T minus 5 Days...

...until my 6 hour final exam.

But first things first, I finished my chocolate module finally. I am not sure that my apron or my tea towels could have handled another day of being dowsed in chocolate stains. I have to be honest with you all, as much as I loved making truffles, if I never make a chocolate helicopter for the rest of my life...well I think I will survive.

I decided that my 'sheep' looked more like a sheep with a party hat than a sheep with endearing little chocolate ears. The "charm" of my windmill became more and more "rustic" with every crack of the chocolate as our classroom began to warm up and handling chocolate became a very delicate balancing act. In case anyone was wondering, my love for luster dust has only grown and I basically will find a reason to put it on anything nowadays.

My chef says that its all about the camouflage and let me just say thank goodness for piping! A crack in your chocolate can instantly become a ribbon of finely piped shells of chocolate. 

These pieces take about 6 hours to make and while that seems like a lot...who am I kidding! That is a ton! 

With wall paper scraper in hand I headed off to my last class in culinary school. I finished with the chocolate box. 

As we toasted off our last class with a glass of white wine, I couldn't help but think of how much I have learned over the past year and half. I have learned that 6 degrees of separation is true and that checking things off my travel list only makes me add more things to it. I have realized that people are people at the end of the day and that is more than enough to find common ground to bond over. Living a nomadic existence definitely has its cons, but the pros far outweigh them. While I never thought I would be able to see everything the world has to offer when first stepping into my new life in London a little over a year ago, it only took 9 countries and dozens of international flights to make me feel like I have actually made a dent in the world.  With new friends and no dessert unturned my love for traveling and for food has only grown.

I still have the water logged portion of the ice burg to see, but what I can say with complete confidence is that I have seen some of the world and at every turn IT IS MAJESTIC. 

I think I can...I think I can...I think I can...

With our final exam coming unnervingly close by each passing day, we started our module on restaurant  plated desserts. Since I happened to be working on my recipe and design for my plated dessert for my final exam, this module could not have come at a better time. 

Bijoux Box: sponge cake filled with chocolate creme brulee accompanied with a raspberry/grenadine sorbet

ricotta and orange zest mousse trimmed with pistachios, chocolate decoration, mango coulis, raspberry compote, tuile cookie decoration 

If heaven were a dessert than it would be embodied in this dish. Not too sure about ricotta mousse?? Well its amazing, especially paired with the raspberry compote. The raspberry compote was SO delicious that Nicole and I literally stood and ate the raspberries out of the pan. 

Sadly my piping bag making skills have once again become a much to challenging task for me to accomplish in class. So my favorite pastry chef Jasmine gave me another piping bag tutorial over one of our infamous "fancy lunches" this past week. Little did I know that I would also be taught to make paper boats. I am now happy to report that I successfully made 4 perfect piping bags for my chocolate work.

Oh the life of a culinary student...studying is obviously a bit different when cooking is involved.  But lets face it...studying is studying and nothing makes me more upset than having to make involved excel spread sheets. After giving myself a quick reminder that "enter" in excel does not give me the same result that "enter" does in every other computer program, I started typing out my final exam recipes and methods. I also had to finalized my plated dessert design and ingredient list. After about 20 sketches I finally decided to do a white chocolate mousse with a passion fruit jelly and....well I cant give it all away yet now can I?! 

Here is a preview of the base of my plated dessert...

CHOCOLATE TRUFFLES

Many of my classmates are in the growing process that is 'learning English'. To practice, they spelled my name in chocolate piping on some of our remaining lemon curd truffles. 

"Some people have been calling them little drops of heaven, but whatever" -Monica--Friends

Below is only 1/9 of the truffles and candies we made in our confectionary class...

Nicole and I were first assigned to make marshmallows. During our lunch break we thought it would be a good idea to bring in sprinkles to 'jazz them up a bit'.  When we brought them in to get approval from our chef he just said "djazz zem up a bit! ooooh lala!". He secretly liked them! 

Chocolate Train...

