We had two days off – Sunday and Monday, and I was feeling pretty recharged for the new school week.

On Monday, I went out with a friend to see some of the specialty kitchen stores. In the last two weeks, I have lost quite a few things – paring knife, bench scraper and pastry brush. The paring knife was the most heartbreaking, because it costs 36 Euros. ):

I felt like a kid in a candy store. I really wanted to buy everything there! All the stores are in the same area, but most are on the same street – Rue Montmatre. The list of stores we visited: Deco Relief, Mora, A.Simons, Dehillerin and La Bovida. We got off at the metro stop Etienne Marcel and all are within walking distance.

We walked quite a bit after, and did some shopping along Rue de Rivoli. The stores everywhere are having sales now, so we managed to snag some footwear at half price! We stopped for dinner at Les Deux Palais.

I had the Croque Madame – that awesome “sandwich” with gruyere, ham and a fried egg. Oh man, it was so good! We sat and chatted for almost 3 hours before heading home. It was a good day!

On Tuesday, we had an internship talk in the morning. This was for students who are considering doing an internship at the end of the superior course. I have no idea when I will be able to finish the entire course – hopefully next year. The school assists students with looking for an internship at either a hotel, restaurant, bistro, brasserie, catering company, pâtisserie, ice cream shop, chocolatier or boulangerie. Alternatively, students can also look for their own. I don’t know if I will ever do an internship here. I guess a part of me really wants to because France is, to me, the best place to learn. Of course, there will be some places which only make you peel apples or do some mundane tasks, but if you manage to find the right place – jackpot!

In the afternoon, we were going to make another cake – a Fraisier, which is another French classic, made with two  layers of génoise soaked in kirsch syrup and filled with fresh strawberries and crème mousseline. We then roll out a thin layer of marzipan to top. It is definitely one of the prettiest cakes around! During the demo, Chef made it look pretty easy; easier than the Moka at least.

When it was time for practical, I have no idea whether it was just me, but everyone was moving extra fast and I ended up being one of the slowest. When people were done with their cake, I had only just started assembling mine! I felt super pressured, so I rushed and I don’t think I did the best I could’ve.

Fraisier

Inside the Fraisier

I had a couple of strawberries which were not flat against the side, so now the cream was covering a small part of the berries. However, once I peeled the plastic wrap off, the cream also came off and the cake looked so much better. I wish I pushed the strawberries down a little more; it would make the proportions look better.

The chef who took us for demo was really encouraging. She is the only female chef in school, and I really admire her! She’s very observant, helpful and motivating. Usually, the chefs don’t really bother with us during the practical, letting us do our thing until the end (unless we are endangering our lives or seriously struggling). However, she goes around and takes note of what each of us is doing and she either corrects or praises us for our good work. Really, she’s great! This was the first time we had her for practical. At the end of the lesson, she told us that she was honestly very impressed by our group’s organisation and speed. The chef next door who was in charge of the other group walked into our class and he was so shocked that we had already finished, while the other group was so much slower. I heard from my friend in the other group that he went back to them and told them that there must be something wrong because we were already finished and they were much behind. So maybe, just maybe, my group has more experienced people? So I’m not wrong to feel stressed in this group, right?

For our next lesson, we will be learning how to make brioche and croissant dough! Here come the viennoiseries!

After the success of my Paris-Brest the day before, I was both stoked as well as nervous about making the Moka. The Moka is a traditional French gâteau. It is coffee-flavoured and doesn’t have any chocolate in it. Why is called mocha then? Is the single chocolate-covered coffee bean enough to warrant it’s name? It should just be called gâteau au café, no?

Chef Olivier brought us through the demo class. He made three cakes in the three hours. The Moka is made of three layers of génoise imbibed in coffee syrup, and frosted with coffee-flavoured French buttercream. The sides are then covered with caramelised almonds. This was the first time we would be using our thermometers for practical. I use thermometers at home for making buttercream, so this was not new to me. However, we were using it for the syrup, for the final temperature of the “sabayon” and the buttercream. This was the most technical recipe thus far. Anything and everything could go wrong. From the whipping of the batter for the genoise, to the buttercream, to the almonds, to the piping.

