Week 11 (Basic Patisserie)

RESULTS WEEK!! 

This is it, 3 months have flown by and Basic Patisserie is at an end. Most importantly before we get on to the most recent exams, we had to do our food safety exam way way back in the first or second week. Well, I finally found out I passed that!! 

Now the main event! 

Just a quick note on the grades and pass marks;

50 - 79.99% = Pass

80 - 89.99% = Pass with Merit (Mention Bien)

90 - 100% = Pass with Distinction (Mention Tres Bien)

We were warned at the beginning of the year practically one person a year, if that, gets the distinction and only a handful get the merit. So, given that, I was hoping mainly for a good pass. It's been a tough 3 months so I was really hoping for around 60-70% overall! 

The practical exam (eclairs) counts towards 45% of the final grade for basic patisserie,

The written exam counts towards 10% of the final grade,

And the practical sessions count towards the remaining 45% of the final grade.

Tuesday morning at 8:00 our exam debrief sessions started, luckily (or unluckily, given I had to get up at 4am!) I was up second at 8:10. Walked into the room, my buttocks hadn't even touched the chair yet and chef promptly announced I'd failed! I think my reaction made him laugh at which point, we both laughed (mine was a nervous one!) he quickly turned that on it's head and congratulated me on getting a good pass! These marks were just for the practical exam (the eclairs), chef told me I'd got 82.1%! I was completely gobsmacked, the first thing I processed was the 80 part, which means I got a Merit on the exam!! We then talked through feedback and what was good and what needed to be done better. The eclairs were a bit doughy and the pastry cream a tad lumpy but had good flavour. The colour and consistency were good, the hygiene etc was really good and the shells and rosettes we had to pipe scored 5 out of 5 - practice, practice, practice really paid off!! I was incredibly pleased!

BUT, that's only 45% of the final marks, we had to wait another 48 hours to find out what the final marks overall are. An age when you're eagerly waiting for something! I did a very quick calculation, in my head, based on the marks we had from our practical sessions, that we were given the breakdown for at the mid term review. And I was hopeful that I'd done enough to scrape a pass, without accounting for the other grades we were due to get on Thursday. 

Thursday eventually came round and it seemed like a really long wait until 11:30! We all filed into the classroom, which had been converted into a seating area and podium, it was boiling hot in the room and I'd stupidly put on a thick shirt, on a hot day - I was wilting fast! We then had to sit through a rather pointless speech, I don't wish to be nasty but we all know what we're there for and the speech was just full of nonsense! Anyway, it finally ended and then we were all called up in groups, Group D was by far the best turned out, to the point where we got a cheer when so many people stood up! We got our envelopes and shook the hands of 3 chefs, I got back to my seat and opened the envelope quickly, pulled out the certificate and saw a little silver sticker on it with the words "Mention Bien"! I then pulled out the breakdown of marks and found out I'd got 82% overall!! I could not believe it!! I was hoping for a good pass, but to achieve a Merit at one of the top culinary schools in the world was just amazing! The session was finish off with a few drinks and a chance to chat to the chefs, plus a picture taking session! 

Most of Group D, we all passed, so those that are carrying on to Intermediate will be back at school in the next week or two, those who aren't we'll see later in the year after their break. It's been a brilliant group, hugely privileged to work with them. 

The certificate!! Will need to find somewhere in the house to hang this up!

I'm incredibly proud of myself and really really happy with the result! Now is not the time to get complacent though. Passing means I can progress onto Intermediate Patisserie, so now I need to ramp up the efforts and give my all for next term. I'm so excited for Intermediate and the new challenges it'll bring...BRING IT ON! 

Week 10 (Basic Patisserie)

FINAL EXAM WEEK! 