I think I can, I think I can, I think I can

Taking in a little homage from the classic children's novel The Little Engine That Could, chocolate work most definitely is an uphill battle. It melts, it sets too fast, it curls, it smudges at the touch of your finger, but on the upside chocolate also is fully edible, takes on luster dust fabulously, and, like a souffle, always contains a little mystery. Having had tempered 3 kilos of chocolate today, I can say with complete confidence that chocolate work is my Everest! 

CONQUERED! 

We believe in Tea and Cake!

The history of a tea party started with Anna the Duchess of Bedford in the early 1800's.  In England at that time people would have only breakfast and dinner.  Dinner happened to be quite late around 8 or 9 in the evening. The duchess would have a "sinking spell" in the middle of the day and her servants would sneak her a pot of tea and some bread or cookies.  Anna decided to make that part of her day an event.  She proceded to invite friends over to the Belvoir Castle where she lived to enjoy 'afternoon tea' around 5pm.  Thus the tradition spread and is now one of the signature English mealtimes for the poorest of poor to the richest of rich. 

The 22 hours I spent working on our afternoon tea party was hardly a relaxing experience. Having given absolutely NO prep to what all 30 of us pastry students were to be making for this very fancy event we went in Tuesday morning hoping for the best. The chef had given all of us one recipe that we would be in charge of and needed to complete from start to finish. Doesn't sound too bad now does it?? Well my chef came up to me after and said "Sarah, now I have given you the more involved dessert, normally I put two people on this one, but you can handle it"...compliment, yes, intimidating, most definitely! My dessert was a chocolate macaron with a coffee creme brule filling decorated with a vanilla bean creme chantilly, a disk of decorated chocolate, and a two toned chocolate cigarette (see photo above).  After the absolute chaos for 7 hours of day 1, I have to be honest I was not feeling super excited about day 2. Oh and did I mention that the elevator in our building stopped working? Oh yes I, along with all of my other classmates, climbed 4 flights of stairs about 20 times that day carrying up gardeners-soil size bags of chocolate and other ingredients up and down and up again from the production kitchen in the basement.

Inevitably day 2 did come and begrudgingly I dragged myself out of bed to shower...this was a big event after all. Thankfully two of my favorite people in London were coming as my guests for the tea party that afternoon. I finished my dessert quite early that morning, because all I had to do was assembly. My chef had me run between all the kitchens helping people who had fallen a bit behind or who had a lot of sugar and chocolate decorations. I deserved a super hero cape after that morning. Around 12:30 my chef said "Sarah we still need to make scones...here is the recipe, double it, and can you just deal with it?"..."absolutely!" I said with enthusiasm. Down to the production kitchen I went to get ingredients for about 200+ scones. I ran upstairs and started putting it together. Thankfully by that point my classmates were starting to finish up their desserts and started to help me. Nicole and I had whipped those scones out like no bodies business! We were then sent upstairs to speak with our other pastry chef about what else needed to be completed for the afternoon. We were told that we needed to go get the clotted cream and the jam from the production kitchen, put it in some pastry bags, wrap them all up and get them in the refrigerator ready to go for the afternoon. Off we went back down to the production kitchen and into the dairy/meat refrigerator we went...imagine a normal sized closet with 20 boxes filled each with 3 whole ducks standing in your way...along with about 10 baskets full of eggs, cheese, milk, and other such ingredients. The clotted cream was in the back corner in the back of the bottom shelf, and with an unbroken egg rolling around precariously on the floor we carefully moved the very heavy boxes of ducks all while being careful not to break the single egg rolling on the floor. We would just start laughing every few minutes because there was just so much stuff in the refrigerator and with boxes of ducks stacked higher than our heads we were just hoping to get out of there alive. Amazingly we got the clotted cream, disposed of the precarious egg, and we started carrying over all the desserts from our school to the hotel where the event was being held. Imagine 30 pastry students walking across the street with hundreds of desserts...definitely stopped a little traffic. While the event went great and everyone loved the desserts, the unnecessary chaos was most definitely preventable with a little more communication and organization. 

