Day 10: Dunkin' Donuts Watch Out!

Before I begin to tell you about how much baking I did on Friday I need to let you know that the chef was very happy with my apple turnovers on Wednesday.  I'm not sure if you could really see from the picture, but one end of your turnovers should rise up and have a solid ridge on it.  The chef said mine rose very nicely and he really liked them.  I was very proud!

On Friday my family arrived back in Paris from their trip to Vienna and Prague just in the knick of time.  When they arrived at 1pm I still had Wednesday's Palmiers and Apple Turnovers waiting for them to taste and I'd already made Chouquettes and Eclairs in the morning.  By the time my evening class was finished we had all of those sweets plus a traditional Dacquoise made of almond meringue to keep our sugar levels high.

The morning began with an 8:30am practical class on making Eclairs.  We had been told in our demo that we'd be making chocolate eclairs, but as is always the case you have to follow the directions of whatever chef you are assigned when you finally get to your practical class.  So with famous Chef Bernarde again, he announced we'd be making coffee flavored eclairs because that is his favorite flavor.

The first step in the eclair making process was to mix up the hot Choux Pastry for the dough.  We easily mixed up the dough and put it into a pastry bag to pipe the dough onto a cookie sheet.  We piped out 6 or 7 eclairs each and used the rest of the dough to make little balls called choux similar to the choux balls we made for our Saint Honore.  After piping out the choux we covered them with large sugar crystals making them chouquettes and put them in the oven.

While the pastries were cooking we made pastry cream for the eclair filling and we made liquidy fondant for icing the tops of the eclairs.  Dipping the eclairs and getting the icing to lay smoothly was a bit challenging, but when they were completed they definitely looked just like the frosted donuts you'd buy in a store.  The only difference when we tasted them was that they were even sweeter than the store bought doughnut and tasted even better!  As we'd made coffee eclairs and my family is full of chocolate lovers I swapped a few of my eclairs with a girl from another class before bringing the treats home to be devoured by my family.

My Coffee Eclairs

The Dacquoise we baked in the evening cooking session was actually a very simple cake to make, but when it was finished it looked so nice that it gave the impression it had been a ton of work.  The first thing we did was whip egg whites to make meringue.  When we'd finished doing that we added in some sugar, vanilla, and crushed almonds to add some texture and flavor to the meringue.  We baked the two rounds of cake in the oven and in the meantime started making buttercream icing.  I don't know about you, but up until now I have never really been a fan of buttercream icing.  It usually tastes kind of blah to me and is not sweet enough.  Well, I think that's because I've never truly made a buttery buttercream icing myself.  It took a long time to whip by hand, but I have to say, I could have eaten that icing on anything.  It was really tasty.

So once the cakes came out of the oven and cooled we iced one layer and assembled the cake then we learned how to make roses out of Marzipan.  I FINALLY found something that was easy!  When I'm done with school if I can't find a job anywhere else I am confident that Buddy will hire me to be one of the girls that sits in the back of his kitchen making flowers out of Marzipan and Modeling Chocolate on Cake Boss, because I was a real natural!  I was the first one done with my rose and leaves and everyone else seemed to be struggling with the task and at times starting over.  I hope someone tests me on flower making for the final exam!

My Dacquoise

So, cake assembled, the chef said he liked my rose and my cake and I got three 3.5s and one 4 out of 4 categories.  I'm not sure how to raise my scores around here as we all seem to be getting the same marks, but I'm happy with my 4 and will continue to work hard.

Until next time Au Revoir and Bon Appetit!

Day 8: Rolling, Rolling, Rolling

Wednesday was loooong and Friday was even longer!  Wednesday I got up at 7am, left the house at 7:30am, attended a demonstration class from 8:30-11:30am, attended a practical class from 12:30-3:30pm, attended a Bikram yoga class from 4-5:30pm, and stopped at the grocery store on my way home, reaching my front door at the top of the 5 levels of stairs I climb each day at 6:45pm.  Phew!

