The Journey of An Aspiring Pastry Chef

The thoughts, actions, words and life of an 19 year old in culinary school trying to make it in the food industry as a pastry chef. Nothing is left out and nothing is added that is not needed, just like the perfect recipe.

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Phase 2's Final Buffet

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Phase 1 Mousse and Bavarian Cake Buffet 

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Phase 2

I know I haven't posted in a while, but Phase 1 is over and Phase 2 began yesterday. It's intense!

Phase 1 ended on a good note; we did mousse and bavarian cakes, and sugar work mostly. 

We had our own hors'dœuvres buffet and then helped out with Phase 2's final Buffet. We'll be doing that in 3 months! I can't believe it, time has flown by so quickly!

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Days 026 and 027 

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Days 026 and 027.

Yesterday

We made biscuit roulades and then made our own Fan Tortes. They're beautiful cakes! 

We learned how to temper via seeding: by far the easiest method of tempering.

Chef did a demo of buche de noel as well. 

Today

Chef demonstrated a double crust fruit pie and she did apple pie.

We made genoise today with whole egg buttercream and we're going to do our cake build tomorrow. I hope all goes well and it won't end up like the other day.

Chef also demonstrated with cheese soufflé. I wasn't feelin' it too much, the texture was really soggy and I just didn't like it lol.

Then, we practiced with marzipan some more, making vegetables and fruit out of marzipan. That was fun lol 

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Day 025 Pictures

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Day 025.

Chef made a Zugar Kirsch Torte in class with japonais biscuits. I'm not a big fan of Kirsch so naturally I didn't like it all that much.

We had to do cake build #2 today. I started off bad and it just all went downhill from there. My leveling was off and I don't know what I was thinking and started to build it the wrong way and the cake ended up falling apart while I tried to fix it. Didn't get to finish icing it let alone piping the borders and fine piping with chocolate on it. So, that happened...but it's okay. Shit happens.

Then, we learned about décor meringue and chef demonstrated meringue mushrooms. She's making a buche de noel tomorrow aka a yule log. I thought it was funny because I was just watching Martha Stewart's Holiday DVD that my mom got me and she did the same recipe. 

Meringue mushrooms look like something from Mario Kart...they look like Toad's head. lolol

She also demonstrated chocolate mousse and made a Concorde cake, which was designed for Air France's Concorde airplane a while ago.

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Oya

So, I went to Oya in D.C. this past Saturday for dinner and it was delicious! It's a Japanese-French fusion restaurant. I definitely recommend going and checking it out, especially if you like sushi.

I did the prix-fixe menu and our bread basket had gougere in it, which I thought was funny since we made that our first or second week of school.

Got the crispy shrimp roll for my appetizer, scallops for my entrée and a chocolate molten cake with vanilla ice cream and mandarin orange anglaise for dessert. Dessert was divine :)

Along with that, we ordered the Godzilla roll which had alligator and crab in it, and that was probably the highlight of my meal (after dessert of course). It was so good!

  Gougere

Godzilla Roll

Chocolate Molten Cake

Banana Bread Pudding

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Weeks 4, 5 and 6

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Weeks 4,5 and 6

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Weeks 4, 5, and 6.

I haven't posted in a long time because I've been too busy with work and school or I've just been way too tired to post, but I have like an hour of down time so I thought I'd post about school.

We had practicals and our theory exam on week 4. I did okay on my practical, not exactly what I was hoping for, but I know what I did wrong. My theory exam went really well though :) The morning of the theory exam was terrible, however. Our notebooks were due that day, and I hadn't finished it the night before because I was procrastinating and was busy too. So I figured I didn't have much left, so I'd wake up at 3AM to finish it. Turns out something went wrong with my alarm causing me to wake up at 5 instead, which is when I normally wake up for school. So, I rushed to get things done and left my house at 6:30 and because of traffic, I didn't get in until about 7:10, so I got points off for being late, but I was surprised that I didn't do too bad on my notebook. I thought it would've been much much worse.

Basically after that, we've been doing a lot with laminated doughs: puff pastry, quick puff, croissant, danish, etc. Learning about all the turns and whatnot. 

We did brioche again and did croissants twice as well.

We learned how to work with marzipan, which I love because I think it's a lot like clay and I've done a few years of ceramics and I loved working with clay so this is as close as I'll get haha :)

We also started working with chocolate: tempering and molding it. So far, we've done the cool water method and tabling. I had a lot of trouble with cool water method, but tabling was a lot easier for me and also a lot messier. I just need some couverture chocolate and a marble surface, and I'll be good to go! 

But that's not all! We started cakes this past week too! We made savoie sponge cake and made Italian meringue butter-cream along with it. We did our first cake build and decoration. It was fun. My fine piping still sucks though lol.

Hopefully I'll be able to post on a regular from now on. 

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The 5 Best Things About Being a Pastry Student 

Thanks Steve!!!

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A Tumblr blogger and aspiring pastry chef, Kajal shares her favorite things about being a pastry student.

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Day 011 and 012 pictures

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Day 011 and 012.

Yesterday 

We made brioche yesterday! It was so good! We learned how to shape and proof it and then baked it off. We made 3 shapes brioche: Parsienne, Nanterre and brioche a téte. the brioche a téte looks like a drumstick before it's shaped. haha. 

We also filled out gerbet macaroons. My partner and I made green ones with pistachio buttercream inside. We learned how to recondition buttercream as well.

Chef demonstrated brownies and we costed them. It costs about $10.00 to make a batch of brownies. I was so surprised to learn that, and that's why people will charge you about 3 bucks a pop. Then, chef demonstrated a fresh fruit tart.

Today

Today was choux round 2! We made profiteroles and eclairs again and filled them with pastry cream and glazed them with fondant icing. We had to do it to make sure we had gotten the hang of piping. Chef showed us how to do a paris-brest. It looks like a Christmas wreath that you would hang on your door when all is said and done.

We did a supreme of an orange and made an orange fruit tart. We baked off brisée today and filled it with pastry cream and put oranges one top. I am so sick of pastry cream at this point, so I just ate the oranges off the tart.

We also made our own pear frangipane tarts. They turned out really pretty. I just dont like the frangipane in it.

On our piped choux, we did fine piping. Trying to get the hang of it still.Then, chef demonstrated Almond Sablé and finished the brownies from yesterday. I can barely open my eyes right now, I hope I have minimal spelling mistakes. Off to bed now! 

Pictures in the next post.

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Day 009 and 010 Pictures (cont'd)

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Day 009 and 010 Pictures

(More in the Following post)