Class Photos and Dark Cherries

Lesson 08: Gâteau Basque (Butter cake with Pastry Cream) and Crème Diplomate (Diplomat Cream). We made the Gâteau Basque during practical (thank goodness!). It's so nummy with the dark red cherries! No, I was not allergic to them if that causes any alarm among those who know of my food allergies. I didn't particularly like the taste of the Crème Diplomate. It had those candied fruits in it again. It also had golden raisins, which is somewhat acceptable but yeah I don't like chewy items in soft mushy food. Okay, I just don't like the taste of candied fruits in general.

Look, we learned a bit of plating with Raspberry and Apricot Coulis along with pistachios and fruit pieces for the Crème Diplomate. It was also drizzled with some Crème Anglaise (English Cream). The decoration sauce was tasty.

I ate more than half of my Gâteau Basque already now. Yes I am a fatty indeed! I always remind myself to bring my cakes downstairs to give it to the sushi people but I get lazy. It's odd how I don't mind running down to throw out the trash and come back up but I mind carrying a cake down. Maybe because I'd have to use people skills to socialize using my amateur French. "Bonjour. Je suis une étudiante chez Le Cordon Bleu. Souhaitez-vous quelque gâteau? J'ai trop beaucoup." And it'll end there as they stare at me like I'm a madwoman. Actually, perhaps I should start off asking if they speak Chinese.

Anyway, we also took class photos for the Basic Patisserie groups. Here shows Groups D, E, and F. I am in Group D. I look like a boy, I know. It's that darn hairnet and hat. I found that no one wore their hairnet for the photo. I have sacrificed my femininity for the sake of not having to put the hairnet on later for the demonstration class that was coming up.

I haven't done much walking around taking photos lately. Instead, I've been clothes shopping! I couldn't help myself. I had brought such casual clothes with me that I had forgotten that I'd be socializing here. I think it would be a little silly to be wearing jeans and a tee to the school dinner next week. Well, maybe some dude might but it looked like a nice restaurant so the least I can do is try to dress up a bit.

Anyhow, that's all for today. Another 8:30AM class tomorrow. I think I am getting adjusted to that now. If it was for work, probably not. haha. I will post up food photos in my next blog. Too lazy to grab them off the camera tonight. It's also very cold here but I am too cheap to turn on the heater. Meh!

Carbs Galore Among Other Edibles

I find myself eating my pastries for lunch now. Partly because I am cheap and do not want to spend additional money on food and partially because I feel like it's a waste of tuition if I just throw it out. And so as a result, I sacrifice my figure (Not that I have a notable one to begin with). Ah, the tragedy of a poor culinary student living in a foreign country where its currency is against her advantage.

Anyways, onto Lesson 06: Pâte à choux and Lesson 07: Meringue. See below!

Left to right, top to bottom: Éclairs with Crème Chantilly, Chef C piping the Choux Chantilly (Chantilly cream filled puffs), Éclairs with coffee and chocolate fondant and pastry cream filling, Choux Chantilly, Glands (Acorns), Chouquettes (Choux Pastries in front) and Salambos (behind).

Left to right, top to bottom: Dacquoise with Praline Buttercream decoration #1, Dacquoise with Praline Buttercream decoration #2, Dacquoise with Praline Buttercream decoration #3, Meringue Française (French Meringue), Chef DW demonstrating how to make the marzipan flower, and Meringue Suisse (Swiss Meringue).

Here is a photo of my finished products! Wow, I have never exercised my arm so much before in mixing and whisking. I will never take my KitchenAid for granted ever again.

And just for kicks, here's some photos of the food that I've been cooking at home. I rarely cook at home in New York so I can't help but record what I've been making these days. They're very amateur as I don't know any recipes and whatnot. They were edible though! *Pat on the back. :)

Left to right, top to bottom: Sautéed onions and mushrooms with chopped tomatoes alongside spaghetti topped with homemade alfredo sauce (yes, I used the wrong cheese and I didn't have milk), spaghetti with steamed vegetables, meatballs and cherry tomatoes, red onion soup with beef cubes and rice topped with cheese, and beef with red onions mixed with chili paste over rice.

Did I successfully make anyone drool? haha Anyway, two days off! W00ts! Then another 8:30AM - 9:00PM schedule on Thursday. I shiver at that thought. Hopefully it'll be sunny these two days so I can stroll the Parisian neighborhoods again.