We had to whip the genoise batter sufficiently, otherwise we wouldn’t have tall enough a cake to cut three layers from. Mine barely made it, but I know there were some others who hardly had a third layer. The next component I was worried about was the buttercream. I was a little slower than the majority (as usual), so almost everyone around me didn’t have sufficient buttercream to fill and frost their cakes. We all had the same recipe, so once again it came down to how much volume we were able to incorporate while whipping. This was challenging because we had to whisk vigorously for an extended amount of time. My arms were so tired. I blame my height. If only I were taller, or had a stool!

Fortunately, I had enough buttercream to both fill and frost my cake. Chef had to make extra buttercream for the rest, but because he didn’t have the time to make it the same way as ours, it came out really pale, unlike our buttercream which was a darker brown. I was able to pipe my shell border rather decently. Glad all that frosting cake back home helped again. The thing I did struggle with was making the pattern on the top of the cake with the serrated knife. It didn’t come out like how Chef Olivier showed us. Mine had larger chevrons and definitely wasn’t regular like his.

Moka

A pretty ok job I believe. When Chef was evaluating our cakes, he made us cut out a slice to see the interior. He told me that I hadn’t imbibed the genoise enough with syrup; that I should brush both sides of the sponge with coffee syrup. However, this was not how we were taught in demo, so once again, the chefs weren’t on the same page. However, someone told him at the end that the demo chef didn’t do that, and even showed him a photo of the cake from demo. So he understood why everyone’s cake was not well imbibed. I didn’t particularly like this cake very much because it’s a little too sweet. Maybe less syrup was a good thing. Or maybe don’t caramelised the almonds. French buttercream is also very rich because it is made out of egg yolks, unlike Swiss or Italian meringue buttercream, which are made out of egg whites.

The course is definitely getting more interesting and challenging. I can’t imagine we started with diamants and in a span of less than two weeks, we are already making such elaborate things. In the next couple of weeks, we will be making super fancy stuff like charlottes which I’ve never made before. I really can’t wait. I’m not as tired as I was last week too. I think I’ve gotten used to the hours and the intensity of it.

In the past week, the weather has really become much warmer. It is finally summer in Paris and I am both loving and hating it. Mornings are cool, and I can walk to school comfortably but once it’s the afternoon, I am literally perspiring after a minute or two of walking in the sun. The week before, I was cold and miserable at night, especially the two days the water heater wasn’t working and I was dying in the shower. I didn’t have warm enough clothes for sleeping and my feet were cold and clammy. Now, all I want to do is wear a tank top, shorts and slippers when I go out!

Today is Sunday and I met Léa, whom I met in Graz while on exchange. We had really delicious French galettes (not the pie but crêpe) at La Crêperie de Josselin. I forgot to take photos but it didn’t look very appetising anyway. I ordered the original and it was such a generous portion that I think I only finished slightly over half of it. The original is filled with ham, cheese, eggs and mushroom. It was très délicieux! It was great catching up. Exchange is really a wonderful thing. You get to meet such amazing people and you still meet up whenever you’re in their homeland.

I’m going to enjoy my Sunday alone. I did my laundry, vacuumed the floor and for the first time in my life, I cleaned the toilet. I know, I’ve been pampered. Tonight is the Euro finals and I’m pretty sure the whole city will be going crazy. I already saw lots of people in their jerseys and flags on the streets. Will try to go for a run along the Seine later too and see what’s happening around here!

This morning, we had to recreate the Paris-Brest from demo. The Paris-Brest is a very beautiful looking dessert. Two rings of pâte à choux (choux pastry) are piped, with one sprinkled with flaked almonds. They are baked, then the bigger ring is sliced in half and filled with noisettes caramelisées (caramelised hazelnuts), the smaller ring and crème mousseline pralinée (praline mousseline cream).