One of 100 trays we set up for the Afternoon Tea Party
Photo courtesy of my classmate Napa

One of several display tables we had set up for the tea party!
Photo compliments of my classmate Napa

With the Royal Wedding on Friday there was no rest for the weary. On Thursday morning I headed to my 8am class with a tent and sleeping bag in hand. Four of us decided to camp out for the wedding in hopes to catch a glimpse of the future King and Queen. At 11am Nicole and I ran from school straight to Buckingham Palace to try to get the best spot we could. Front row center we had the best seats in the house! Being interviewed and having your photo taken by about every news camera in the world is a hard job, but someone has to do it. I don't really know what all those celebrities complain about! We actually ran into a young couple from Houston and they decided to camp out with us. We had pizza delivered to the sidewalk and had an absolutely incredible experience meeting people from all over the world. Around 12:30pm the police closed off all access to the parade route, so it was only the people camping out. There was one point around 3am when we were just casually walking around a beautifully lit up Buckingham Palace and the Victoria Fountain with some of my best friends, no cars, and very few people, when I thought "wow this is one of those moments I will never forget". With maybe 1 hour of a very cold sleep on the sidewalk under our belts the festivities started around 10am. We saw everyone going and coming from the church. There were huge speakers set up in front of the palace so we could all hear the ceremony. I have never seen anything like it...thousands of people completely dead silent while listening to Westminster choir's positively angelic and chilling voices and William and Kate taking their vows with everyone cheering. It is strange how I felt such a part of their special day, even though I don't know them at all. Congratulations William and Kate! That was an experience I will treasure and never forget for the rest of my life.

The next week started bread week and I have never made more of it in my life! I had a boulongerie in my kitchen. 

With so much bread from two days of class, I promptly hosted a "Bread Eating Party". We had sandwiches and breakfast for dinner. What and event it was! 

Blow Fish...

My last week of sugar work ended with a few bangs...both figuratively and literally. Monday we got to make our "under the sea" sugar piece. The basic structure of it had to be our final exam design. Fortunately for me we were allowed to change the colors, because otherwise my fish would be swimming in a piece inspired by fire. Our chef showed us how to make a dolphin and little mussels, along with a multitude of other sea life. 

As I started to blow-up my sugar fish, I just could not get the size right. They were either more like the size of a whale or looked like a puffer fish blown up. My chef mockingly told me that I had an "army of fish"...to which I responded, "well they need to protect themselves from your dolphin!". After I said it, I just thought, 'please laugh please laugh', being disrespectful definitely does not bode well in the kitchen. Thankfully he did laugh and it made the day much more fun. Everything rolled how it should and I felt really happy with the piece when it was finished. 

Off to pastiallge...

Pastiallge is a mixture of powdered sugar and lemon juice. You work the mixture into a thick dough and you must use it right away. Once dried the texture is like porcelain...and it also shatters like porcelain. Feeling less than inspired the day we had to make all of our pieces, I just started cutting out shapes and it actually turned out pretty whimsical. I figured if worse came to worse I would just say it was "abstract" and call it a day. My favorite part about this experience was using the air brush gun. I really can't even describe how happy that little painting tool made me.  It is strangely empowering. 

The pressure was on for my final sugar piece practice. I had to time myself and be finished within 1 hour and 15 minutes...well I finished in 1 hour and 13 minutes.  The only caveat is that since it was SO hot all the pieces on my sculptures started tilting. My chef came over and said "you can do better, start over". Uhhhhhhhh!!!!! I was so mad! I have felt so confident in sugar up until this point and having to redo my piece on the last time I get to practice before my final exam is a little unnerving. 

My High Tea event is up next...who knows what could happen during all of that chaos. 