I spent the weekend leading up to this week practicing all three of the potential exam dishes; 
- Tarte aux Citron (Lemon meringue tart),
- Genoise a la confiture de framboises (sponge cake with buttercream and raspberry jam),
- Coffee eclairs.  
Previously, in class and on a number of practice attempts, the pate brisee (shortcrust pastry) has domed in the middle and shrunk quite dramatically. I researched it a lot, spoke to the chefs and other students and no matter what I tried differently I still got the same result, extremely frustrating! Resigned to my fate and clearly cursed, I set about making the pastry shell first. I did everything as I had before, but rolled it a tad thinner before lining the tart shell, let it rest in the fridge and then it was in to bake. I checked it periodically while I was making the lemon curd and candied lemon rind decoration, took the baking rice out once the case was dried out (so far so good, no shrinkage or dome in the middle), then back in to finish cooking and go nice and golden brown - its at this stage it usually domes and contracts when I'm not looking. 10 - 15 mins later it was ready, and finally, FINALLY no dome or major shrinkage! It was a real confidence boost before the exam, because I'll all but given up hope on it! The cake and the eclairs went fine as well, which reaffirmed what I thought about the exam dishes, in that I really didn't mind which one we get. 

Monday came round and a number of the group were a bit apprehensive about what we'd get. We got up to the room early and couldn't resist a peak in, there were lemon juicers and graters in the set ups so there was a whisper of excitement that it could be lemon tart. That was short lived though when the chef came out and promptly announced we'd be doing the eclairs! We were warned not to do the meercat thing at the window as they put various bits of equipment out to fool us! We were allowed in early and did the bon d'economat, which is a recipe with various bits blanked out. We had to fill in the blanks of quantities, ingredients and methods and draw a top view and cross section of what they were supposed to look like. I've never been good at drawing so it looked a tad suspect, thankfully we had to label it as well or else if could have easily been mistaken for a nicely decorated turd! Then it was a case of getting on with it. I felt quite calm and relaxed overall, everything seemed to go fine and I was making good time. I can't claim to have ever enjoyed an exam before, but there was something different about this one, it felt like a good kitchen session and I enjoyed myself. The only slight issues, in my opinion at least, was the fondant being a little bit overheated and it lost its shine slightly, and the chocolate piping. I practiced the piping on the baking paper first to get a feel for it and settle on the design I wanted. I got it looking really nice (even if I do say so myself!), or at least to a point I was happy with it, went to pipe the first eclair and the chocolate in the bag seized up and it went uncontrollably squiggly, typical! The first couple were a bit dodgy so I'll lose marks for consistency, but I was happy with about 8 of them (we had to present 12). Finally we had to pipe 10 consistent shells and rosettes on a separate cake card, the rosettes I was really happy with, the shells were ok but I didn't quite have the lined up as neatly as I'd hoped - they were consistent at least! I'd kept my station really clean, and myself, so I'm hoping to have got good marks for that. We find out about the exam, pass/fail, what went well/wrong and how we did overall next tuesday. Not too long to wait fortunately. 

After the exam we went out for a drink, unfortunately at the bar we went to it was buy of get one free cocktails, needless to say it was quite a bit of a struggle getting up for work the next morning! 

Thursday morning and a 4am start! I got the bus as normal and all of a sudden the motorway came to a complete stop. Now, I haven't missed a single lesson this term, and I was determined to make sure I had 100% attendance. However, 40 minutes later, when we hadn't moved an inch, I started to get worried that the 100% attendance wouldn't be achieved. Fortunately the traffic started moving again slowly and once we were past the accident we were well on the way. I arrived in time, luckily! The demo was on chocolate truffles, three varieties; Muscadines (milk chocolate with praline paste), white chocolate with kirsch ganache and dark chocolate with a rum laced ganache. The chef was in a bit of a bad mood so it wasn't the most enjoyable demo, it was interesting though. He warned us that he would be picking 'volunteers' to help him at the front, unfortunately I was sat in the wrong seat and was one of the four people picked to help out. My job was to smooth over the white chocolate on the bottom of the white shells - harder than it looked, but I did ok. Scurried back to my seat at the earliest opportunity! The muscadines tasted really nice, the white chocolate ones tasted nice, the dark chocolate ones had a bit too much rum in though. Having said that, they had a lovely texture so it wasn't all bad!
It was a long break between the demo and practical - 8 hours. It was filled with a trip to a mexican food place for nachos (nice, but not the best I've had), a wander around London and then a nice long sit in St James' Park, watching the world go by and fending off the grotty pigeons with sticks.

