Not 9:30AM but 3:30AM

It's been nearly 5 weeks since I've been back to New York and I'm definitely suffering withdrawal. Everything has become a "In Paris, blah blah blah. It's so different compared to here!" or "When I was in Paris, I did blah blah blah." I'm betting that most people around me are tired of hearing me whine about my short lived life in another country. It's too bad that I didn't even get a chance to blog here before I left! 

My boyfriend came to visit me and helped me clean up my mess on rue Dulac. I probably would have panicked more and broke down much earlier had he not been there with me to take my mind off things. Thanks boyfriend! 

So here I am sitting in the home I grew up in; typing this up at nearly 4AM. Quite obvious that I have plenty of time to spare and am in no rush for what normally people would be doing at this hour: sleeping and then waking up for work. Yes, currently still unemployed. This means more baking at home! I actually haven't kept up with my original idea of baking something once a week. I did bake twice and am in the process of making a Chai flavored ice cream. Here's a picture as proof.

I made two flavored eclairs with a crumble on top as opposed to fondant. Passion fruit flavored pastry cream and chocolate pastry cream with a hint of passion fruit (I do like the fruit indeed!). With the leftover egg whites from the pastry cream, I decided to make macarons with them. The shells were colored with Intense Red (the label was no joke; it was eye blinding-ly red) and flavored with lavender. I made a pistachio ganache filling but unfortunately it wasn't enough so I used the rest of the chocolate pastry cream. It was too sweet for my taste but some people liked it, which is all that matters!

I'll take a picture of the ice cream when (or if) it gets churned tomorrow. We're experiencing a heat wave for this week and our air-conditioner at home has decided to take multiple lunch breaks so it makes this into a pretty hot situation for ice cream making. Hoping for the best!

I'm getting a little lazy now so maybe I'll post up some other pictures for next time! I think I should also rename the blog as it's not really so etranger anymore.

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.

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!