Today Marks My Official Residency

Today was my appointment at l'OFII to get my medical examination and resident permit approved. Paid my 55€ in taxes first. Afterwards, I hopped from room to room to get eyesight (near and far) checked, weight and height checked, lungs x-rayed (first experience ever and I even get to keep the copy), and finally a face to face discussion about my health in general. Overall, I passed! They stamped and signed my medical certificate and stuck the resident permit into my passport. "C'est fini!" is what they said to me after all that was done and over with. Finally! All legal documentation done.

With that completed, I took my stroll through Paris once again but this time from the 11ème to 4ème to 1er. I just basically went from East to West but this time on Rue de Rivoli. Here are some pictures!

There's: Hôtel de Ville on top left (going clockwise), a neighborhood filled with streets like these near Forum des Halles (a mall), Tour Saint-Jacques (Saint-Jacques Tower), L’église Saint-Eustache (a church in Les Halles), and Colonne de Juillet (July Column) with L'Opéra Bastille in Bastille. This is not the order of where I walked. It's just for the sake of fitting the photos in proportionately. Lots of cultural buildings and monuments that I passed by. So breathtaking!

Since I was in the area, I decided to check out Bubble-T. As seen in the photo, the letter "T" seems to be missing. hah.

I ordered a Green Bubble Chai. It was okay... I should've went for Matcha au Lait or something. Yes, it came with the tapioca that I never really liked. BUT the nifty thing worth mentioning was that the lid had my astrological sign!

On a side note, I really liked the portraits hung on the wall. Very artistic. It seems like with my logo there, it's as though I'm claiming credit for those pieces of art. I'm just claiming credit for photographing them!

So here are also some nummies I have came across today shown below. Times like these, I really do wish I had the polarizer lens filter. Horrible window reflections of light and sometimes of me holding the camera...

Well, actually, the bottom left photo is savory. There's cheese and meat in them. Anyhow... since we're on the topic of food, here's a recap of Lesson 05 at le Cordon Bleu: Feuilletage (Puff Pastry)

During demonstration, we learned how to make Chaussons aux Pommes (Apple Turnovers), Palmiers (Palms), and Pailles aux Framboises (Raspberry Strawmats). Layers and layers of butter. Yum. In demonstration, we only made the Chaussons and the Palmiers. See below!

I'll need practice with this puff pastry. My layers weren't exactly puff enough. Boo. Oh and we ended up having Chef C as our practical chef. I was happy. Anyway, that's all for tonight. Tomorrow will be back to pâte à choux with both demonstration and practical in one day. Oh and it will be the start of my French language classes! Huzzah.

The Saint Honoré That Nearly Broke My Arm Off

Lesson 04: Choux Pastry. It's always so easy when watching Chefs demonstrate the method but when it's hands on for yourself, you realize that it's harder than it seems! Try beating and mixing a ball of dough into soft batter by hand. Then shortly after that, whip your own Chantilly Cream again by hand. Plenty of arm exercise in that lesson! I'll try to keep my blogs short and concise without too many boring details. So, here's some pictures to drool over!

Yes, I have realized that mine does not look as spectacular as Chef C's examples. I'll need some more practicing on piping skills. So many students burned themselves when dipping the choux into the cooked sugar syrup (I included). They warn you to be careful, otherwise, you'll get your finger cooked! Indeed, some students did cook parts of the hands. Minor though, luckily.

So I ended up piping too many balls of choux so I decided to put sandwich some ice cream in them. They made a nice after dinner dessert. Yum. So now I still have half the cake occupying my container which I will need for tomorrow's class. What do I do?! All my containers are used up. I seriously need mouths to eat these... because the next mouth I'm thinking of right now is the trash can's.

Another 8:30AM class coming up today. My classmate and I are the assistants for this week. I hope I won't screw up and forget some ingredient. Chef MOF could possibly be the instructor. Let's see how this will turn out. We will be making Chausson aux Pommes (Apple Turnovers) and Palmiers (Palms). Until then!

A Conglomeration of Things

Lesson 03: Cake aux Fruits (Fruit Cakes), Madeleines, and Week-Ends (Lemon Pound Cakes) were shown during the demonstration by a new Chef that we haven't had before! I think he has become my favourite Chef to learn from.

He is Chef XC. Very light-hearted and free spirited with a good sense of humour. Very much unlike the Chef who had us for the practical. They were nearly two complete opposites!

Chef NB was the one who taught us for the practical. He was the MOF of 2004. Perhaps that is why he seems to be the most strict of all chefs? He had some slight sense of humour as well but was predominantly just yelling at students or lecturing them. Yes, I was one of the victims.

But in the end, this is the result of the war zone in the kitchen. My Cake aux Fruits and Madeleines.