We first start with our pâte à choux, and while that is in the oven, we start on our crème pâtissière (pastry cream). Basically, crème mousseline is pastry cream that is enriched with butter. Some call it German buttercream. Someone please enlighten me how buttercreams such as Swiss, Italian and German got their names! Anyhow, this is a very delicious buttercream. Mmm… all that butter.

We also had to caramelise hazelnuts. This was, to me, the most delicious part of the Paris-Brest. Because it is hidden underneath the crème mousseline, it is quite a pleasant surprise and gives a good contrast in textures. I was snacking on the leftover caramelised  hazelnut after class!

Somehow, I managed to produce a very nice looking Paris-Brest. I’ve always loved decorating cakes with buttercream, so all that practice definitely worked in my favour today as Chef complimented my Paris-Brest. He even measured its dimensions and took photos for reference. Of course, I felt very proud and happy inside, but I didn’t want to show it in case people thought I was damn haolian or something! Haha. I had classmates tell me that my Paris-Brest was the most beautiful today. I seem to have had some luck with pâte à choux over the past two days.

Cross section of Paris-Brest

I will need to whip the crème mousseline over ice for longer next time because it wasn’t as stiff as it should’ve been. The piping would’ve been much neater and more defined if my crème mousseline was colder. Some people ran out of cream because they did not whip it long enough to give it more volume. As usual, we had to whip my hand and my arms were already sore from exercising the day before. I swear my arms are getting bigger.

As you can see, there is an extra layer of choux pastry in the middle. This is to give a better ratio of pastry to cream. Otherwise, it would be cream overkill! I wouldn’t complain though. I love the cream a lot! The caramelised hazelnuts also give a good crunch. There is a generous amount sprinkled at the bottom.

I ate half of it myself. Oops 😛

I met WZ this afternoon for an Asian lunch followed by a drink at Starbucks. It’s really amazing how well we click though it’s really just the first time we’ve met. Thoroughly enjoyed speaking in Singlish and talking a whole lot of shit for almost three hours. Hehe! Nice to have company now 🙂

I had to go back to school for a theory class which ended earlier than we expected. We learnt about different kinds of flour and how wheat is milled, parts of the grain etc. Quite interesting, and definitely got me even more interested in boulangerie. I think it is really amazing how the French are so particular about their flours and have all these types which are so formally named Type 45, 55, 65 etc. To think we only have flours like all-purpose, cake, self-raising, bread and Hong Kong flour in Singapore. We are getting all the inferior stuff!

I’ll be attending a 6 hour bread-making course later this month so I can make legit bread for my grandpa. I will only be making croissants, pain au chocolat and brioche in the basic patisserie course.

Tomorrow, we will be making Moka (mocha cake). It will definitely be the most complex thing we have made. Can’t wait!

 

We started our day early, much to my dismay. I had to drag myself out of bed today because it was so cold, and I knew the heater was not working. I even considered not taking a shower. I braced myself, counted to three and poured cold water all over myself.

Today, we worked on a different kind of puff. Pâte à choux, or choux pastry, is the pastry dough used to make some of our favourite French desserts – chouquettes, éclairs, choux à la crème, Paris Brest and religieuses just to name a few. We would be learning how to make chouquettes, éclairs au chocolat, religieuses au café and choux craquants chantilly vanille for our first demo. The religieuses are really interesting. They translate to “religious nuns” in French. Google “religieuse” and maybe, just maybe, you will see it.

For practical, we would be making the chouquettes (small choux pastry buns sprinkled with nib sugar) and choux craquants chantilly vanille (cream puffs topped with craquelin and whipped cream). We all thought that it would’ve made more sense for us to make éclairs instead of the chouquettes because éclairs are so much more popular and sellable.

Choux pastry can be a little tricky. Chef showed us how to dry out the dough over the stove and then how much eggs to add. The thing about recipes is that when they give you a certain weight of a particular ingredient, you tend to add all of it. However, for choux pastry, you really have to eyeball it. Adding a little of the eggs at a go will ensure you do not add too much liquid. If the dough is too runny, you have to start all over again. And that’s exactly what happened to some in practical. Chef made really beautiful choux pastry. The choux craquants are really exceptional. The contrast between the crispy shell and the soft whipped cream is to die for!