Wednesday was full of excitement and challenges as we tackled Puff Pastry and learned about dry butter.  We made Apple Turnovers and Palmiers which are a traditional French pastry combining puff pastry and sugar.  Once again the chef made all of the desserts equally attractive and tasty, but this time he did NOT make it look easy.  While watching this very tall, strong, typical chef looking man roll out the puff pastry I could feel my eyes getting wider and wider.  I figured if he was putting this much muscle into the task of rolling out the dough I was certainly going to have a hard time.  I tried to take comfort in the fact that he had quadrupled the recipe I'd need to make later, but that did not do much to allay my fears.  Rolling the dough looked like it was going to be strenuous and take forever.

Our instructions were to roll out the dough out in a straight long rectangle.  When the dough got to be about 1.5 feet long we had to fold one end in on top of the other end like a tri-fold book.  Once folded into a book we had to rotate the dough, dust the flour off of the dough, and begin the process over again.  All the while we needed to be sure to have enough flour on the work surface so as not to let the dough stick to the counter and we needed to be sure and only rotate our dough 5 times.  So not only did this dough require strength, but concentration as well.  It was tedious and messy and I, among other students, spent a large portion of the 3 hours with flour all over my face, hands, and shoes.

I also need to take a moment to talk about the newest baking ingredient this project introduced me to: dry butter.  While American butter has a fat content of 80% to 82% European butter has a fat content of 82% to 84%.  Dry butter is essentially the name for European butter and is probably the answer to the question why are croissants and pastries so much tastier in France.  Dry butter is any butter that has a fat content of 82% or higher.  Once we had made our dough, but before rolling it out we put dry butter in the dough.  We basically stretched out the dough a little bit, put strips of dry butter on it, and folded the dough around the butter like an envelope.  While constantly turning and flipping the dough after rolling it out each time we equally spread the dry butter throughout the dough.

After the dough was successfully rolled out we divided it into two long strips.  One strip was rolled out once more and cut into three or four 6 inch circles.  The other strip was folded from either end in on itself several times until it looked like an accordion from the side.  The circles were topped with apples and folded together to form apple turnovers.  The accordion dough was thoroughly covered with granulated sugar, cut into strips, and laid out flat on a cookie sheet.

Palmiers

Apple Turnovers

When the very artfully put together baked goods were put in the ovens it was time to clean up.  Working with puff pastry was certainly a challenge and makes croissants start to look all that much scarier!  I was extremely thankful my family was coming back from Prague on Friday to work on eating all of my Puff Pastry items as there certainly were A LOT of them.

Until next time Au Revoir and Bon Appetit!

Day 7: The Days Become Busier

First let me apologize for not blogging about Day 6 where I learned to make Madeleines and France's version of Fruit Cake.  My family flew in to Paris on Saturday morning and between visiting, sightseeing, and still going to school (yes even on Saturdays!) I did not have time to put something together.  Suffice it to say I made beautiful and tasty Madeleines and the Fruit Cake was more of a lemon pound cake with some fruit in it which allowed it to be rather tasty.  The real excitement of the day though was being graded for the first time.  I recieved three 3.5s and two 4s out of 5 in five categories.  I was definitely in the top half of my class and very pleased with my scores.  Chef said I had done a wonderful job and that my Madeleines were "tres jolie" or very nice.

Now on to today, Day 7.  This is where we apparently kick everything up into high gear!  We went from one class a day last week to two or three classes everyday now.  We are at school 6 days a week for 6 to 9 hours a day.  Today we began at noon with a class picture.  The next event was a 12:30pm demonstration class on how to make Saint Honore and Paris-Brest.  These two desserts are similar in that they combine different creams and pastry.  We then had to make the Saint Honore which looked a bit like a cross between a banana cream pie from Pie Gourment and Munchkins from Dunkin' Donuts in our 3:30pm practical class.

I really think the most stressful part of all of this is just having to get things done so quickly.  The order of events for the class was make your pastry dough for the bottom crust, make your choux pastry for the puffs, make your chantilly cream, and make your caramel sauce.  Each of these tasks was pretty straightforward, but I did run into a few glitches along with way.

