Back to School, Intermediate here I come!!

Two months vacations have already past. I thought I was going to have so much time during my vacations, that I could get board and not have anything to write about, but on the contrary I have been so busy mostly working, some traveling, that I have not really had time to write. There is absolutely no excuse, but I still had a hard time finding space to write.
This past week school started again. I am hoping that with the forced no work spaces work school produces cutting into the usual work hours, so that I cannot make it to work, I will be able to go back to writing and publishing all those posts I have yet to post.
Well school started on Thursday, and it was a bit to stressing first day. As I mentioned I had been on vacations for 2 months, and I did do some backing, but I do feel I got out of the school's pace specially during the practicals.
Well my first day back, and I had Demo #01 followed immediately by the demo!! I found it a bit shocking to be pulled back into school after such a long break.
Because Chef JJ, the Chef for Intermediate pastry, is on vacations, we had Chef C do the demo. I just love his demo's, they are fun, keep you attentive, since the Chef has a bit of a speed doing things, I just really like his demos.
Anyway for the Demo, the Chef made three different cakes.

The first and one of the cakes we will do on Practical is the Streussel. I know the streussel to be a puff pastry sort of log with apple, and sometime nuts, but was very surprised to find something very different.

The base is made of puff pastry, then it has a thin layer of "fromage blanc" wich is a sort of greek yogurt, very common here in France, and it has some apricots too, but not very many. Then on top we put a streussel topping, which is like a crumble topping. It was very good, just very different to what I though a streussel was.
Then he made a Pave aux Amandes, which is a gluten free cake, very dense and rich in flavor. Is only powdered almonds, sugar, eggs and butter, what's not too like??

And the third cake, was a two layer, sort of pound cake, in a thin log shape. The cake had two layer, a vanilla pound cake part, and a inner chocolate-almond meringue one with chopped almonds.

Nothing really impressive, more like a quick review of basic pastry.
As always we got the "degustation".

The cakes were ok, nothing really outstanding. The almond cake was a bit dense, but good flavor. The layer one was just ok too. The one I like the most was the streussel, but then again I like anything that has puff pastry, so nothing special.
Even though we had fairly simple recipes, which were more to help us practice time management and organization, and not really skills, I was freaking out a bit to have the practical, right after the demo finished.

I started demo a bit slow, trying regain my pace, that I kind of lost over the holidays. Since groups changed that also shakes things a bit, but I am happy with the people I am working with, they have a fast pace which helps me keep son track and not slack off too much, and are very clean which I always like.

Anyway, I put lots of almonds on my almonds, cake, and it came out perfectly golden looking very good.

The streussel came out ok, not perfect, but not bad either, just ok. I considered that for trying to get back on track, I did pretty good, and didn't fall back too behind. "Pas mal" as the french would say.

Putting aside the stress, I didn't realized how much I missed, being in school, and how happy going back to the kitchen and baking made me fell.

Feels so good to be back in school, and now ready to see what Intensive has to come!!

London

A couple of weeks ago my boyfriend came to visit, and we took the opportunity to do some traveling outside of Paris. Our first stop was London. I was so excited about it, since I was little I have wanted to go to England. I have always had this fascination with Europe, and some countries in particular including England and the city of London.

 
London is much bigger than I expected it to be. I guess since Paris was a lot smaller that I expected I was expecting London to be like Paris in that way. Places are much more spread out, and it takes longer time to go from one place to the other. Eventhough metro and buses are very convenient and easy to use they can get expensive, and you have to be careful otherwise you will spent a little fortune just going form one place to another.

We were there for 3 days, having taking the first train out of Paris to get to London as early as possible. We get to the hotel leave the suitcases, and go get into the Hop-On/Hop-Offto take an overview on London to decide where to go the next day. We were not counting on the strike of workers that took central London creating tremendous traffic problems. This cause that our city tour that should just take about 2 hours to go all around, took almost 6 hours. It was such a horrible thing. We did manage to do some sightseeing, but not as we would've liked. The one thing I loved about this day, was that we were able to score some discounted tickets to go see the Musical "The Phantom of the Opera" in West End.

 

 
This is such a great musical, I have always heard about it, but never really though I would see it. We absolutelly loved the experience. It had been a really long time since I have been to the theater and I had forgotten how great it was, that we even said that we will try to do this more often. The story is great, the actors, and of course the music, which was live, just the whole thing made for a really nice evening to be together.