For our practical, we started with our choux craquants, making the craquelin first, then the pâte à choux. I was a little concerned initially that I had piped the dough out too small, because the craquelin that sat on top almost completely covered the dough. However, it came out pretty ok. I decided to fill the choux craquants with the extra crème chantilly because I found it odd eating such a big choux pastry without any filling in it.

While the choux craquants were baking, we piped our little chouquettes and sprinkled them with nib sugar. The chouquettes were trickier to pipe because Chef wanted them really small. All of mine were too big, although I personally thought they were small enough. Chef said that my smallest chouquette is the biggest a chouquette should ever be. Haha!

My final work:

Choux craquants chantilly vanille

Filled with crème chantilly

Although I didn’t feel like my choux craquants were all that great, Chef actually said that they were almost perfect. I just needed to ensure all of them were the same size. He used my piping as an example to the class as well. Me and piping! It’s really something I enjoy doing. Anyway, that was enough to make my day.

Chouquettes

My chouqettes, as mentioned, were a little too big. I think I will use a small piping tip the next time round because the PF16 is too big and difficult to work with. I don’t think my chouquettes were baked all the way through either. But I couldn’t do anything, because it is the chefs that control the oven. I threw all of them away after taking this photo! What a waste.

We had a second demo at 3.30pm, where Chef taught us how to make Paris Brest and Saint Honoré. For practical tomorrow morning, we will be making just the Paris Brest. I kind of wish that we had the opportunity to make the Saint Honoré too. I think it is quite complex, especially the aesthetics. I guess that is one recipe I must try out when I’m back in Singapore!

Till tomorrow!

Last night I had a terrible ordeal with moths in my apartment. The previous night, there was a moth that flew right into a lamp and it burnt in the heat. There was even smoke. Yesterday, while I was blogging, a huge ass moth flew right in front of me and then towards the toilet. I panicked. Do not laugh at me, please. I have a phobia of butterflies and moths. I was born with it. I told my friend and she couldn’t stop laughing at me! Anyway, I quickly shut the door because I didn’t want it flying back into the bedroom area. Unfortunately, that meant that the moth couldn’t get out of the apartment because there is no window in that part of the apartment. It flew into my wardrobe. I opened the door quickly and hit the wardrobe to scare it out. It flew out and I quickly shut the wardrobe door, as well as the door dividing that corner of the apartment from the bedroom. Then I spotted another moth, but it was quite tiny so I grabbed the broom and chased after it. I managed to kill it. Phew, or so I thought. When I went to take a look at the bigger moth, it had disappeared. Like WTF?! Where did it go? It must have gone into the toilet, right? After about five minutes, I finally mustered enough courage to open the door and went into the toilet. But nope, it wasn’t there. I still have no idea where it is! I slept with my hoodie over my head and my blanket up to my eyes last night. I was so afraid that it would fly into my face in the middle of the night. This morning, after doing some research, I went to the mall and bought some cedar incense. Apparently, moths hate the smell of cedar. Sigh. So upset about it.

Ok. Back to school. We had demo on Pithiviers, Galette des Rois (Three King’s cake) and Sacristains (puff pastry twists). Once again, we were working with puff pastry. Pithiviers are filled with crème d’amande (almond cream), Galette des Rois with frangipane, which is a mixture of crème d’amande and crème pâtissière (pastry cream), and the puff pastry twists are made with the trimmings of the pithiviers and Galette des Rois. Chef remade a new batch of palmiers for us too because of yesterday’s mishap with the salt. They were so delicious. Palmiers are seriously addictive. I had to give mine away this morning because it was a hazard to my waistline.

Practical was right after demo class, and we were to make a pithivier and the puff pastry twists. The pithiviers were relatively easy to make. The only tricky part is scoring it decoratively and making the petals around. I like the look of smaller petals, so I made mine smaller. For the puff pastry twists, we sprinkled nibbed sugar and chopped almonds with some ground cinnamon before twisting.