Making the pastry dough for the bottom crust was easy as pie, literally.  Making the pastry choux was a little more complicated.  I had to combine milk, salt, sugar, water, and butter on the stove and wait for it to boil, I then added flour and mixed it over the heat until all of the ingredients came together to form a dough.  After removing the mixture from the heat and putting it into another bowl I added 3 eggs.  After adding the 3 eggs we were instructed to present our concoction to the chef to find out if we should add any more eggs as this is a very temperamental dough.  I was instructed to add 1/2 of one egg and after mixing it in I was very happy with the consistency of my dough.  For those non cooks out there that are perplexed as to how to add 1/2 of one egg to anything, you simply whisk a whole egg in a small bowl with a fork and pour half of it into your mixture.

I then piped mini blobs of the choux pastry onto the cookie sheet that already had my bottom crust on it and the whole tray was put in the oven.  While it was baking we made caramel sauce to dip our finished product in and whipped cream to line the bottom of the pastry crust.  I need to take a moment here to say that I will definitely have super defined arms when I get home.  I made whipped cream with a whisk today.  No mixer.  Not fun.  I feel like I work on a farm and as a matter of fact if I'd continued to whip the cream about 5 minutes longer I actually would have made butter as, unfortunately, was the case for some of my classmates.

So, with my doughs cooked and cooled, I began dipping my pastry puffs in the VERY hot caramel mixture.  I burned my right index finger right of the bat and am still feeling the pain now as I type.  That, thankfully, was my only caramel accident though which I think is pretty great considering how many puffs I had to dip.

Saint Honore dough fresh from the oven!

Saint Honore

After dipping the puffs and assembling my Saint Honore I piped my freshly whipped Chantilly Cream into my pastry and decorated it accordingly.  At the end of the class I was left with a beautiful Saint Honore and a very good idea of how to begin replicating Pie Gourmet's banana cream pie when I come home.  Drew can't wait for you to be my taste tester!  And when it was all said and done I once again received very high marks in relation to the rest of my class.

Until next time Au Revoir and Bon Appetit!

Day 4: Apples, Apples Everywhere!

Okay, I have a confession to make, I cheated in class today.  That's right, Day 4 and already I'm cracking.  Today was the highly anticipated day that I had to make a Tarte Aux Pommes, or Apple Tart.  First of all, I've never made any kind of tart and secondly refer to the Day 2 post where I mentioned the no mixers, everything by hand, weight measurements and you begin to see my trepidation with this task.  To make matters worse our head chef was none other than Nicolas Bernarde.  Among his many awards and accomplishments is the Meilleur Ouvrier de France de Patisserie-Confiserie award for 2004.  Basically that means he was named the Best Pastry-Confectionery Chef in ALL of France for 2004.  Sheesh!  Talk about intimidating!

When I arrived in the kitchen a few minutes prior to 8:30am with the rest of my group we were told to gather our materials, begin making our dough, then prepare our apples, assemble our tarts and put them on a rack where they would sit until we could put a bunch in the oven at once to be cooked.  Sounds simple enough, but nothing is that simple in an unfamiliar kitchen with a famous pastry chef watching your every move.

The first step was easy, I opened my knife kit and took out my paring knife, chef's knife, spatula, scraper, peeler, and scale.  I measured my ingredients and started making my dough.  Everything seemed to be going well and then Chef Bernarde asked us all to watch while he showed us the "correct" way to chop apples.  Apparently someone was a step ahead of me and was not chopping their apples so successfully.  After getting an apple cutting tutorial I began to peel the apples using my peeler as the Chef had just shown us.  This is when I ran into problems.

Number one while I'm sure this is how many people peel apples, as it is clearly the "right" way to do it, this is not my method.  My method, which I learned from my Dad, and scares the dickens out of Suzanne Jackson, is to peel the apple toward me with a paring knife.  As these knives are brand new and very sharp I can see plenty of reasons not to peel apples in this way, but the peeler situation was taking FOREVER!  It was one strip here and one strip there and the chef was saying "Hurry, hurry, you're going to run out of time!"  So, that's when I broke.  I flashed back to Miss Perkins' second grade class when we were learning to write in cursive.  She would walk around during the handwriting portion of the day and mark us down if we weren't holding our pencils the "correct" way.  Well, I was the slowest writer ever when holding my pencil the correct way, so I would hold my pencil the correct way only when she walked around and then once she passed my desk I would throw caution to the wind and go back to my easier and quicker way of doing things.  

