Fickle Weather and Trip Planning

It's been a little more chilly these days around again while the previous week I had to open the windows because it had felt so warm. It's like a tug of war between winter and spring! Or something of the likes.

Anyhow, we had our Lessons 05 and 06 this week thus far. (Lesson 07 tomorrow but I'll post that next week). We learned to recreate typical restaurant dishes such as the Crème brûlée au caramel and layered cakes with buttercream and ganache. Oh yeah, we also learned ice cream for the first time. I totally missed where they took the bowl of freshly made (not frozen yet) ice cream but it went out the room and was brought back in later when it was needed. There is a freezer in the classroom... I don't know. Anyway, pictures below!

Why yes, we made a fancier style of macaron known as Macaron Anis-Framboise (which is a raspberry filled macaroon with anise flavored pastry cream) and my favorite cake, Opéra. I forgot which way the accent mark for the "e" went so I didn't pipe it on. Unfortunately, Chef caught it and commented about my lack of an accent proceeding to draw into my glaze with his palm pilot stylus. Hence, that mark you see there is obviously not piped on. Don't ask what that horrible design on the corner is. He was stopping everyone from continuing on so I randomly rushed to just fill up some surface area.. Meh.

Onto other things outside of school, I had my first fondue here in Paris with some classmates. We ordered two different pots of cheeses. It was so tasty dipping bread and potatoes into them! Extremely tummy satisfying but a few hours later, I was hungry again. hehe. One meal a day does that to you.

And now with regards to the trip planning, there's quite a bit going on! This weekend will be a mini trip to Lyon by train. There will be an exhibition focusing on trends in the food and catering industry. There are a few schoolmates who are also attending. (It is an event that our school is promoting and participating in.) While we are there, might as well check the city out, right? The month after, two friends and I will be flying down to Milano for a bit during our break between classes. Hope the weather will be good.

The Friday on the week that we return to Paris, Sally will be visiting! I'm pretty psyched about that! Shortly after, my brother will fly in and we'll be heading down to where else but Italy again. Florence and Venice are on the itinerary. I would have preferred Athens but I guess that will have to wait. The calendar is quickly getting filled up with events! On the other hand, my wallet is quickly emptying out. Traveling is a bad addiction.

Anyway, until next time!

More Cakes With Fruits

This week focused on using fruits as the main ingredient. Both cakes were assembled with two thin cake discs entrapping a mousse or cream filling with fruit pieces in the center. As it usually is with mousses and creams, there was a lot of whisking.

Lesson 03: Jamaïque (Jamaica). Where this name originated, I'm not so sure. I can, however, tell you that it is made with a chocolate joconde biscuit that is decorated with grated coconut, sliced almonds, and coarse pistachio. In between is a coconut mousse with poached pineapples. On top is a thin layer of mango-passion fruit mousse (Mine was too thin because my strip of joconde was cut out too high)

After class, we took a field trip to Angelina, a well known restaurant on Rue de Rivoli. They're famously known for their incredulously rich hot chocolate and Mont Blanc (not the pen, but the chestnut/Chantilly cream dessert). Anyhow, we were able to take a quick tour of their kitchen through the guidance of the sous chef. We were shown the various machinery utilized to make production more quick and efficient. Sure beats whisking and piping everything by hand! By the end of the tour, they shared some deletable sweets with us.

Lesson 04: Fraisier. Many of you are probably familiar with this one. It's a genoise cake with mousseline cream lined with strawberries. My mom and I actually made this cake together in Hong Kong at those one-day culinary courses some while back. Of course ingredients and procedures were somewhat different. It had red beans in the mousseline cream and it used whipped (Chantilly) cream instead of Italian meringue, etc.

A weekend off! I will be seeing some school friends tomorrow night for a housewarming party so that will be fun. Before that, I hope I'd have the chance to buy some dried anchovies to make my soondooboo soup sometime this week. Attempt #2!

I'm also currently in the process of figuring out which destination should be next on my 4-5 day breaks in the coming months. Athens is quite tempting as the airfare is around $200 roundtrip. There is also the option of Italy (Florence + Venice or Rome + Venice). Any picks or suggestions?

A Love for Fruits

Our second lesson involved making tarts with the fruity fillings of raspberry, passion fruit, and lemon. It was a somewhat light and refreshing taste to the palette. Low in carbohydrates and butter. Yum.

The one with the white cream piped on top is the Tarte Légère au Citron (Lemon Tart). It has an almond cream spread at the bottom of the tart and lemon cream piped over it. The other one is the Tarte Passion-Framboise (Passion Fruit and Raspberry Tart), which is also the one we made in our practical. It consists of 2 layers: raspberry jelly and passion fruit cream.

I obviously need to work on my decorating skills but I guess it could pass as a simple design. They brought out strawberries at the end when I was done shaping my "S". Alas, I didn't want to bother with trying to somehow fit it into this design without it looking so apparent that it was a last minute addition. I'm sure there'll be some of you who are glad I didn't get my hands on the strawberries hehe.

Another afternoon class today. It appears my schedule this time is more broken up than previous. Many of the demonstrations and practicals for the same lessons are held on separate days. I suppose that will make these months go by quicker since there will be more or less something to do nearly every day.

Wow, we're already almost halfway into January. Chinese New Year is coming up soon. Of all days, that is the day that we will have both demonstration and practical from 12h30 on. I was all excited and looking forward to attend the parade in Chinatown just to see how is it conducted here. I guess that won't be happening after all! Boo. Enjoy it for me, guys.

Ringing in the New Year with Puff Pastry

Bonne année 2011! Intermediate Pastry began today with both demonstration and practical for my group. At first, I was dreading it a bit but it wasn't too bad after all. We received an entirely new binder full of recipes for the semester!

Lesson 01: We learned Streusel (Streusel Cake), Pavé aux Amandes (Almond Cake), and Écossais (Scottish). So, Streusel Cake was the only one that incorporates puff pastry. hehe. Pictures below!

Yeah, I tried to be fancy with my powdered sugar decoration but I was horrible at cutting the shape out the cardboard. At that angle, it's not as easily noticeable how my "flames" are not smooth and curvy. hehe.

My critique for today: be more generous with the garnishing! Oh, and also improve on crimping the edges of the Streusel Cake. It's very similar to how a "Gok Jai" (fried Chinese flaky crescent pastries with peanut & sugar inside) is sealed up. Whenever I tried to help my mom during all those times when she made them, I would never be able crimp them nicely. If I had done it more back then, it would have paid off today!

Onto other things: I finally took a quick stroll through Jardin du Luxembourg yesterday. Who knew they'd close up the park at 4:45pm! Luckily I was able to snap a few photos before I got whistled out the gates. I kind of wished that it was a snowy scenery instead but bare trees also signify winter just as well.

I'll leave it at that for now. I took more pictures but it's time to hunt for some food. :)