Chef MOF criticized me for having laid my Madeleines on the bump to cool off so they were ugly. I suppose that I should have laid them out more neatly before I had rushed off to wash the molds. I was just afraid he'd yell at me for not having washed the molds yet!

Anyway, the Cake aux Fruits weren't too bad despite having soaked with a rum syrup. It doesn't taste like the much appalled fruit cakes during Christmastime. I think the toasted almonds and the rum makes it better. I mean, who doesn't like alcohol?!

Today, we learned Pâte à Choux during demonstration but I'll post up pictures after we have completed the practical. I'm still trying to finish up the aforementioned pastries. In fact, I still have the Diamonds!!

Instead, I'll just show some photos during my stroll around the 1er, 2ème, and 8ème Arrondisements. I have already posted some of these on my Facebook photo album so you can just skim through if you have seen it.

Doesn't the Arc de Triomphe make you think of the background used for this blog? haha That's the first thing that came to my mind. And here's just for fun: the nummies I have come across that I remembered to take a photo of :)

Sigh. And now I dread the 8:30AM class to come in just... 9 hours from now. Saint Honoré, here I come!

Apple Picking in the Kitchen

Here we are again with Chef JFD on tarts! So begins Lesson 02: Classic French Apple Tart, Tart Tatin, and Normandy Tart; all of which uses the basic sweet short pastry... and apples.

Not much to really say about this lesson except that we had a taste test of all three tarts at the end. I originally had myself confused with the Classic French Apple Tart and the Tart Tatin.

During the practical, I knew we were to make the Classic French Apple Tart (by appearance) but I had the recipe/name incorrect in my mind so I had almost made the wrong item! Luckily my classmates corrected me.

Oh yes, and for the first time, I raised my hand in class to ask a question. Wow, Anna who never talks in class unless she's been called on by the professor.

Anyways, onto the more enjoyable part of the blog: the photos.

Here are the finished pieces by the Chef. The left two (top and bottom) are the Normandy Tarts, which have an egg custard in between the gaps of the apple slices. The top is glazed with an apricot glaze to create a luscious shine.

The two next to them are the Classic French Apple Tarts. These were not glazed with apricot but they have been brushed with butter and sugar. Not as shiny. There's an apple filling with cinnamon underneath all those thin slices of apples.

Lastly, we have the Tart Tatin. No matter how I angled my camera, I couldn't get a picture that made it look appealing enough. It sort of looks like a mess so I'm not exactly sure if it's supposed to look like that...

Well, one thing that I'm sure of is that it's better than what I would be able to do!

All of them tasted pretty good! Apples were a little tart but it's fine. I wouldn't want a mouthful of sugary sweetness anyway.

And so we move onto our practical led by Chef JJT: a display of some students' masterpieces! They all looked very creative. There was even one with a little heart! I don't know which student that one belonged to. My guess is a girl. hah. I wanted to do a heart shape too but in the end, I just opted for half a heart and lined them up. They were so thin so they got burnt anyway. Boo. Anyhow, pictures below.

Looks good, doesn't it? Well, anyway, here's a not so good looking photo that my mom kept urging me to post: me in my outfit/uniform.

This was from yesterday's practical with the sablés. I look like a dork, yes I am very well aware of that. Maybe if I had shown my apron and whatnot, it would look more professional?

Yeah, maybe not with that hairnet and smile. haha.

So I don't know what to do with these finished baked goods. My landlord is actually paying me a visit tomorrow. For what? I don't really know exactly but I am making him take some of it. It's such a waste if I were to throw it out. If only you guys were here to lend a stomach like you always do!

Here are my creations: the Diamonds (from yesterday's practical) and the Classic French Apple Tart (from today's practical).

I ate both tonight as dessert after dinner. Again, the apples were quite tart... My apple tart was tart! har har har.... okay, maybe not.

See the burnt slices? Yeah, not that pretty. Better luck next time on the decorating skills! I have none.

Hope you enjoyed my horrendously long blog tonight. It took me forever to write and upload the photos. Sorry if I had bored you.

I know, the layout is bad too. haha.

Anyway, a free weekend!! You guys back in the States have Labor Day off. Lucky you. I have class on Monday. At least it's not the 8:30AM one yet. That's on Thursday. Sigh. You guys can give me a wake up call. It's 12am on your side during the time I need to wake up. :P Yeah? Yeah? Volunteers?

Okay, good night. :)

Almost All About Sablés and Buttery Goodness

Lesson 00: We learned how to make raw almond paste, praline paste, marzipan, coffee essence, apricot glaze and my least favorite, fondant.

Luckily, most of these are more cost efficient if we purchase it pre-made, however, it's still good to keep in mind its fundamental ingredients. So here's a photo of the finished products.