Pithivier

Pithivier – Crème d’amande filling

Sacristains

I was not too happy with both my pithivier and the puff pastry twists. The scoring was not well done and the petals were not regular. Chef said the number of petals was good, but they just need to be of equal size. I also used a little too much egg wash, so the definition was not great. For the puff pastry twists, I should have used less sugar when I did the fifth turn. When they came out of the oven, there was quite a bit of melted sugar on the baking sheet. Well, now I know what I should do in future!

This is the last of puff pastry for now and we are moving on to pâte à choux for next lesson! Can’t wait to make some chouquettes and choux craquants!

It’s officially been a week since the first day of lessons at Le Cordon Bleu Paris! Time really flies when you’re doing what you love.

For our sixth demo and practical, we carried on from where we left off last Friday with our puff pastry. We learnt how to complete our turns on the feuilletage (puff pastry) and made chaussons aux pommes (apple turnovers) and palmiers. Palmiers are puff pastries rolled in sugar. They caramelise beautifully in the oven, coming out crisp and golden. We also made a new batch of puff pastry that we will be using for our next practical class.

The funniest (or most tragic) thing happened during demo. Chef seemed to have completed everything so perfectly, and it was time for us to try the turnovers and palmiers. It turned out that what Chef thought he was using to roll the puff pastry in for the palmiers was a mixture of salt and sugar instead of pure sugar. The result was a sweet and salty palmier, which some of us actually enjoyed because it tasted like salted caramel. However, Chef was not impressed and he told us not to eat it and threw the extras away. He is so unhappy that he wants to make new palmiers tomorrow so that we can have a taste of authentic ones. Apparently, he makes amazing palmiers.

The chaussons aux pommes were really delicious. I don’t like eating apples, but when they’re cooked, they’re so much better. They were filled with an apple compote. So good!

We had practical right after demo, which is great because everything is still fresh in our minds. As a team leader this week, I have to be early to help the class put the ingredients and tools out for the practical. We got a different chef for practical today. He was very helpful and super funny. And he spoke English! Yay!

We started on our puff pastry from last week first, splitting half of it for the palmiers. Then we made our apple compote for the turnovers. We also made the new puff pastry dough for tomorrow’s class; we will be making pithiviers.

The thing about puff pastry is that you have to work relatively quick, as you want to work with the cold butter. Once it warms up, you’re going to get a sticky dough with butter peeking out. I think I am slightly more confident working with puff pastry now, so today went pretty smoothly. Rolling it is the fun part, although I can never really get it into a proper rectangle.

We baked our palmiers first, followed by our turnovers. The kitchen smelled exceptionally good today.

Palmiers

Chaussons aux pommes

I was happy with my apple turnovers. They look very pretty and you can see the layers of puff pastry along the sides. My palmiers though, not so much. Chef asked me to use the “classic” method of shaping the palmiers instead of the “Le Cordon Bleu method”. I did not stick the layers together well enough, so they kind of unfurled while in the oven. I actually think the Le Cordon Bleu method yields better looking palmiers.

I’m pretty excited for our next practical. Pithiviers look really impressive and I hope I manage to make mine look at professional as possible.

(I don’t know who is reading my blog, but I want to thank you if you are! I’m pretty sure people who aren’t my friends and who aren’t interested in baking will not be reading this. As I mentioned in my first post on Le Cordon Bleu, I’m doing this mainly to help future students and also journal this for myself.)

It’s only been a week, and I already feel exhausted. Don’t get me wrong, I love what I’m doing here, but somehow, despite the fantastic quality sleep I’ve been getting, it just isn’t enough to keep me going the entire day.

I walked my mum to the taxi stand for her to catch a cab to the airport this morning, and then I was off to school for morning demo. I really enjoyed the demo today; the chef was a good teacher. He showed us how to make tarte Bourdaloue (pear and almond cream tart), tarte aux poires caramélisées (caramelised pear and almond tart), poires pochées (poached pears)  and feuilletage (puff pastry). I’m still amazed by professionals who are able to churn out so many things in such a short time. I hope I will someday be as efficient as they are.

