Week 8 (Intermediate Patisserie)

This week introduced us to plated desserts!

We started on Monday with the demo for a chocolate fondant and banana mousse with caramel cream insert. The fondants were cooked in little rings and the chef handled them with great care because they were just cooked and the slightest knock caused the delicate crust to break and the molten core to pour out! The mousse was piped into half sphere moulds, the caramel insert placed in the middle and then a chocolate mousse set on the base.  This was all wrapped up and frozen ready for the next lesson though, as it had to set overnight in the fridge. At the end of the demo there was a charge to the front of the class to get a taste of the fondants, which, when tapped lightly with a sponge, gave way and out poured a river of lava-like chocolate. They tasted very nice and didn’t last long at all! Unfortunately during the lesson I had to stifle the giggles somewhat. It was a French chef and he was talking about different things that could be put into the caramel, after he mentioned salt and rosemary I thought I heard “sexy paper”…what he actually said though, I’m still not 100% sure on!

After the demo we went into the kitchens for our practical lesson. We had to start by getting the caramel cream insert ready for the mousses, as they had to chill for quite a while. Until the course I’d never managed to get a completely lump free dry caramel (just melting the sugar, with no other liquid added), however when working in pairs (as we were, in both lessons this week) I always try and volunteer to do it so I can practice it and get it right. Its amazing how easy something becomes when you’re shown how to do it properly! We had a mostly fault free lesson, only one minor cock up on my part. I was making the banana mousse for the second dessert and it wasn’t coming to setting point. My partner ran through the list of ingredients to make sure I’d got them all in – I had, then the quantities, that’s where the error lay! I thought I’d read 3g of gelatine (which was the quantity for the caramel crème), unfortunately it needed 3 sheets for the mousse. Each sheet weighs about 2g, so I’d only put in half the gelatine! We were starting to slip behind, so desperate times called for desperate measures. We heated a little bit of water in a pan, added 2 sheets of gelatine when it was warm (to make up for the extra liquid being added), then mixed it around quickly and poured it in to the mousse! We didn’t have time to let the gelatine bloom in cold water before using it, but it seemed to have worked ok, and everything started to thicken as it was supposed to then! Because we’d gotten behind we didn’t have long to make a sugar decoration, this was another near disaster. The sugar is over 140 degrees centigrade, so quite hot. I dipped a metal ring in quickly (as the chef had done in the demo) to make a nice paper-thin sugar collar to go around the fondant on the plate. That failed miserably, the ring got very hot very quickly and I haven’t developed sufficiently asbestos fingertips to be able to handle it yet! So I resorted to drizzling some sugar haphazardly on the baking paper and hoping for the best, it wasn’t hideous, but there was no finesse about it! It was really hot to try and pull/shape too, not an enjoyable way to spend 5 frantic minutes, plus when it was thin it sets like glass, a piece shattered in my fingers and I’d got a splinter embedded, which drew a spot of blood! All that said and done though, I managed to get a fondant on the plate – the first one I tried to unmould was 1 minute away from being cooked properly, because as I took the baking paper off the sponge split a little and out poured the centre! The second one, after an extra minute in the oven, unmoulded perfectly though. The chef gave me some good feedback, the chocolate piping was a little thick, but the design was good, and I’d overdone the sugar work on the plate – at which point I informed him it was lucky I managed to get any sugar work on the plate! I left the lesson kicking myself and quite downhearted because of my mistake. We weren’t going to know until tomorrow whether the quick gelatine fix worked or not, as it had to set in the freezer overnight. That’s one of the down sides to working in pairs, my partners’ marks for next lesson were partly reliant on my mistake, and I felt a great burden of guilt because in haste I’d read the wrong quantity – 3 grams of something had never seemed so important!

The demo on Tuesday was making a mini caramelised apple tarte tatin and unmoulding the banana mousses from the previous lesson, with a bit more sugar work, a spray gun, a couple of sauces and some fancy plating thrown in as well! The banana mousse tasted nice, with the caramel cream insert, and the tarte tatin was really nice with the caramel sauce and crème anglais!

As the practical came round I was very nervous about turning out the banana mousses. I’d had visions the night before of them not setting and disintegrating as we turned them out. As we were waiting for the spray gun (to spray white chocolate on the outside to give them a velvet like texture), we took the plunge and turned them out. Fortunately they turned out well, and we got the chocolate sprayed on evenly too, so all was well, and an overwhelming sense of relief came over me! I could finally enjoy the practical again, I’d been burdened with guilt for a whole 24 hours! The tarte tatins came out well too, as did the sauces we had to make. The pulled sugar worked better this lesson too, and I managed to play around with it for a bit longer this time. Everything was plated and I was quite pleased with the results. The chef gave me some good feedback too. So all in all, this lesson made up for the one the day before. Only one tiny issue with the mousse, my friend took a bite out of her plated one after it was marked and started chewing on an undissolved piece of gelatine – we laughed!