One of the fondant here is flavored with the coffee essence. Then there's also an example of a blanched almond and a non-blanched one. The toasted nuts gave such a nutty aroma in the classroom. It smelled so good! Hmm, I actually don't even remember what the chef did with the apricot glaze. It's not in the photo here. Eh... Anyway onto next lesson.

We had a 20 minute break in what is called The Winter Garden. It's basically where the students lounge.

Lesson 02: Shortbread! (Also called Sablés in French.) Chef JFD showed us 5 assortments of shortbread: Nantais shortbread, Glasses, Chocolate shortbread, Brittany shortbread biscuits, and Diamonds.

So this is how the demonstrations are done... as seen in the photo. It's almost like how those kitchen cooking demonstrations are done at Macy's. I caught the translator in this picture here in the midst of her speaking.

I had to rely on the mirror's reflection most of the time to see what he was doing. Shifting left and right because of the heads in front of me... I must have annoyed the person who sat behind me. Try to get closer seats next time!

Well, fear not! If you still cannot see properly, there's always the flatscreens all around the room. But I didn't pay 20,000 euros to learn from watching the television.

It smelled of such buttery goodness when these shortbreads were placed in the oven to bake. I almost felt the pounds coming on.

At the end, he cut the shortbreads into pieces and shared it with all the students to taste test. They were quite nummy! I especially liked the Glasses (Lunettes in French) just because of the jam that was sandwiched in between.

Here's his finished products:

There's Checkerboard Cookies on the left plate that was made with the Chocolate shortbread and some leftover dough from some other shortbread. The middle plate holds the Brittany Shortbreads: one sprinkled with sugar and the other brushed with egg wash. The rest that's all over the place are the Glasses. They remind me of Linzer Cookies.

The ones on the left plate consists of leftover dough combined with Chocolate Shortbread dough on both sides. In the middle are the Diamonds (I should've taken a piece of that to try! It had orange zest in it). The plate next to that has the Nantais Shortbread which has been brushed with a coffee flavored eggwash. I like the deep, dark color that is produced from it. Then the rest is the same as mentioned before.

C'est tout pour aujourd'hui! It was a long demonstration but it didn't feel that long. Got home around 10 something and cooked a somewhat quick dinner. I was pretty hungry as I finished it all! This means I have to cook again tomorrow night. Bleh... Might as well, here's what I made.

It's just basically veggies with Vietnamese beef balls stir fried in sesame oil and oyster sauce. Simple but it was pretty tasty to me! Or perhaps I was just hungry... I'm still hungry T_T. Anyways, long post. Tomorrow is the practical. Hope I don't cause a fire in the kitchen!

Receiving My Carte D'Etudiant

So begins Basic Patisserie! August 30th was when I had my orientation. Here's my official student ID card! And also part of the uniform in the background. I can run around to all the shops and try to get student discounts now. :P

So I've noticed that there's quite a number of students from China and what's weird is that they all know how to speak French somewhat. I never thought of that combination. I admit that I am impressed! Unfortunately, not a single one speaks Cantonese. I feel so left out.

The entire procedure for the orientation was conducted in French, which was translated into English shortly afterwards. I tried to understand the French but heavily relied on the translation. I am full of fail.

We were divided into 4 groups and each toured the school in addition to meeting the pastry chefs. They handed out uniform and equipment at the end. The locker rooms are tiny. There's barely any room for us to stand in there to change... I might just end up wearing the uniform over my clothes instead of changing out of them so I can get out of that cramped area ASAP!

Anyway, so here are the utensils. This was a heavy kit to carry home. Luckily, I can leave this in the locker. I just brought it home to label them as mine so that it does not get mixed up with the other students. They're all Wüsthof branded. So fancy! I wonder how much this kit costs alone. I had already paid for it in the tuition anyway.

I will embark on my first demonstration today at 15:30 to 21:30h (3:30pm-9:30pm). 6 hours straight. I hope I won't fall asleep...

Oh, so I also bought my first baguette. I used some Nutella to spread over a few slices to eat as a late lunch/afternoon snack. Yum.

When you guys come visit, I'll make sure to have some at home so you can enjoy too. C'est un plaisir! I see that phrase everywhere here when it comes to the baguette and Nutella combination.

I still have not been able to find Speculoos here. I wonder if it's only a Belgian thing. The Speculoos spread rivals up to Nutella in my opinion. Nummy!

Anyway, I'll try to take some photos at school today. I'll bring my DSLR and hope they won't scold me for bringing such a huge chunk of technology into the room.