"It goes clack-clack chef"

The south of France, just saying those words makes you sigh into a state of instant relaxation.  When I got off the train in Grasse scents of orange blossom and fresh sweet basil waft about in the cool Mediterranean breeze and just for a moment everything felt, or should I say smelt, angelic.  It is understandable why this area has bespoke perfumeries and markets that would make even the pickiest eater go a little weak in the knees. After a weekend of eating fabulous pastries and fresh strawberries that give new definition to the color red, I was…well frankly, I was exhausted, but the kitchen shows no mercy for sleepiness.  Starbucks in hand I went into class Monday morning to start to learn blown sugar.

Our task for the morning was to make a blown sugar pear and a blown sugar apple.  The process starts by pulling the sugar to get the gloss you want and then you literally put a ball of the hot sugar on one end of a copper pipe and blow it up. Oh did I mention that it must be the perfect consistency, warm (not hot), constantly moving, without seams or air-pockets, and the shaping must happen as you are blowing the moving sugar?...oh yeah and when it gets too cold…BOOM! Shards of sharp sugar fly everywhere.  In our kitchen there would be dead silence for about 1 minute and then I would hear “BOOM! Ahhh! Uhhh (the sounds of utter disappointment)” and then the hammering off of the remaining sugar on the copper pipe going into the trash.  In fact I myself jumped the first 5 times my sugar apples exploded on me. Mine was the first one to explode to which my chef responded with “it goes clack-clack chef when it gets too cold”.  Once I got my first attempts shaken off of me and calmed my coffee jitters, everything went fine. With out a doubt this has been the most challenging task for me so far in superior.  After my first successful apple, and by successful I mean it didn’t explode, my friend Nicole and I just looked at each other and started laughing. We decided that it was a VERY rustic looking apple that possibly had been mauled by a bear. My chef said “oh well done chef you finished one…iz like one of zose crappy organic apples that you sell for 7 pounds in zee stores”.  We all had a good laugh about that comment. Even so, I still look at pictures and think, ‘wow I just can’t believe that is sugar’. Food has a way of enticing us and touching senses in a way nothing else can.

Can you tell which one is "organic"?

 For the afternoon it was onto my sugar piece…”clack-clack” became the phrase of my afternoon. You will notice that there is a reason why there is only half of an orange slice coming out the side of my yellow teardrop and that two of my shelves look like a dark army green color. First I ran out of sugar, because I made my teardrop too big and so was my base. Then my orange slice crumbled on one side and my sugar burned. My chef kept saying, “if you are not happy with any of your pieces, then just for today start again and do it right”.  I knew he was talking to me, but I just didn’t want to redo the entire thing, so I just didn’t make eye contact. He came over to me and said “chef I know you can make these pieces well,  I saw your pieces last week…go boil some more sugar and make them again”.  I begrudgingly went to go clean another pot to boil my sugar again. Although I was annoyed that I had to remake some of my pieces, I did end up getting to play a little bit more with some color…silver lining.

Tuesday morning was working with pastiallge, which is a mixture of gelatin, lemon juice, and icing sugar. Once you mix it together into dough then you can roll it out and make all sorts of different shapes with it. The dough dries very fast, so you have to work extremely quickly. The result looks like porcelain and has that same texture.  Not feel extremely inspired by looking at Google Images of pastiallge work for two hours the night before, I decided to do an abstract piece with my pastiallge that has a theme of a whimsical sky (moon, sun, stars, clouds all woven together). I think it will really come to life once it is painted.  That afternoon I had to finalize my sugar piece for my final. As you all can see the piece has evolved over the past two weeks, but I feel like I have a great base design for display of my sable petit fours and chocolate truffles for my final exam. On top of that I know I can do it in one hour, which is imperative.

“One cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not dinned well.” –Virginia Woolf

Just call me the Sugar Whisperer...

...we all knew this day was coming, friends, I am writing to you tonight with blistered hands and bandaged fingers. I know that this hardly seems like a pleasant experience, but I am just having the best time with poured and pulled sugar.

Monday morning started my module on sugar. Bright and early (and a little jet-lagged) I dressed out in my full uniform and I headed to my first superior class. I walk into class and met all my new classmates, but there was little time for chit-chat...we hit the ground running!

