goods which I've never seen before. The shame was that the hearts started to break as I was cooking the pasta; surely not a bad omen on today? Anyhow, keeping on the theme of hearts, I managed to find these cute heart baking molds when I went shopping for a scraper for the florentines we're making next week. One of the guys in my class was complaining how we don't make muffins in our course and that prompted me to dig out one of the Donna Hay recipes for a blueberry muffin which I'd been intending to make for some time. They turned out quite well but still a bit short of how I'd like them to taste - some of the ones you buy outside seem to use rice flour which gives it that crumbly texture; think I'll try that next time.


One kitchen trick I also picked up was that Blueberry juice stains on your hands can be removed with a little bit of lemon juice. So glad for it! For those who might be using frozen blueberries in your baking, keep this one handy!

Out!