Wednesday, after a morning at work, I made my way into London for a lecture. The lecture today was on chocolate skills. We watched the chef make an impressive 3D ‘magic’ themed sculpture. A couple of premade shaped blocks of chocolate created a foundation, upon which the chef added a top hat, a wand, some cards and a bunny popping out of the hat – all made out of chocolate, and in a warm room too. It looked great and really fuelled my excitement for chocolate further!

Rather than go home after the lecture, I’d signed myself up to help one of the chefs (my favourite chef!) with one of the short courses the school also run. This particular one was the last of a 4 week (4 Wednesday evenings in a row) session, and they had to make tarte tatin (very handy as we’d only made the tiny ones the day before!) and palmiers, along with a nice caramel sauce to take home to put on the tatin. The session started around 7pm and finished about 9:30pm. I was an assistant with one of my good friends from the group, we had to help the chef set up the room initially and then wander around helping the people out and helping keep the room tidy. It was strange at first having people ask me for advice, especially when I’m usually double checking whether I’ve done something right with the chef, however I got into my stride and was surprised with how many of the questions I was able to answer and help them with. I really enjoyed it, and signed up to help because ultimately that’s exactly what I had in mind to do when I set up my own business after the course. In fact I enjoyed it so much I’ve offered to be an assistant for several more! Sure, I could have been home at a reasonable time that evening and relaxed a bit, but it was so much more rewarding being sat on the bus home at 11pm still buzzing with excitement from the session. It has helped reaffirm that this is exactly where I want to be heading next in life.

Despite the crappy start to the week, it really picked up at the end. Next week marks the penultimate week before the Intermediate exams, only one more practical session, a couple of demos and a lecture to go and then its exam time. Nerves are definitely starting to bubble a little down below, but I’ve practiced all the exam dishes once and managed to commit the recipes to memory. Just one more solid practice weekend and a couple of frantic method writing sessions to go, to make sure I’ve got that straight in my mind too, and we should be ready for them!

The chocolate fondant! The sugar work wasn't great, but the fondant tasted so good it didn't matter. Just need to practice getting the chocolate a little thinner now. 

The banana mousse, with blackcurrant coulis, berries and a pulled sugar circle! And the caramelised apple tarte tat in with creme anglais, berries and a little extra caramel sauce. My favourite was definitely the tarte tatin, I really like the caramelised apple flavour. 

Week 7 (Intermediate Patisserie)

Chocolate week!

This week we didn’t do any baking as such, it was a week of playing with chocolate…and the return of the wine lecture.

Monday morning we had a demo showing us how to make 4 different types of chocolates; a caramel cup – little pre-made dark chocolate cups, filled with baileys caramel and topped with a ganache. White chocolate truffles – pre-made white chocolate shells filled with a fruit and alcohol infused ganache, dipped in white chocolate and rolled in a fruit sugar. Malakoffs – slabs of milk chocolate ganache loaded with flaked nuts (I think it was either almonds or hazelnuts) and pistachio nuts, allowed to set and then covered in white chocolate top and bottom, before being cut into bite size pieces. The final one was moulded chocolates, which we had to make completely ourselves, using a study polycarbonate mould – it was first lined with piped white chocolate, then flooded with dark chocolate to create the shell, filled with a milk chocolate ganache and then sealed with more dark chocolate. The ones the chef made looked very nice and tasted good, however there was far too much alcohol in them. They use alcohol a lot at the school and I understand why a lot of the time, it enhances the flavour in some dishes, however there are times when it’s just not needed – in the moulded chocolates for example. It gave a grown up flavour, but where it didn’t need to!

The practical session was straight after and we worked in pairs. We each had to produce a set of moulded chocolates and then double up to make another of the chocolates. The paired ones were then shared around the class at the end to make sure everybody got a bit of everything. My partner and I made the caramel cups – the Malakoff had already been taken alas! There was quite a lot to do this lesson, temper lots of chocolate, make a couple of ganaches and a caramel, piping, filling and also maintaining the chocolate so it didn’t fall out of temper. All said and done though, my partner and I did a good job. The moulded chocolates were a good experience, we first had to polish the moulds with cotton wool, then pipe some tempered white chocolate designs in the bottom. The moulds were then flooded with dark chocolate, which was promptly then poured out and the moulds tapped vigorously to ensure the chocolate wasn’t too thick. They were then scraped over and allowed to set. Ganache was then piped in the middle (minus any alcohol!) and then they were covered again in dark chocolate, scraped over, and allowed to set fully.

Got some useful comments from the chef; I hadn’t quite polished the moulds enough, so they weren’t as shiny as they could have been. The tempering was good, along with the ganaches, and I’d got the shells a good thick/thinness, just slightly over filled with the ganache. We shared the chocolates around at the end of the lesson, the malakoffs were my favourite!