Channeling this experience I decided the quick and easy approach was once again the way to go while peeling apples.  Whenever the chef would leave the room or even walk to the far end of the room I would toss my peeler down and pick up that paring knife!  This, of course, was the cheating portion of my day.  Although I must add here that there are quite a few people in my class of an, shall we say, eastern persuasion, who I'm sure would have cheated if they'd had an opportunity to.  So, apples chopped and thrown into my melted butter on the stove I was once again in business!

After the apples were cooked I put them in a metal pan and put the pan in the refrigerator so they could cool.  Meanwhile I took my dough out of the refrigerator and started rolling it out on the island.  At this point we were once again called over for a lesson.  This lesson was on how to flour your work surface like a professional pastry chef and not "the way your Grandmother used to do it at home."  By the way, there are many references to not doing things like your Grandmother, but I'd like to say my Grandmas made some mean desserts in their day!  Where would I be today without Grandma Saville's apple pie, and cherry squares or Grandma Welshans' marble cake with chocolate icing and handmade candies shaped like peanuts and wreaths?

Again I digress so back to the assembly of the tart.  I managed to fit my dough into the tart ring, fill it with apples and carefully lay out apple slices in a fancy pattern as shown in the demonstration and was quite far ahead of most people in the class at this point when Chef said something that sounded like "blah, blah, blah," because he was speaking French.  I looked at him and he repeated, in English this time, "Your apples are backwards."  Ok, WTF?!  Really?  So, I took them out and started over.  Nonetheless after relayering my apples in a clockwise direction I was still one of the first people to put my tart on the rack and have it ready for the oven!

When we were all finished baking and cleaning up and the tarts were in the oven Chef told us we'd done well for our second day, but that we needed to be much more concentrated and work much faster going forward.  When the tarts came out of the over not everyone had a completely cooked tart because they had worked too slowly.  I am happy to report that while my tart wasn't the prettiest of all, it was certainly cooked all the way through!  

Since it was only our second practical class we once again escaped being graded today.  Instead the chef walked around and talked to each of us for a moment about what we'd baked.  I am also pleased to report that one of the greatest pastry chefs in all of France told me my tart looked ok for a first try, but that he was pleased by my ability to work quickly and keep a clean and organized work station.

My Tarte Aux Pommes

The moral of today's story is sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do, but in the spirit of really grasping all that I'm being taught in this prestigious school I bought a 10kg bag of apples on my way home and plan to practice peeling the "correct" way until I can do that quickly and easily as well.  Afterall, I don't want my professional baking capabilities to turn out the same way as my cursive handwriting!

Until next time Au Revoir and Bon Appetit!

Day 2: Not as easy as it looks!

I hope no one skimmed my last post and inferred that I had made those delicious cookies in the pictures-not the case.  Today, as I mentioned earlier, I was charged with the task of baking my own plain batch of Diamonds, but without swirls or anything too exciting.  Even though I didn't fall asleep last night until 12:45am and this morning the alarm started ringing at 6:50am I thought I was more than up to the challenge by the time I arrived in the Kitchen in full chef's gear at 8:30am.

There were 14 people in my group and we each had a work space with all of our own tools.  The chef (who spoke not a word of English) showed us around the kitchen explaining where we could find all of our ingredients including farine, le sucre, le beurre, le sel, les oeufs, et la vanille.  I am happy to report that I felt way above average in my understanding of his directions and explanations even though he was speaking only French.  Once I assembled my ingredients I began forming the dough for my cookies and once the dough was formed I let it rest in the refrigerator, cut it into cookie size circles, and baked them in the over.  Pretty straight forward, especially for me, who is clearly more than a seasoned baker when it comes to cookies, right?  Wrong!