For the tarts today, we used pâte sucrée (sweet pastry) instead of the pâte brisée we used before for the tarte aux pommes. This dough is much more fragile than the pâte brisée. The tarte Bourdaloue is filled with pâte d’amande (almond cream), and topped with poached pears in syrup. This tart was my favourite of the day. What makes this tart so amazing is the delicious almond cream. I’ve had pâte d’amande before in tarts back in Singapore, but I was never really a fan of it, though my mum loved the ones from Delifrance. This tart has swayed me!

For the tarte aux poires caramélisées, an almond meringue is baked on top of diced poached pears and blackcurrant. I wasn’t a fan of this tart. I have never liked meringue. Also, the blackcurrant was way too tart.

Puff pastry is the thing that scares me the most. I’ve never attempted puff pastry back home because Singapore’s weather is not ideal. The warmth will just soften the butter too fast, making it hard to work with. Of course, the chef made it look very easy.

Practical was right after the demo class. I was starving and I only had a banana for lunch. Eating desserts every single day has not been working well for my waistline. So I really need to watch what I eat outside of school. Looks like it’s back to eggs and salad for me for the next month. Now that my mum is gone, I don’t have to feel obliged to eat anything that I don’t want to. I guess that’s the beauty of living on your own. No obligations, freedom, space.

I felt pretty confident during today’s practical when I was working on my tarte Bourdaloue. The pastry dough turned out well, and so did the almond cream. The past few practicals, I’ve felt like such a noob. Honestly, I didn’t expect everyone to be so experienced. There are quite a few in the course who are already working in professional kitchens. I’m also one of the younger ones (I think), so I feel a little intimidated working around them. I remember the first practical; the moment we walked to our stations, there was silence and everyone started immediately. There are no instructions given by the chef; you are expected to know what to do and in what sequence.

Anyway, once my tart was in the oven baking, I started on my puff pastry. It wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be. I think the hardest part for me is ensuring that I roll the dough out into a proper rectangle with right angles. I struggled with that bit, and also I should have dusted my work surface with more flour, because my dough got stuck and tore a little. NOOOO.

Here is my tarte Bourdaloue:

Tarte Bourdaloue

I think it looks pretty good, eh? 😀

The same thing happened again today. The chef told us during the demo to roll the dough out quite thick, about 3 to 4mm. I intentionally rolled mine out thinner than that. So when the chef that took us for the practical was commenting on our tarts, he told most of us that our tart shells were too thick. I think mine was already one of the thinnest and he said mine was too thick! Other than that, he said it was delicious. And it really is. Everyone in class loves this tart. I think it is now my favourite too. Usually, we are just dying to give our pastries away, but today, nobody wanted to give them up. I’m keeping mine too 😛

By the way, I still don’t know for sure if I made my puff pastry properly. Our dough is resting for a few days in the fridge. I’ll only know when we make our Chaussons aux pommes next week.

I shall enjoy this quiet time to myself because the introvert needs to recharge after such a long week of attempting to make new friends.

Last night’s demo was painful. You could tell by everyone’s faces that we were all tired and just wanted to go home. To put it bluntly, most of us looked like shit.

We were shown how to make Gâteau Basque and flan pâtissier. Both require us to prepare crème pâtissière (pastry cream) for the fillings. Gâteau Basque is a traditional dessert that originates from the Basque region of France. Although I’ve never tried it before the demo class, I had read a recipe and I always assumed it was more like a tart than a cake. Which is odd, because gâteau means cake in French. The batter we used is a cake batter, although I guess the traditional one is more of a pastry dough. Someone enlighten me, please?

The flan pâtissier, which is a custard tart, was very yummy. I would have enjoyed the dessert last night a little more had I been less tired.

This morning, we had to make our own Gâteau Basque. When I was laying out my equipment, I realised that my paring knife was missing. Then I realised my pastry brush was missing. Oh, and also my notebook! I felt sick. Absolutely sick. That Wüsthof paring knife costs £35! I was a little embarrassed to keep borrowing stuff from my classmates. But they were nice about it, and for that I am thankful.

