I Graduated!!!

For those of you that don't know I did in fact graduate from Le Cordon Bleu on June 3 with a Diplome de Patisserie.  My graduation ceremony was held in a mansion in the middle of Paris and it was a lovely setting except that it was about 85 degrees outside and there was no air conditioning!  Typical in Paris.  Beth was in town for graduation so she attended along with two of her friends from her George Mason MBA program and my friend Lydia from school.  They took great pictures and even a video of my graduation!

Beth and me before graduation standing in front of my boat.

The graduation room before the ceremony began.

A tapestry on the wall in the mansion.

Lydia, Me, Beth at the cocktail reception following graduation.

Lydia, Chef Cotte, and me at the cocktail reception.

The view out the window of the mansion.
Hard to believe we were in the middle of Paris!

Me, Katerina, Charlotte, and Lydia.  We all started Basic Pastry together in November.

Reenacting graduation after a few glasses of Champagne.

A close up of my medal.  It's not Vancouver 2010 folks, it's Paris 2011!

And there you have it...finally!  I came, I learned, I graduated.  For those of you that don't know, I decided to attend a 5 week intensive session of Basic Cuisine.  It started on June 20 and finishes July 22.  I may add a few more posts to my blog before the summer is up because I've already had some crazy experiences cooking as opposed to baking.  I've seen more whole dead animals in the past two weeks then can possibly be healthy.  Vegetarianism here I come!  Stay tuned!

Until next time Au Revoir and Bon Appetit!

Lessons 15 to 19 Sugar Sculptures

The final portion of my superior pastry courses was spent making sugar sculptures.  We learned how to make poured sugar pieces and pulled sugar pieces and how to put them together to form sculptures.  I made a total of 4 sculptures with pieces including flowers, ribbons, leaves, and different geometric shapes.  I was very excited to learn the poured sugar skills because I can now make my own lollipops!  The first few pictures are of my Chef and the sculptures he made in our demonstration class.  All of the pieces in all of the pictures are made solely from heating sugar and water to different temperatures.  Here are the pictures of my sugar classes from the beginning to the end.  Some things progressed nicely and some were better on the first day than the last.

Chef Deguinet making a yellow and green pulled sugar ribbon.

Continuing the ribbon...

Here are several different views of Chef Deguinet's two sugar sculptures.  It took him 5 hours to assemble both sculptures from beginning to end.

The is me on the first day of Poured Sugar work.

Here is my first Poured Sugar sculpture.

Another view of my Poured Sugar sculpture.

My first Pulled and Poured Sugar Sculpture

Closeup view of my first flowers and ribbons

My first ribbon was not very good, but at least it was a starting point!

My roses were not good, but here's the first one.

My first day of Pulled Sugar

My odd attempt at an exotic flower.

More practice with flowers

This was our one and only day working with Blown Sugar.
We attached sugar to small tubes and blew into them  to make balloons.

Pulled Sugar blob before I made it into a ribbon...

My ribbons are getting better!

Can you believe it's fragile?  Doesn't it look like I made it out of cloth?

Another of my attempts at a flower.

A different approach to roses.  Not too bad if I do say so myself.

Here is my sugar workshop complete with ribbons,
gloves, a silpat mat, a leaf mold, and a blow torch.

One of my sculptures and definitely my best ribbon ever.

A closeup of my ribbon and rose.

My sculpture the next day.

The side view of my sculpture.

And here is my final exam project.  I have included closeups of my roses.

My final exam project.  I had to have either 1 or 3 roses and some leaves.

I think all in all I made about 6 sculptures.  I hope you enjoyed the glimpse into my artistic side, or lack thereof...

Until next time Au Revoir and Bon Appetit!

Lesson 14 Intro to Sugar

The last quarter of the superior pastry classes are all about sugar. The first class I took relating to sugar was very interesting. We learned to make jam, caramels, and pates a fruit which is a very good gummy type of candy made of sugar and fruit and dipped into sugar. They are like the individual candies Jex and I used to eat as kids.

Apricot Pate a Fruit

Caramels with almonds and pistachios

My mixed red fruit jam.

Until next time Au Revoir and Bon Appetit!

Lesson 13 Chocolate Exam

Instead of one exam to end Superior Pastry we had a two part exam.  The first part was to make a chocolate box and decorate the top.  I made a box topped with a chocolate flower with a small sphere center and a small sculpture in the background with some chocolate swirls coming out of the top.  The chocolate exam went much better than the sugar exam at the end of the term.

My chocolate flower with circular center.

My chocolate box with spheres and swirls.

Until next time Au Revoir and Bon Appetit!

Lesson 11 Watch out Godiva!

I can now begin my own chocolate empire.  These little bon bons of goodness are dark chocolate filled with caramel.  Creamy, smooth, delicious, and pretty on top of that!

My Caramel filled Chocolates

Until next time Au Revoir and Bon Appetit!

Lesson 10 Chocolate Picture Frame

As part of learning to temper chocolate and practice making shapes we made boxes, picture frames, and pictures out of dark chocolate.  To make the pictures we put a temporary tattoo made of cocoa butter into a plastic mold and then filled it with tempered dark chocolate.  When the chocolate hardened it showed the cocoa butter creation perfectly.  We used the leftover chocolate to make candy bars.

My Chocolate Box and my Chocolate Candy Bar

My picture frame from the side

My picture frame on my chocolate box

Until next time Au Revoir and Bon Appetit!

Lesson 9 Chocolate Sphere, Mango Coulis, and Praline Crisp

Lesson 9 was the first of four lessons in chocolate.  We learned to temper chocolate which means we can make shapes and designs with the chocolate and it will be crisp and shiny until you eat it without ever melting.  The process of tempering chocolate involves melting chocolate chips to a specific temperature, cooling the chocolate to another temperature, and finally raising the chocolate to a final temperature.  I can't wait to come home and try the tuxedo strawberries again now that I have this new knowledge!

My Chocolate Sphere with Mango Coulis and Pistachio swirl

My candy bars with gold dust

Until next time Au Revoir and Bon Appetit!