Our tasks for the day were to make a pulled sugar rose and to make our first sugar sculpture. The pulled sugar rose process is basically where you boil sugar and water to 329 F pour and work the liquid similarly to how you would kneed bread, well except for the fact that it is so freaking hot you almost have to laugh to get through it....or yell profanities. Then the process is similar to how salt water taffy is made; I pull the sugar and fold it, pull, fold, pull, fold, ect. The result is that the sugar gains a silver tone and looks like glass because of the air that has been incorporated. Then the sugar is kept hot under a hot suspended iron. Really the worst part is not touching the hot sugar, but it is having to work under the hot iron...my hands will never look the same again. When the sugar hardens, which is almost instant once you take it of the heat, the sugar turns into a very delicate glass like substance and the result is in a word, stunning! I can just imagine a bunch of these flowers gently cascading down and around the side of a wedding cake. Each one of these little roses would be sold for about $12-14 dollars. Sound outrageous? Well take into consideration that we have to pay for burn cream and antiseptic somehow.

Our sugar sculptures came next. The basic process of this is boiling sugar and water together and pouring it while still hot and then shaping it however you want. The tricky part, besides the heat factor, is that you have one pot of sugar, thus you have to very carefully graduate your colors. I started with yellow, then added a little red to make orange, then onto a deeper red, and finally swirled in some gold luster dust to the last portion of my boiled sugar. Organization for this is absolutely imperative, other wise you will end up with a very unfortunate grey or brown color very early on in your work.

 Tuesday our tasks for the day: sugar sculpture, sugar rose, pulled sugar ribbon in 5 hours. With some tweaking to my original sugar sculpture from day one, I don't like it at all!...however my chefs loved it...SO looks like this is going to be my general design, although there are a few techniques on my show piece that most definitely need practice. On my final exam I will have to display my chocolate truffles and petit fours on the "shelves" I have incorporated into the piece.

Tuesday also brings to all of us a new fear...the sound of crumbling and cracking sugar. While I have been fortunate to not have any of my pieces break, just about every 10-20 minutes you hear a "crack, crash, 'oh *$%!'" and shards of sugar go all over the counter and floor. We pick up the salvageable pieces for our distressed classmate and either try to piece it together or have another go at it.

We moved onto our roses and I do think that the one from today looks more life-like than from day one...minor victory!

Finally it was time for our pulled sugar ribbon. We only had 30 minutes left and Nicole and I started pulling our colored sugar ribbon across the width of the kitchen. Trying to keep the sugar even, shiny and pliable under the tiny heat iron all the while warming up our knife with a blowtorch to cut the huge and very breakable sugar ribbon into smaller strips to form the loops. We all felt like we were on one of those sugar competitions on the Food Network racing against the clock with sugar shards flying all over the place. New respect for sugar artists...mad props, I bow at your feet!

Strawberry Fields Forever

Finally the reveal of the finished product....

My poor butterfly lost part of his little wing...normally I would just make another one, but when it is 8:00pm and you have been at school since noon...dinner seems much more important. 

This cake felt like I was carrying the equivalent of 3 bricks. 

I knew this was the type of cake I wanted to do for a long time...actually I have been imagining what my theme would be since last May when I officially decided to continue with culinary school and put of the 'real world' for another year. With Spring wafting through the air in London this past week, strawberries, butterflies, and flowers seems to be the only appropriate expression of happiness we all felt to see and feel a little sunshine.

This is a fruit cake through and through. Admittedly I did end up trying a bit of the fruit cake that has been soaking in rum for the past 2 months....well I will just leave the taste to your imagination. My flatmates said it tasted like Christmas and they ate it right up. People say that at some point cultures do eventually collide and apparently they collide over fruit cake.

I am now officially a Superior Patisserie student and I couldn't be happier. Stay tuned everyone, because Monday starts pulled sugar and a few new classmates. I have a feeling these past few months have been a mere 'amuse bouche' to what I am about to sink my teeth into.