The practical finally came round and it was good fun, we had my favourite chef, which really made the last Basic Patisserie lesson great. We split off into groups of 3's and 4's and each worked on one truffle mix, the group I was in hard dark chocolate to do. First job was melting the chocolate to make the ganache with. The ganache was made and a little less rum added than the recipe called for, this was then left to set and then piped into rough rounds (although in reality they came out more like little turdlets!). Again, these were left to set and then rolled into balls, now it was time to temper the chocolate. This was a lot harder than it looks. You first have to raise the chocolate to a temperature of 45-50 degrees, then cool it to 27 degrees, then raise it again to 32 degrees, then its ready to use. The reason for the up and down in temperatures is because of the various fats and getting them to melt and control the crystallisation properly. We got it roughly right and then it was time to dip the chocolates before rolling them in cocoa powder. We had quite a good production line going! It was quite slow going though because the chocolate kept solidifying too much to be able to coat the balls evenly, so we had to reheat it very gently to get back to the correct temperature. Chef then came along and showed us a quick way of coating the rounds - coating the latex gloves in chocolate, fondling the balls a bit, to coat them, and then straight in the cocoa - it got a much thinner chocolate layer than we were getting using the chocolate fork/prongs and was a lot quicker. So we finished the second half in about a tenth of the time it took to to do the first half! The feedback was good and they tasted nice. We then had a share out with the rest of the group, so we all had some white ones, muscadines and others had some of our dark ones too. 
It was a really nice last practical together because there was a lot of people missing from the other groups, but Group D (the best group) were all present and correct. However, practical 20 of 20 now signals the end of Group D as it stands. Very sad, but very happy with everything we achieved together. 

Next week we don't have any lessons, we just have the exam debrief on Tuesday. Got to get into school for 8:10am, so its a 4am start for a 10 minute chat with the chef. I half wondered about whether it was really worth going in for, but I'd really value some feedback and learning what I did well or could have been done better. These chefs are amazing and hugely experienced, so I want to take every opportunity to learn from them. I'll find out whether I passed the exam or not - that's not a guarantee of passing Basic Patisserie as a whole, but its a good indication at least! Plus it's useful for knowing whether its worth turning up for the graduation ceremony on Thursday or not, because if we don't pass the exam we can't pass BP! 

Thursday will be the graduation ceremony where we'll get a full breakdown of marks for the exam (45% of final grade), the written exam (10% of final grade) and all of the practical lessons (45% of final grade)...oh and we'll also find out if we passed the kitchen safety/hygiene thingy we did in the first week. I haven't heard about needing to retake that exam, so thats an encouraging sign! I can't wait to get the final grades for everything, it'll be good to see how I've done, and where I may need to up my game for Intermediate Patisserie (as long as I pass BP!). Fingers are firmly crossed!

The chocolate truffles! White, dark and the milk chocolate muscadines covered in icing sugar. These were good fun to make, and we had enough time to wander around and see how the others were getting on (and sample the half made ones covertly!). They all tasted really nice, my favourites were the muscadines though. 

Group D in all its glory! I'm really going to miss working as part of this group, some are leaving and coming back later in the year to carry on, others are staying but there is the risk the groups will be mixed around a bit. I've been so lucky to be part of this group, they're all great and its been an absolute pleasure working as part of a team with them. You can tell by the smiles on everyone's faces how much we've all enjoyed it!

Week 9 (Basic Patisserie)

It was petit four week this week, as well as the theory exam. 

