Following the Sweet Dream: Is this really a Pear Tart??

Well I started another week, and I started school on a Tuesday, which threw me off a bit in knowing which it was. I had demo, and practical in the same day, which I like because the demo is still fresh on my mind, and that way I get it just done.
This demo for this week covered sweet pastry dough, which meant more tarts. The chef did some Caramelized Pear and Crisp Almond Crust Tart and Honey Filled Barquettes. Both names are not a real match to what he did. The Honey Filled Barquettes are filled in reality with sliced almonds, I mean the filling does have honey in it, but they are not only filled with honey as the name implies. I really liked these, because they are relatively simple and easy to make. The pear tart although it does has pears on the filling, once you eat it, the dominant flavor is not the pears. The filling has raisins, as well as black currants, and both really overpower the flavor of pear, so I would not call this a pear tart at all. Plus the black currants will paint all the filling purple, even though you just kind of sprinkle them on top of the filling. Anyway the tart is really good, but still unsure on what I could call it.

Tarte Meringue aux Poires Caramelisees

Barquettes au Miel

And, of course, the best part of every class "la degustation", I think I like it more every class!!

This week I only had one practical which is a nice breather from eating all these things on a regular basis, although is just for this week, since next week, I will be having 4 practicals!!

Anyhow this practical went smooth, and people seems to be getting the hang of things, since everyone in class did a pretty good job in the tarts this time. Since we had some death time while we waited for our tarts to bake, the chef showed us how to do some decorations in chocolate, and it looked so easy while he was doing it. He later asked us to practice, so we could start getting a feel on handling chocolate, and wow!!! It is soooo hard, the first time I tried, the chocolate was to hard (cold) and was really hard to get it running smoothly. On my second try now the chocolate was too runny (hot), and everything I did would just spread, and not hold its shape. Putting that aside, the making of the patterns is very hard too, since you have to use both your hands to be more precise, and then be somehow descent in drawing to do this patterns, and even more for them to be uniform all the way through. I definitively need to practice this A LOT MORE!!