Let me talk to you a little bit about what it means to make something from scratch in a French Pastry School.  Number 1 you can toss out your measuring cups kiddos because every ingredient is measured by weight.  Try exactly measuring your flour or your sugar on a food scale, not an easy task to reach the exact amount you want.  It's one scoop in, half a scoop out until you're finally just sticking a small spoon in there to remove the excess and get to exactly 225g.  Also, if you think you might need that teaspoon for salt or baking powder you can forget that too as small quantities are consistently measured one pinch here and two pinches there.  The number 2 problem with these exciting lessons in baking are the fact that there are no mixers allowed!  The chef uses a lovely Kitchen Aid mixer on Demo Day, but we are left to the use of our hands only!  It is crazy.  So, straightforward cookie dough was not so straightforward, however it was really fun and I feel like I have a completely new skill today.

Between refrigerating our dough and actually cooking the cookies in the oven the chef took us on a tour of the food pantries.  These are closets in the school where all the ingredients are kept for each of the classes.  Pantries full of nuts, dried fruits, syrups, liqueurs, different varieties of sugar and everything else you can think of.  I need to take a moment here to thank Becca (Laurie's cousin) for having me over to her house on Sunday for lunch.  She not only invited me over for lunch, but also gave me a little tutorial of baking in a French kitchen.  She showed me ingredients I'd never heard of and low and behold they were all included on my tour this morning.  Two very remarkable ingredients that I had never seen before were a baking powder like substance and gelatin.  Instead of baking powder or baking soda they use something else that I can't remember the name of.  Instead of coming in a can or a box it comes in individual servings in packets that are the same color as Sweet 'N Low and about twice the size.  The other oddity is gelatin.  It comes in flat strips that look like clear plastic.  They are about 3in by 6in and you apparently dissolve them in cold water and add them to cakes to change their consistency.  I'm very anxious to see it in action!

When we returned to the kitchen we cleaned up and put away our tools while the cookies were baking.  After the cookies were cooled we took pictures of them and packed them away to bring home.  Yes that's right I left my school at 11:30am with more than 6 dozen cookies in tow.  Not good at all.  So far I've given them to the metro workers, some teacher, and the man that runs my apartment.  Hopefully I'll have more people to give them to soon!

And that's it.  Day 2 complete.  As it was our first time in the kitchens and we were still getting acclimated, we weren't graded today.  However, Thursday and Tarte aux Pommes is going to be an entirely different story!  Wish me luck with my apple tart and I'll keep you posted.

Until then Au Revoir and Bon Appetit!

Day 1: A long day ends with short breads.

Well, after all these years, I finally completed "The First Day of School" all over again!  It was an extremely intense, informative, and all around exciting experience.  I'm not sure I was fully prepared to be at the school off an on for 12 hours, but even in the 11th hour I still caught myself smiling with joy over the fact that I was finally learning about and getting to do something I love.

Now that you know the day was a huge success let me take you back to 9:15am and my formal entrance into the world of Cordon Bleu Paris.  Entering the front foor of the school I was warmly greeted by three women aged about 35, all bilingual in French and English, sitting at a table handing out information packets and giving out stickers for everyone to wear.  The stickers were labeled 1, 2, or 3 and had either a red dot or a green dot on them.  I was given Green #1 and sent to the "Jardin d'Hiver" or Winter Garden to fill out my paperwork with approximately 25 other people.  Our numbers quickly rose until we were about 45 people ranging in age from 20ish-45.  While it would seem I'm right in the middle of the group age wise I'd be remiss not to mention the fact that it was like a dagger to the heart when I had to check the box for the 30-35 age group on the information form we all had to fill out.   

At 9:30am sharp a group of 4 adults in business attire and one woman in a chef's uniform began the day's presentation.  The first question asked was, "How many of you speak French?"  Only about 1/4 of the new students in the room raised their hands which seemed to bring immediate relief to many people in the room including me.  The entire presentation, and the rest of the day's activities, were consistently spoken in French and translated into English.  It was a very good way to learn and I gradually found myself understanding more and more French as the day went on.

Following the introductory presentation we were informed that the green dot on our identifying stickers denoted that we were all Basic Pastry students and the numbers were the three groups we'd be put it to complete the morning tasks of registration, tour of the school, and distribution of uniforms, knife kits and lockers. 