We kicked the week off with the theory exam at 8am on Tuesday, I heard a few people complain about how early it was, but I was secretly happy because my brain is more awake in the mornings! There were a few transport problems in London, which caused some of the group a bit of a headache, but fortunately everyone arrived on time. Given the early start and not wanting to leave my fate to public transport and a 4am alarm, which could have easily been ignored by this point, I decided to stay over in London the night before. A couple of the group did the same thing and we had a very nice meal at Byron the night before! 
The exam itself didn't go too badly at all, the revision had paid off and most of the questions I felt comfortable with. The only question that proved a nightmare was a question on the make up of baking powder. We'd had a huge group debate via text the day before and I may have caused some confusion after I contradicted what the folder said. Our folders said it was 2 parts bicarbonate of soda, to 1 part cream of tartar. However, in one of the lessons the chef said it was the other way around, and after a browse on the internet, 5 different websites all confirmed that. I'd stuck my neck on the line and debated hard that the folder was potentially wrong. Unfortunately there wasn't sufficient time to check with a chef before going into the exam. Sod's law, the question came up, and the two scenarios were two of the possible answers, typical! The dilemma was, do you go with the folder, knowing it looks wrong (and with hindsight knowing that thats what the test will be judged against), or pick what looks to be the actual right answer and hope for the best...Some of the class are hoping for the best! We're going to write to the school and get them to look into it, as well as the folder, and see if we can still get the mark. That was it for Tuesday, just an hour and then I had to hot foot it back to Oxford to get to work. This unfortunately meant I missed a hearty post exam breakfast, which I'm still completely gutted about! 

Wednesday we started in the afternoon with our final lecture for Basic Patisserie - Ice Cream! It was a good lecture, several ice creams and sorbets had been pre-prepared for us to try and then the chef also made a grand mariner ice cream in class as well as a champagne sorbet. The ice creams we tried were as follows; 

• Red wine granita - this was spiced and had a strange flavour, I found myself wanting to go back for more after a little taste, but then almost regretting it instantly. I'd need more to properly decide I think. 
• Bailey's ice cream - this was really nice, the Baileys was quite mellow but the flavour came through nicely. 
• Coconut parfait - couldn't really tell it was coconut to start with, it was ok but nothing special. 
• Chocolate ice cream - this was just ok, I've had (and dare I say, even made) better chocolate ice cream than this. It was a bit grainy, I think they used cocoa powder, alas, it wasn't a complete write off though. 
• Mango sorbet - this one was one of the best, probably took the second place spot! It was really mangoey and had lots of flavour and a really nice texture too. 
• Grand Marnier ice cream - this was nice, just nice though, nothing better than that. I'd have put more alcohol in, the flavour was too subtle for me, it was a nice texture though. Having said that it did stick to the roof of the mouth a bit. 
• Champagne sorbet - this was by far the best, I really really enjoyed this one. So much so that I grabbed a second as the tray made its way back to the front of the class (and third when no-one was looking!). The bubbles stayed in the sorbet and it tasted really fresh and fruity. It'd be really nice after a heavy meal...or any time of the day/night actually. I think I'd need more, a lot more, to properly decide though. 

As per usual in these lectures I managed to get a fit of the giggles, not once but twice this time! If you're ever in the vicinity of a Frenchman ask him to say "Hokey Pokey" and "Bounty". It'll sound something like 'occy poccy' and 'bunty'. I couldn't help myself, the chef took it well though and even threw "hokey pokey" out there again, a couple more times, just to make us laugh!

