This week went so quickly, only in three days this week, so with the coming Monday being a bank holiday I get a three day weekend!! Given how the schedule looks this is pretty much a mini holiday! Having said that it means I can practice lots and hopefully improve on what I did this week.
The week started pretty abruptly - exam dishes and prep! We have now been told which three possible dishes we will get in the exam in June. It'll either be lemon tart, coffee eclairs or a nice looking genoise cake with jam and butter cream and fancy piping on top (can't remember the name). We need to learn the recipe quantities, method and what it should look like. To look at them it looked fairly ok...until we went into the weeks first demo! Just the one lesson on Wednesday, so that was it for the day after that lecture.
Thursday we had a demo, followed straight away by the practical. In the demo we were shown how to make the lemon tart, and how to pipe the fancy meringue topping on top - its harder than it looks! We were also shown a chocolate tart (which I fully intend to do this weekend as I didn't hang around to try any, the classroom was boiling hot and I really needed some fresh air). There seemed to be lots of techniques to the lemon tart - first off we were shown how to make pate brisee (shortcrust pastry), then lemon curd, then confit lemon strips to use as decoration on top, and finally italian meringue - which is just piped on top and then browned with a blow torch. We were warned that this would be a tough practical....should have taken that warning a little more seriously!
Straight from the demo and into the kitchen, it was a huge learning curve. The lemon tart is a potential exam dish, so the practical was treated as such. It was very intense on the multi-tasking front. You had to start the pastry, get that in the fridge, peel, cut, zest and juice some lemons and get the zest and juice into a bowl on a bain marie (for the curd), then it was blanching the strips of lemon, weighing out more ingredients for the curd, back to the pastry, blind bake the pastry, back to the curd, back to the lemon strips (now put in a syrup), keeping an eye on the pastry so it didn't burn...back to the curd, then italian meringue then piping....as we were warned - tough! Very heavy on the multi-tasking front and something I want to practice more to get a bit more confident on timings. At least it was edible at the end of it! I think everyone left the kitchen exhausted, it took a lot of concentration. But we made it through it! The irritating thing is that Ive made shortcrust pastry and curd before and got better results, its just different in the kitchens when you're being judged and following a procedure you're not completely familiar with. No matter though, I'd much rather 100 things go wrong and only 1 go right, than the other way around, it's much easier to learn from and improve that way. Oh and I enjoyed using the blow torch again, only managed to singe one tiny ridge of meringue (which almost required blowing out when it looked for a split second like it was about to actually catch light), other than that it was nicely browned over the rest of it, so I consider it a good job done!
Friday was another demo, this time pate sucree (sweet pastry), used to make an apple tart, fruit and pastry cream tart and also a almond cream tart (a bit like frangipane). The end results chef made looked impressive, unfortunately we were recreating the least sexy looking one (the apple tart), but my favourite in the flavour department, so I was happy!
This kitchen session, compared to the last one was a lot more relaxed! We had to make our sweet pastry, using the creaming method, then make an apple compote, then finish off with more apple on top. We had to get the dreaded mandolins out for the apple topping. The were mean looking machines but got the job done quickly and I can't recall anybody falling victim to them and slicing off half the skin on their hand, luckily. This lesson finished a bit early which was nice and was a bit slower paced than the one previous (we weren't dawdling by any stretch of the imagination though!), so a nice lesson to finish the week on.
Lemon tart, although it looks nice there were quite a few errors with this one! The pastry was overworked (I did it exactly as we were shown!), the curd was overcooked and apparently tasted a bit eggy - I couldn't get my head around this one, to me it tasted fine...and on the plus side it held very well when cut! The julienne lemon shards on top weren't quite cut to a regular enough size and were overcooked in the syrup. The meringue was good though and chef was happy with the piping for a first attempt, plus it tasted really nice when everything was eaten together! It was really useful feedback though, because I now know what techniques I need to hone and improve. Plus I can practice lots and improve my multi-tasking!
Apple tart, although this doesn't look quite as good as the one above there wasn't as much wrong with it!! The tart ring could have been lined a little better to get a really nice finish on the outside of the pastry case, and the apple decoration could be a bit tighter on top, but the compote filling came out great. Cant wait to get this one home to eat - it's sat warm at my feet, on the bus, and I get the occasional waft of warm apple!
This week has been quite tough, it dawned on me how difficult the exams ahead are likely to be, but even though it feels like a massive mountain looming in the distance, I feel that with enough practice, patience and more practice, it can be conquered. I'm excited to practice this weekend too, I don't see doing a shed load more baking as a chore, so that can only be a good thing. What really helps is that I absolutely love it at the school. Its a great place to learn and although you don't always get good feedback, the negative feedback is the most useful because you know exactly what you need to improve on...and that's exactly what I intend to do!
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