We started this week off with a lecture on Wednesday afternoon, on dairy products and eggs. Learnt all about what makes up the egg, percentages of egg white etc. also the percentages of fat in cream and various different types of milk. As far as lectures go this was quite a fun one. Chef started the lesson by handing out jam jars half full of whipping cream, with which we'd be making butter. We were working in pairs and had to shake the jar very vigorously until we ended up separating the fat from the water, the fat lumped together and sat in the middle of the jar was a lump of butter. It took a good 5 minutes of hard shaking to get to that stage but we all got there in the end, one girl was very enthusiastically going for it (lucky husband!). The butter was then drained from the water and we got to try some on a bit of bread. I'm not a great lover of butter but this was really light (thanks to using whipping cream rather than double cream), it needed a bit of salt though. A few slides and the usual filling in the blanks filled the next hour or so and then chef started a debate that would turn friend into foe and divide the nation completely. How to pronounce "scone". It came about because we'd moved onto clotted cream and chef passed around some little scones with jam and clotted cream on, which we had to taste - this course is so hard sometimes! There was a bit of a split in the class, the group I'm in, on one side of the room, and the other group on the other, roughly. Most of the other group are Asian and looked on completely bemused as the English members of my group (me included) passionately took up arms and argued with people we'd previously considered friends! I'm in the scone like 'gone' camp. Scone like 'cone' is just wrong, and fortunately chef cleared up the origins and it seems like it should be pronounced like 'gone'. The 'cone' people didn't seem overly bothered though and will no doubt carry on pronouncing it that way (wrongly). Never let it be said that I don't respect anyones right to have an opinion. Its completely the 'cone' camp's right to pronounce it how they want, even though they're wrong.
Then he started the next debate, jam on first or cream on first. Im very much in the jam on first camp - and luckily so was chef! You get a nice dollop of cream on it that way. I'm never quite sure whether that makes me more Cornish or Devonish. By the end of the lesson we'd all made friends again though. It's quirks like that that make me love being English, I mean, who really cares how its pronounced or which condiment you put on first, either way they're still mouthfuls of perfection!
Thursday was a really long day, up at 4am for an 8am start. The demo was for madeleines, lemon cake and a cake made from marzipan and pistachio, of which we had to then recreate the first two in the practical. The lemon cake looked really nice, it was baked in a loaf tin and then a lemon glaze/syrup was applied to all sides, it then had a sprinkling of icing sugar applied and some candied lemon peel (exactly like we had to make for the lemon tart). The madeleines were little shell shaped cakes flavoured with some honey, they're baked in a special tin, giving them their shell shape. On the other side however we had to make sure it had the characteristic little bump. Personally I'd prefer a smoother surface on it, as opposed to an overinflated nipple, but we're here to learn it the proper way! These, straight out of the oven, were a real treat. The marzipan and pistachio cake looked like a throwback from the 70's, but despite looking dense in texture was actually really nice (if you like marzipan, which I do!). The lesson ended and we then had an 8 hour wait until our next lesson at 6:30pm! It was a long day. That said it was broken up by a trip to an eclair shop - they looked amazing, but at £5.20 an eclair (no I didn't mistype that!), I stuck to a free sample of choux pastry, which tasted divine. Lunch out and a walk around Hyde Park in the sun filled in a lot of the time and was a very nice way to spend an afternoon. A few of us had also got a ticket for the Superior students afternoon tea party event. Just to check out what we'd be expected to do in a few months. All I can say is wow!
(PIC HERE)
The cakes were so nice, and the little scones, and they kept refilling the tray. Needless to say, the three people from my group that I was sat with all had to take a breather at the end to avoid being sick. We majorly overdosed on sugar and cake...it was worth it though, it was really really nice. It really excited me for the coming months and challenges as well. It was also a good opportunity to talk to three really nice girls from an intermediate patisserie class, they've already been through what we're about to go through and gave some really useful hints and tips.
The evening saw us back in the kitchen. We started out with the lemon cake and then moved onto our madeleine batter while the cakes were in the oven. While the batter was resting in the fridge we moved onto making the candied lemon peel. It needed to be julienned, which I'd go too thick initially then had to promptly halve the strips I'd made! They had to be blanched 4 times and then cooked in a sugar syrup until translucent and candied - I will get them right, start to finish, one day - hopefully on exam day, if we get the lemon tart! They came out of the syrup fine this time though, so in the end they were ok! The madeleine tins had to then be butter, refrigerated, buttered again and floured, so the madeleines didn't stick, all the while being careful not to stick out fingers in the moulds otherwise the madeleines would have stuck. While the madeleines were baking I decorated the lemon cake, I was a bit over-enthusiastic with the milk and made the cake batter slightly too lose to it slightly fell over the sides of the tin and had a little muffin top, but nothing too bad. I was still happy with it in the end. Luckily all of the madeleines turned out of the tin as well. My nubbins weren't quite as pronounced at others were however they still seemed to pass the test and I got some useful feedback from the chef.
Friday started with an 11:30 demo. Time for our final potential exam dish - Genoise a la Confiture de Framboises (now it sounds more difficult!).
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