After the lecture we went into the practical for the demo we'd had on biscuits and almond meringue batons last week. The biscuit dough came together ok, but I rolled it too thin, that put me completely on the back foot, because unless I wanted minuscule biscuits, I'd have to settle for a rectangular checkerboard pattern - not the square one they were looking for! Its best to look at the picture below to see what happened, what matters though is that they tasted really nice! These were quite disastrous all told, once you had the checkerboard pattern you had to roll out the trimmings so you could wrap a layer around the outside of the pattern, to hold it together. I'd put this in the blast chiller to firm up, didn't let it warm up enough before trying to roll, next thing I know, snap! It wasn't going to be rolling anytime soon, in one continuous layer. I warmed it, tried again with a second strip I'd got in reserve and that one wrapped up fine fortunately - at least I had something vaguely resembling what I had to make, to bake and present! I got surprisingly good feedback from the chef, they were consistent, well baked, the outer layer wasn't too thick. Not the initial disaster I'd thought they'd be. 
We also had to make little almond meringue batons, this was a french meringue, with icing sugar, ground almonds and a little bit of flour folded in. Piped in little baton shapes (and praying you hadn't over folded it so it sunk into a flat slipper), covered in chopped almonds, baked until a bit springy and golden brown, left to cool and then brushed with a chocolate glaze on the bottom. These came out really well, so I was chuffed the entire lesson wasn't a muck up! Got really good feedback for these, only one small criticism - not quite enough chocolate on the bottom. One week too much, the next not enough. The not enough debate I can get on board with, the too much one still perplexes me completely! 

Thursday and we had late lessons again, but this time it was a lesson I've been looking forward too. Macarons! Before that though we were out in the courtyard and Gok Wan wandered past. We eventually plucked up the courage to go and ask for a team picture! 

The demo for the macarons was interesting, we were shown the french meringue method and the italian meringue method. The french being the more traditional way and the italian being the more modern and conventional way. The french ones were made with cocoa, for chocolate shells and the italian meringue had green food colouring added to match the filling. The fillings were very nice - a chocolate ganache, and a buttercream made with pistachio paste. Chef then decorated the pistachio ones with a drizzle of melted chocolate. They tasted very nice and the pistachio ones were especially nice. 

Straight after the demo we had the practical. We started off with the chocolate ones, using the french meringue method. We had to be careful folding the dry ingredients into the wet because it was easier to knock the air our of the meringue with this one. These had to be made first because the french meringue macarons have to sit for a bit to develop a bit of a crust before being baked. As it turned out I was a shade too cautious and didn't quite fold it enough, and the shells had little tiny peaks on when finished baking, aside from that they were good though! Then it was on to the italian meringue, it came together well, then I handed it over to my partner to fold the dry ingredients in while I got on with the ganache. Once the mix was ready we piped it the size of 10p pieces (well done for remembering the 10p's Helen, I forgot!), and it was straight into the oven with them. As they were baking we got on with the buttercream, it was the same method as the genoise sponge cake, so it was good practice ahead of the exam. These came out perfectly! We had to scramble quick to fill 8 of each to present, I was happy with the results - especially as I hadn't made the French meringue method before. We also had to use the leftover buttercream to pipe the 10 shells and rosettes we'll be required to do in the exam. The feedback for this lesson was really good, the shells and rosettes the chef was really impressed with, plus the macarons looked really nice. A great last practical before the exam...the next time we step in the kitchen will be exam day! 

Friday afternoon we had a demo, there was no practical attached to this one, it was just a demo of good old fashioned recipes; Trifle, shortbread, cold lemon soufflé and apple tart tatin. The cold lemon soufflé was interesting; a hot sugar syrup added to beaten eggs/egg yolks, lemon juice and zest heated up with gelatine added, which was then all added into the egg mixture. This was then lightened with an italian meringue and spooned into a mould and left to set in the chiller. It was really really nice, and light. The shortbread was a standard shortbread, not much to report on. It was nice, could perhaps have used a tiny bit of salt to bring the flavour out a bit more though. The apple tarte tatin was a thing of beauty and demolished very quickly at the end of the lesson - I didn't get any pastry, but I was more interested in the apple and caramel so I wasn't bothered really, I managed to get extra helpings of apple. And the trifle, one of my favourites, did not disappoint! It just needed a bit more sponge and a bit more sherry, but aside from that it was good! Group D proudly maintained their gannet reputation and stayed behind afterwards eating a load of what was left! 