This practical didn’t go too well either. Firstly, maybe because the worktop is pretty high (built for Caucasians I guess), whisking the pastry cream was a painful process for me. My arms were aching and I was sweating by the end of it. Secondly, the chef that took us through demo was not the chef that took us for the practical. Of course, we simply made the cake the way we were taught during demo. However, after all our cakes were baked and out of the oven, the chef commented that ALL our cakes had way too much cake batter and that the way we lined our cake ring was wrong. This was the exact opposite of what the other chef told us to do during the demo. SERIOUSLY. We were all pretty annoyed by the conflicting instructions.

Personally, I feel that what the chef told us about our cakes having too much batter and the way to line the cake rings is correct. Simply because it makes more sense. If you look at the traditional Gâteau Basque, you will see that it is actually quite a flat pastry – a layer of pastry cream between two layers of cake or pastry. Our Gâteau Basque was really tall and the proportion of cake to pastry cream was not right. Also, the way we lined our cake ring was with a strip of baking paper slightly taller than the ring. Because we did this, the fan in the oven blew the paper around and it got lodged into some of our cakes. So you see, our chefs are not perfect.

This was my final product:

Gâteau Basque

The next time, I will smooth out the cake batter at the bottom before I pipe the pastry cream on. I was in such a rush today because everyone was so fast. At the end of the practical, Chef asked us all to cut a slice so that he could give us more comments. To my surprise, he said “Très Bien, madame.”, smiled, gave me a pat on the back and walked away. I was obviously less impressed with my own cake.

I had another class at 3.30pm, which gave me about 3.5 hours to kill between. I decided to have lunch with my mum for the first time this week. She leaves tomorrow and I am pretty sure she will miss me (HAH). We had Thai food just across the street. It was a really good meal. The tom yum goong was fantastic. My mum asked me whether I wanted her to leave a deposit at the restaurant so that I could go there any time to eat. If you know me well enough, you know my eating habits aren’t exactly normal. I prefer cold salads to warm meals. I do not enjoy meat, nor seafood. I love my vegetables, fruits, nuts and eggs. My first love is peanut butter. I will have the occasional chicken or fish but I never really care meat at all.

After lunch we walked over to Monoprix just to walk through the supermarket. It is a hobby of mine to gush over fresh produce. I could really live here. The quality of food is fantastic, and there’s such an amazing variety. Even ready made meals are healthful and look so appetising. How I wish we had such food back home in Singapore!

Our afternoon class was a theory class. We had a talk on kitchen hygiene which lasted 3 hours. It was quite an enjoyable talk though. It made me very aware of the bacteria everywhere. You know Taenia, right? Google it 🙂

I met my mum again at the mall to do some “research” for work (not kidding) after class, and bought my new knife and pastry brush, along with a beautiful silicon rose cake mould. We got home at 8.30pm and it is currently 10.23pm, which means it’s bed time for me because I have to be up at 6am again for class!

Bonne nuit!

I hate it because class yesterday ended at 10pm and today, we started at 8am. I was also PMSing over the past couple of days. I didn’t feel like talking to anyone at all actually, including my mum. And yes, the dreaded time of the month has arrived, dead smack in the middle of demo class this morning. What a great way to start the day!

For demo, Chef prepared tarte aux pommes and tarte tatin. Both are classic French apple tarts but prepared quite differently. I think I prefer the tarte aux pommes a little more, as it isn’t as sweet at the tarte tatin. The tarte tatin has caramelised apples which I find a little too rich. Both use the same pâte brisée (shortcrust pastry). I think shortcrust pastry is easier to work with than pâte sucrée (sweet pastry). It also helps that we have a professional kitchen which is air conditioned and a beautiful counter to work on. This keeps the butter cold so that it is easier to work with pastry dough.

Our practical class was right after the demo. I was nervous, of course. As I’ve mentioned, I’ve only ever made a tart once in my life. It also happened to be an apple tart, but not in the French style. For that, I used a sweet pastry, and in Singapore’s terrible weather, it was not ideal at all.