My group was first to receive uniforms, knife kits, and lockers.  The uniforms consist of 3 pairs black and white checkered chef pants, 3 white chef jackets, 3 neck ties, 2 small hats, 1 apron, and 3 utility towels.  There is a pocket on the left sleeve of the jacket where you are required to carry a tasting spoon, a pen, and your clip-on student ID at all times.  The knife kit I haven't even looked at yet, however it is a huge black case with a full set of Wusthof knives, several spoons, forks, and a nail cleaning brush for your hands.  The lockers are bright blue and about as old as the school which was founded in 1895.  We each had to provide our own lock with a key or combination.

The second activity for my group was a tour of the school.  We went back to the Jardin d'Hiver and learned that this is the main gathering place for students.  It is a two story room with a roof completely made of glass to let the light in.  It is full of bistro tables and chairs and students generally eat there, study there, or just hangout there while waiting for their next class.  Our next stop was the main Demonstration Room for Pastry students.  The DR is an ampitheater style room with seating for about 55 people.  It has a kitchen down in front with a huge island containing a sink, plenty of counter space, and 8 large burners.  Above the island is a slanted mirror and a downward pointing video camera running a live feed to 4 flat screen TVs, 2 on either side of the room, for student viewing.  The final part of our tour was a visit to one of the pastry kitchens.  It was a rectangular room with 14 work spaces.  This is where we will have our practical classes and recreate what we've seen the chef make in the DR.

At 11am all Pastry students entered the DR for a completion of the morning program.  We were given our very, very crazy and intense schedules for the next 5 weeks and our school binders complete with a syllabus, info on the chefs we'll be learning from, and all of the "recipes" we'll be learning in Basic Pastry.  I say "recipes" because what we really have are ingredient lists.  In the Demonstration classes it will be our job to take diligent notes and recreate the chef's recipe so that we can recreate the dish the chef prepared the next day in our Practical class in the kitchen.

At noon we were dismissed and told to be back in full chef gear at 3:30pm for our first demonstration class. I took this time to run out and buy chef shoes which are basically heinous looking black clogs with a steel toe.  After purchasing the shoes I also decided to eat a big lunch knowing I probably wouldn't be eating again before 9:30pm, unless it was a sample of some of the demonstration food from the afternoon's classes.

Our 3:30pm demonstration was purely informative and not something we're going to have to recreate.  The chef showed us how to make "simple" ingredients that are frequently used in pastries, but will be provided for us as opposed to us making them from scratch.  He demonstrated how to make Raw Almond Paste, Marzipan, Apricot Glaze, Coffee Extract, Praline, and Fondant (which I have clearly already mastered anyway).  It was very fun and interesting to watch him work.  He had a very nice and funny disposition.  When the presentation ended at 5:30pm he informed us that he was teaching our 6:30pm class as well and would begin at 6pm if we all preferred.  Obviously we were thrilled!

The 6pm class was all about shortbread.  We learned how to make Nantais Shortbread, shortbread sandwich cookies called Glasses, Chocolate Shortbread, Brittany Shortbread Biscuits, and Diamonds.  We will be recreating Diamonds tomorrow in our first Practical class at 8:30am.  The recipe calls for butter, flour, powdered sugar, a strip of orange peel grated, some powdered vanilla, and some salt.  The ingredients are to be combined, rolled, sliced, refrigerated, and then baked at for 25-30 minutes.  It sounds like I know what I'm talking about, so hopefully tomorrow will be my first official culinary success!

After the class ended around 8pm we were allowed to take pictures of all the cookies the chef had made and then his assistant plated the cookies so that we each had one, or a piece of one, of each of the cookies.  I'm not sure if it was not eating since 2pm or what, but they were the best shortbread (aka not soft) cookies I've ever had!  I can't wait to make them tomorrow.

After that we were dismissed and changed our clothes and filed out of the school around 8:30pm.  I got home at 9pm, changed, went for my first jog in Paris with my barefoot shoes on, and then came home to FINALLY post something on my blog.  I know it was more informative than creative, but as it's 11pm and I've got to be back at school by 8am, I don't have time to talk to anyone tonight.  I hope you guys found the beginning of my journey as exciting as I did.  I'll talk to everyone soon and post the results of my baking tomorrow.

Until then Bonsoir and Bon Appetit!