Fundamentals...a wrap up.

I created this blog, with the intention of daily entries about class. However, with fundamentals....there was not much to blog about.

Lets just say fundamentals was kind of..."low production".

We spent several days just practicing piping butter cream and chocolate as well as our knife skills and anything else we felt necessary for our practical.

Some of my piping

Day 8, Thursday (the day after ST. Patty's Day)....terrible day in South Hall.

Some JERK (to be kind) decided it would be a splendid idea to play with the fire extinguisher at 4:40 am....setting off the alarm and leaving all 500 of us residents outside, on the green for an hour and then we spent ANOTHER hour inside the gymnasium. No one was happy. And then just when i got back to sleep and had about another hour or two, the alarm went off AGAIN. It was like a sick joke.

So with four hours of sleep, I went to my SIX hour lab, to take an exam he told us nothing about and a very vague practical. Not my best day, curdled my first creme anglaise...ohhh well. Raced around frantically the whole day, it was ridiculous, 6 burners for 18 students making 2 different items on the stove. Not to mention, about 8 mixers for the room, each of us had to make an item in that as well.

For Day 1 of our practical, we had to make creme anglaise, pastry cream (both of which we had to monitor and record cooling temps) as well as butter cookies and roasted pineapple. By the end of the day, I just wanted to sleep and nothing more. I kind of, lost my steam. Not to mention, the class also curbed my enthusiasm about labs.

For Day 2 of the practical (last day of class) less stressful and less hectic. First, I cut apples into the four different cuts we were being tested on, once my chef inspected them (did well on most cuts) I went back to the stove and sauteed the apples with a little bit of brown sugar and clarified butter (yumm!).

Sauteed Apples

These apples were to be used in our diplomat cups. But in order to make the cups you had to make the cream. Which was just pastry cream folded into whipped cream, good stuff! So first you put down a play of diplomat cream, then the cooled sauteed apples followed by more cream and is topped off with a rosette of whipped cream and a chocolate filegree.

Diplomat Cream (not entirely incorporated yet!)

Finished Diplomat Cups

After this, I had to temper chocolate using the vaccination method. And with the tempered chocolate I had to pipe about 60 filegrees and then finish my butter cookies. When it was all said and done it all had to be presented to our chef one person at a time.

Finished Butter Cookies

Overall, i'm quite glad this class is over. The practical went well, I think and I won't know for sure until about thursday or friday. Wish me luck!