 

 The next couple of days we spent our time touring around, and doing some sightseeing. Some highlights were taking a walking tour of the change of guard, which I was so glad we took, since the guide was so knowledgeable and showed us thingsI wouldn't have seen on my own, then visiting the Tower of London with a guided visit offered by the beefeaters, and the other one thing my boyfriend spoiled me with, was going to take tea at the Kensigngton Palace.
 

I was very dissaponted when I wasn't able to visit Buckingham Palace since it is only open to the public on summer.

3 Days are definitively not enough to see London and its surroundings, there is so much more to see. I am hoping to be able to go back before I return to America. There still are quite a few places I would like to visit.
On the mean time I hope you all enjoy the pictures, and get a glimpse of London.

Vacations!!!

I have happily been enjoying some vacations and that's the reason I have been posting anything. I am already working on the posts for each place I visited. You all can expect posts on London, Bruxelles, and Strasbourg.
I have been also busy doing some cooking which I will post about it too. I already miss going to school and learning from the chefs. I am so excited to go back now in a couple of weeks, ready to start the new year doing what I love.
This time that I have been out of school I have been able to meditate and realize how blessed I am to be able to be here. I thank God for the opportunity he gave me to start over doing what I always wanted and being to able to do what I couldn't even dream about anymore since it seemed so unrealistic and uncompatible to what I was living.
Everyday I don't go to school I miss it, and find myself baking things not even for me, but just for the pleasure of it, and then finding people to give it to.
I am also very motivated to improve and be better on the next course, and challenge myself to give the best of me.
In the mean time I will be enjoying the rest of my vacations celebrating Christmas and New Year doing what else but cooking!!

Basic Pastry Graduation

Because not everyone that comes to Cordon Bleu stays for the full three courses to get the Diploma, they have a small ceremony after each course to give out the Cetificates and to say farewell to anyone not coming back.
The ceremony is quite simple, they arrange chairs in the free space outside of the locker areas. I wanted to take pictures, but I was sooo late I barelly was able to get a chair.
My ceremony was for Basic Pastry and Basic Cuisine. They called everyone by name starting with the ones in Cuisine to give out the Diplomas and to take a picture with the Head Chef of Basic Cuisine, and the Head Chef of Basic Pastry.
Then they went on to call the ones for Basic Pastry. I did not get a change to get a picture of me with the chefs yet, but I am currently in the process of obtaining one.

Because this is was the first time after a couple of days since the test, it is the day as well when one finds out who didn't pass the test and therefore failed to get a certificate. It was so beyond comprehension to me how some people did really poorly over the whole course, and somehow managed to pull a descent test and pass, while some that did ok during the course, and happened to fail to test don't get the certificate.
When you get your certificate, you get a Class picture as well which is nice, and you get your grades, which I was not happy about. I mean I am really not happy to see a C- grade in my report card, but considering that the second highest of all was a C, I am not feeling that bad. The thing with chefs here is they are very tough on the grading. They grade us having their work as a standard so no one ever will get 90 or above. 80 to 90 they may get that in a really bad day, but no one in school gets it, since it is considered that if you get a grade like that means you are really good, and you would not need to be here. So the common given high grade will be between 70 to 80 and is very very hard to be close to that 80. Considering this I do not feel that bad about my grade, but I still have a hard time adjusting to how they grade, since this a really really low grade to what I am used to. I am really going to try and do better for the next term to raise my grade as much as possible.
Anyway after the brief ceremony we went to the Demo Room in the first floor to have some hors d'oeuvres and tiny sweet pastries with champagne and orange juice. For me at 9 in the morning it was a bit to early to start drinking so I went with orange juice, and the hors d'oeuvres, were not exactly my favorites. As I could tell they were bought and not very good.
Putting the food aside, it was good to talk with the chefs, and to have a small social to say good bye to those not coming back, and see you later to the rest of us, going in vacation until January.
 Here is a picture of my and one of my favorite chefs, Chef C!!