And as soon as it started the week felt like it was over! It was a nice relaxed lesson to finished on, the calm before the impending storm! Monday is our final exam dish for Basic Patisserie, we'll either have the genoise sponge, the lemon tart or the eclairs. Various people have their favourites, also ones they don't want. I can't honestly claim to have a preference or great sense of dread with any of them. I'll take whatever comes and just do my best. I'm refusing to get panicked as well, my mind clogs up and doesn't work properly if I panic about it, so thats off the cards. I'll practice all three dishes and some piping this weekend and then just hope for the best come Monday. When all's said and done, worse things happen at sea! 

The checkerboard biscuits looked like they'd been on the stretcher! Kicked myself after I'd done it because I knew exactly what I'd done wrong, it was just a tad late to correct it. They were very short and tasted nice though. Plus the meringue batons were really nice. 

The chocolate macarons (french meringue method) and pistachio macarons (italian meringue method), despite the tiny peaks on the chocolate ones they both tasted really good. 

Week 8 (Basic Patisserie)

This week continued the gateau theme...and I celebrated my 28th birthday with a practical lesson! 

Wednesday we had a lecture in the afternoon, that should have been very exciting - chocolate. It could have been right up there with the cheese lecture, unfortunately though I think I set my expectations a little too high! We were first shown a strange video on how chocolate is made, it was the weirdest video I've ever seen. We were privy to a letter a french woman was sending to her friend on what she'd discovered on chocolate production, it interviewed the French chocolatier she'd spent her time with as well. Very strange, very hard to follow and far too French to understand it fully! Needless to say a few in the class lost interest and caught up on some sleep! Now, given the success of the cheese lecture and how much of the stuff we were given to try, we were quite hopeful for some samples of nice chocolate to taste...set the expectations a tad high on that score though, the closest we got was a cocoa pod submerged in oil in a kilner jar, to look at. Not the best lecture!

Thursday saw an early start and a demo lesson on the Gateau St Honoré. Lots of different methods with this one, shortcrust pastry, choux pastry, pastry cream & chantilly cream (mixed together to form a Creme Diplomat), and dipping choux buns in caramel and hoping not to burn the fingertips! This was a useful one to do because it gave us a good practice at some of the methods we'd need for the exam. The choux buns, once dipped in caramel, were then placed on top of neatly arranged almond flakes and crushed candied violets. The chefs looked really nice, but overall it tasted quite dry because it was a lot of pastry and not much creme diplomat in the middle. Personally, if I was making it at home I think I'd fill the choux buns with some of the creme diplomat as well. They were nice with the caramel and nuts/candied violets, but sucked all the moisture from your mouth as you ate them! I had another giggling fit in class this week as well. The chef started dipping the choux buns in caramel and then took them over to the mat where the almonds had been arranged and promptly declared - "just let it drizzle down onto your nuts a little first" - its the child in me, I can't help it!!

In the afternoon we went into the practical. Started with the shortcrust pastry, which had to be prepared, chilled and cut into a disc, which would form the base. We then had to make 10p sized choux buns, and pipe the remaining choux on the top of the shortcrust pastry to create a base for the choux buns to sit on later. All of this was then baked. While it was cooling we made the pastry cream and got the cream ready to whip for the chantilly cream. We also got the sugar on for the caramel and prepared the almonds and violets ready for the assembly. I'll admit to being a bit nervous at dipping the choux in caramel - I'd watched it get to 170 degrees C, so the last thing I wanted to do was dip too far and get boiling hot sugar on my fingertips...I didn't! But I did drop a couple of choux buns in when nerves overcame confidence, fortunately they were retrievable. Once they were setting with their nuts/violets on top we assembled the creme diplomat. Then we had to use the St Honore piping style to pipe it in the middle of the shortcrust/choux disc (good practice for the lemon tart). Finally the choux buns had to be dipped in caramel again to stick them on the outside. It's at this point I hoped that I'd counted properly to make sure there were alternate almond and violet covered choux buns, I had luckily! I was happy with how this one turned out, it looked really nice when finished and I can really see the improvements from the first few weeks. 