The making of the pastry went well, up to the point of easing it into the mould. Then it became difficult trying to ensure that the pastry was even throughout. The worst part was crimping the crust. I had no idea how to use the pastry crimper! Remind me to find out.

Apparently, we will be tested on this bit, up till the crimping, for our exam. Chef encouraged us to purchase a ring mould and practice at home. Looks like I really have to.

We then made the apple compote and sliced the apples to go on top while the dough rested. I also had trouble peeling the skin off the apples, because I’ve never peeled apples with a peeler before. I’ve used a knife. Don’t ask me why though. I do have a peeler at home too. We had to slice the apples thinly to arrange on top of the compote. The knives we got are super sharp. I kid you not. I think these are the sharpest knives I’ve ever handled. I was glad that by the end of the session, I didn’t hurt myself.

Tarte aux pommes

Chef commented that though the arrangement of the apples was nice, I should have ensured that the apple compote at the bottom did not peek out at the sides.

After baking, the crimping also became hardly noticeable, even for those that went into the oven looking nice and distinct. So I guess mine didn’t look too bad then.

Sliced tarte aux pommes

Here you can see the layer of shortcrust pastry at the bottom, followed by the apple compote and then the sliced apples. The apple compote is delicious because it is sweetened, flavoured with vanilla powder and also cooked in butter. #CozButter

I rushed home after practical to take my medication, thinking that the next class was at 3.30pm (that’s what my screenshot says), so I rushed back. I saw my classmates walking out of school and then they told me that class was at 7pm, not 3.30pm. Seems like they updated the calendar since I took that screenshot and I didn’t know. So I walked home again. Workout of the day.

I’m off to school now for the 7pm class. We will be shown how to make Gâteau Basque and Flan Pâtissier. This will be something completely new to me as I’ve never tried them before, but I’m sure they will be as yummy as everything else!

Day 2 started in the afternoon. Perfect, because that meant sleeping in and getting some exercise in before class. During the demonstration, Chef showed us how to make madeleines au citron (lemon madeleines), cake aux fruits (fruit cake) and cake au chocolat (chocolate cake). For practical, we had to make the madeleines and fruit cake.

As usual, we got to try everything after, and my goodness, those madeleines are so damn good! You know you read all about how to get those elusive bumps on the madeleines? They tell you to chill the batter, they tell you to chill your mould. Honestly, after the demonstration, I can tell you that it isn’t as complicated as you think it is. It is such a simple recipe and the madeleines are divine. No more buying Delifrance’s madeleines, the ones which sit on the countertop for a day and somehow still manage to remain “moist”. Store bought madeleines we get in Singapore taste nothing like the traditional madeleines you get here in France. I have been lied to all my life! Dominique Ansel explains the madeleines’ short life span and how delicate they are beautifully in his book, “I make my madeleines to order. I don’t pipe them or bake them until someone is standing there waiting for them. And as they stand there, rushed and frustrated at having to compromise their life and their schedule for a pastry, they often ask me why they should bother waiting. “Quite simple,” I answer, “it is a matter of life and death”.”

Our practical was right after the demo class. We started on our madeleines first, and while our batter was #justchilling in the fridge, we worked on our fruit cake. This practical was definitely much better for me. I feel more confident with cakes. The end result was very satisfying.

Madeleines au citron

While Chef was going around evaluating our final products, he weighed our madeleines to check on the consistency. When he got to mine, he weighed two and they were exactly 23g  each. Then he kept weighing and all were +/- 1g off each other. He was shocked, and everyone laughed at his funny expressions! But yeah, I was just lucky (or was I?).

Madeleines au citron

Check out those bumps!

Cake aux fruits

Cake aux fruits

There weren’t a lot of fruits for a fruit cake, so I would add more the next time. Also, I pushed the cherry down way too far and it ended up at the bottom. Oops! I love the sprinkling of flaked almonds, as it gives a nice contrast of textures. I would definitely soak the cake with even more rum than called for too.

Day 3 is going to be tough. We will be making a classic French apple tart – tarte aux pommes for practical, and I am nervous because I’ve only ever made tart once in my life!