Basic Pastry Final Test

I was so stressed out the morning of the test. My main worry was not the actual exam itself, but my fear that I would get the Moka. I kept praying that I would get the Gateau Basque or the Saint Honore since I had practiced those, and did them fairly well.
We all gathered outside the kitchen in the second floor, all anxious and trying to guess which will be the recipes for the test, and who will get which. It was very nerve racking just seeing the chefs and assistant going in and out without saying anything, and us trying to catch a glimpse of the kitchen to see if we could figure out which were the chosen recipes by what molds were placed on the tables.
Finally sweet Chef T came of with a cup wit colored chips in it, green yellow, and red. One off my friends was the first one to rich for a chip, a yellow one. I was going to reach for the same colored chip, but something stopped me form doing that, and I found myself reaching for the green chip. The other 3 girls that are usually next to me in practical, all when for the green chip as well, hoping we would either be together, or help each other at least by looking (since we are not supposed to talk or help each other at the exam like we normally do in class).
Once everyone had their chip, the Chef went in, leaving us all clueless about what the chips mean. By this time we had figured out that the Moka was for sure one of the test cakes, since we saw the mold required to do it, so of course I was totally freaking out in fear I would have gotten it Then finally the Chef comes out saying: "Green inside", so we go. The Chef goes inside as well and point to the right hand corner of the kitchen where we had all set up for us, it was such a relief since I saw that the Moka was in the middle. I didn't even care what cake I had gotten, but just not getting the Mocha was already a relief. When I finally reach my place I was so thankful to God when I saw I had gotten the Saint Honore. I was so thankful to God, since he had not only not given me the Moka as I had asked, but he also gave me the cake I wanted to make.
Everyone was getting in by now, and once we were all in the Chef gave us the green light to start.
I first made the dough for the tart lining since it is easier to work with once it has been chilled, and then off I went preparing my cake.
We had two and a half hours, to make the cake, and the tart lining. I finished both in a bit less than two hours, I was very excited. We do not get extra credit for finishing early, but is always nice to realize how you have improved from the first time we did it in class, and took us the full class, without the tart lining.

During the test I was able to focus, but never forgetting it was my final test. For the tart lining, I think it wasn't perfect since I didn't leave enough dough to make a nice pinching in the edge, but still came out pretty even.

My cake came out good, my choux pastry puffed nicely, which was one concerned I had. The one thing that got my a bit not happy about my tests was the final decoration of the cake. It is so difficult to do the Chantilly cream pipping to make it look even and well define each "flame". Even though I had practiced it at home, I am not very happy on how they looked, since it could definitively looked better, still with shaky nervous hands, it was all I was able to do that day.

Oh, and I burned myself, with the caramel, again! I was so focused in getting puffs, to be all straight in the cake, that for a moment I got distracted holding one in position, while dipping another one into the caramel, so I burned my finger, luckly not as bad as last time, but still not fun.

I was overall happy and comfortable about my outcome, it wasn't spectacular, but wasn't bad either. I just hope the Chefs' and the invited jury that will grade like my cake as well.

Now, lets relax while eating some of the left over chouquettes, and Chantilly Cream!!!

Test Prep

I have been so anxious about my Final Exam. They gave us at school this list of about 10 recipes that we have to know have to do for the Exam. For the exam they will choose three of this recipes to be done, and the way for you to know which one you get, is by taking a color chip, out of a container, and that will determine which recipe you are to make. Not only you do not know what are you making until the very moment, but you are not allowed to bring in any notes at all. The school will provide you with a ingredients list and thats about it, you will have to know how to make everything from memory. Besides doing this cake in two and a half hours or you get penalized by everyminute you are late, there is a technique part of the test which consisits on making a tart shell, like the one we did for our Tarte aux Pommes. It doesn't have to be cooked or anything, but this is how we will be graded on techniaue for the Basic Course.
Out of the recipes we got, we already know there are some that are very not likely to be given for our test, since we either just made them, or we did them over two classes. On th eother hand we already also know which ones are very likely to be chosen.
Although there is not much space in my apt kitchen to work on, I decided I wanted to practice some of the possible recipes we could get for the test.
 For the technique part I did a Tarte aux Pommes to practice my tart lining.

And I chose two cakes to do, the Gateau Basque and the Saint Honore. The Gateau Basque was sooo difficult to make this time, because I could get the dough to cool down enough, so it was very difficult to work with, besides I didn't find the ring to do it, so I had to do it using my tart ring, making it thinner.

For the Saint Honore my only concern was to not burn myself, like I had done when I did it at school, since it took me almost two months to completely heal from it. To give it a twist I made it in different sizes, and I think for being it a pretty small space, they came out pretty descent.

I also wanted to practice making the moka, since frosting it is very difficult, but I couldn't find the mold to do it, plus it was already hard enough trying to get rid of three cakes, what was I going to do with a fourth cake. So I am praying to God, that I do not get this on my test since I did not practice it.
I am really feeling very anxious about, because I do not know for certqin which cakes are we doing, and that idea that I get the moka for the test, and that I won't be able to make it look like it is supposed to is just torturing me.
I really just want to just  get it done; so good thing we  are the first ones to take the test at 8:30, that way we don't even have time to think about and just get it done. Whish me luck, or like the French say: Merde!!