Friday we were in early again, it was two demo lessons today. First demo was a charlotte aux cassis (blackcurrant mousse cake), which involved a genoise sponge sheet cake, jam, blackcurrant mousse and a blackcurrant glaze on top. Then we had to decorate with white chocolate piping and fresh fruit. It looked and tasted amazing. The only bad thing was having to wait a whole day to get back in the kitchen to make it! Then the second demo, which we won't be doing the practical for until next week, was petit fours. Little almond meringue biscuits brushed with chocolate and proper biscuit biscuits, which merged plain and chocolate dough into a checkerboard pattern. Quite looking forward to next week to make these! The chef also showed us some orange tuille biscuits, which tasted lovely (I had 4!), we'll not be making these in the practical though. It was a hot day, the heat in the school was almost suffocating, didn't stop us flocking to the front to get a taste at the end of the lesson though! 

Saturday - my 28th birthday! When I got handed the schedule at the beginning of term I was miffed that I'd be spending some of my birthday in school, AND missing the annual Dyson family gathering down in Newbury. However, after meeting the people on the course and getting to know them, and enjoying the course so much, I could not be happier that I got to spend some of it with Group D, and in the kitchen. And the lesson certainly did not disappoint! We had to make a genoise sheet sponge first. That went without any mishaps. Mine was a tad crisp around the edge, very slight, so nothing to worry too much about. We then had to trim it and layer it up with a thin spreading of jam, one sheet suddenly stood about 8 layers tall! This then had to be chilled down and then trimmed into 1cm strips to line the edge of a cake ring, with an extra two bits cut out for the base and an insert near the top. Then it was on to the blackcurrant mousse - the blackcurrant puree is a demon, it stains the chef whites to buggery and theres no chance of cleaning it out easily, you're pretty much stuck with it all the way through to Superior term! I think I managed to stay splatter free though. The blackcurrant mousse required the puree, syrup, gelatine and whipped cream, it came together ok but felt a bit loose. The sponge was then soaked with a cassis laced imbibage, then the mousse added, it then had to be chilled for a good 30 minutes for the gelatine in the mousse to set. Then the puree came out again to make a glaze on the top, again set with gelatine. Once the cake was set we had to pour the glaze in the middle and gently ease it around the cake so the whole top was covered. It looked much easier when the chef did it in the demo! Back into the blast chiller to fully set then came the challenge - blowtorching the outside just enough to release the mousse from the ring, but not too much so as to melt the jam onto the ring. I was too gentle with it at first, the second go had it released fortunately! It was then decorated with piped white chocolate and some fruit. I got good comments from the chef...still need to work on my chocolate piping, but everything else was good. Really really happy with this one, and one of the nicest birthday cakes I've ever had!
I didn't quite managed to escape to the changing rooms in time though, whilst in the corridor a loud chorus of happy birthday erupted into song. Yes I was embarrassed, but it made the day that extra bit special and I'm thoroughly chuffed I got to spend part of it with them, good friends. 

The Gateau St Honoré, overall I was really pleased with how this turned out. The St Honoré piping pattern on top could use some more practice, and I need to get more confident handling the sugar, but I'm happy with how this turned out. 

The Charlotte aux Cassis, yes the chocolate piping needs work, but everything else was pretty spot on (in my eyes at least!) so I'm very happy with this. Its probably just taken the top spot of the dish I'm most proud of so far! 

Can't spend too much of sunday celebrating, got to cram in some revision and exam dish practice! It's the first exam on Tuesday morning next week. The written theory one (still another week until the final exam dish though, so no need to enter full panic mode just yet!). Its multiple choice and there are only 30 questions, so the right answer will be on the page somewhere, its a case of picking the right one! Spending as many waking moments as possible cramming in as much information on flour and the composition of eggs etc. to make sure I'm fully prepared. Fingers crossed!