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!