Tuesday morning we were in for a demo on making a 2D chocolate centrepiece. It was a good lesson, we had to print out a design to use, or use the ones in the folder. The chef demonstrated a Winnie the Pooh design, along with a Hello Kitty one! Chef told us this lesson was a tricky one because not only did we have to temper white and dark chocolate (in pairs), we also had to maintain the chocolate, i.e. not let it set in the bowls, as it’d have to be tempered again. The design was placed on a tray and a sheet of acetate placed over the top. We had to polish this, and a cake card, to ensure we got a nice shine on the finished piece. The cake card was to pipe and pour chocolate on to, to create a base for the figure to stand on. The dark chocolate was used for the outlining and any dark shading, and the white was used to flood the whole piece with once it had been coloured. The colours were powdered food colouring added to melted cocoa butter, these were painted on the relevant parts that required it. This bit was tricky, leave it to set for too long before flooding and it’d not stick to the white chocolate, however flood it too soon and the colour risked bleeding into the chocolate – a careful balancing act!

The chef made a really nice couple of pieces, I’m still not sure why the chocolate isn’t coloured instead though, as the painted colours looked a little streaky when you got up close to it. Chef did say you could flood it with colour too and then the white chocolate, however it’d take ages to dry – time which we didn’t have in the practical lesson!

After this lesson we broke with tradition and didn’t have the practical, instead we went into a wine lecture. It marginally beat the wine lecture in Basic Patisserie, this time we tried 4 wines (2 red and 2 white) and paired it with different types of food; hot/spicy – chilli flakes, salty – parmesan cheese, bitter – a chicory leaf, sweet – onion marmalade, sour – lemon wedge, and smoky – smoked salmon. The point of the lesson was to see how everything went together, or not. It was an hour before we even had the first drop of wine poured into the glass. It was quite painstaking. Wine tasting is such a personal thing, doing it in a class room with different people shouting out different and contradicting answers was a real time drain, no-one was wrong of course, but it did seem a bit of a pointless exercise. As with last term, I definitely rate this lesson firmly at the bottom of the pack so far this term. The saving grace was sitting next to my friends and managing to see the funny side of lots of things and laughing a lot!!

An early start Wednesday morning as we had a lesson at 8am, it was the practical for the chocolate centre piece. I was quite tired, but once I’d got the chef whites on I was ready for it! I chose to use a picture of Simba, from the Lion King, as my template. We started getting the chocolate tempered, I did the white and my partner did the dark. We got it tempered well and within a minute or two of each other, so that kept us ahead of the game time-wise. We managed to maintain it well throughout the class as well, which I was pleased about, because it can be really difficult to work with at times. The colour was painted on the base and this was then flooded with white chocolate and allowed to set, before being cut. The outline of Simba was drawn with the dark chocolate and once that had set I coloured the bits that needed colouring, and once that had set I flooded it with white chocolate. Once everything had set I made a support to help it stand up and then assembled it. Given how completely unartistic I am in general, and how I failed art miserably at school, I was really happy with the final piece. Not only did it look like Simba, it also stood up well as well! The chef gave me really good feedback too, so I was very happy at the end of the lesson. It was well worth the 4am alarm call!

After a 4 hour gap we then had the final lecture of the week in the afternoon. This was a lecture on soufflés. Three different types; a hot pudding one – part cooked in a water bath before being baked, a hot soufflé – the standard baked ones, recognisable by their high top, and finally a crepe soufflé. I only tried the crepe one because I was tired by this point and just wanted to get home. It was nice, not the best soufflé I’ve ever had though. I was incredibly fortunate to go on a days cookery course at Le Manoir at the beginning of the year, where we were shown a pistachio soufflé with a bitter chocolate sorbet in the centre. That one set the bar incredibly high and I’ve not had one as good as that yet!

That brought chocolate week to a close, it was a fun week this week. The more I work with, and understand chocolate, the more I seem to be enjoying it. It may even be an avenue I consider exploring more when I finish at the school, this week has inspired me quite a lot. 

The chocolates; The caramel cups are the tall dark ones, with piped ganache on top. The round white one is the white chocolate and strawberry truffle. The front right chocolate with the white on top and bottom is the malakoff, and finally the dark ones with the white chocolate piped over them are the moulded chocolate with ganache inside. A really nice selection - and very easy to eat too many!

Chocolate Simba! Pure unadulterated chocolate. I'm just waiting for a call from Disney now, with an offer to become a resident pastry chef...in florida...with lots of time off...and free entry to all the parks...I can dream!

Week 6 (Intermediate Patisserie)

This week was an introduction to entremets!

It was a really busy week this week, with both work and school, so its only a short(ish) post this time.

Monday we started with a demo for a caramelised pear and chocolate mousse cake/torte. It’s built in a ring and has a biscuit sponge, covered in flaked nuts, lined on the base and around the sides. It’s then filled with a rich dark chocolate mousse, which is set with gelatine. Caramelised pears are added to the middle and a thin ganache-like glaze is poured on top of the mousse. The top is then decorated with a quarter of a caramelised pear, some white chocolate piping on the glaze and a tempered chocolate piped pear, with the outline and a “P” piped in dark chocolate and the middle then filled in with white chocolate.

The practical lesson went without a hitch, we worked in pairs, so shared the various jobs we had to do between us. We had to temper the chocolate again, which I seem to finally be getting the hang of, and I was very pleased with how the chocolate piping went too. The only slight issue we had to deal with was the mousse not quite reaching setting point as quickly as we’d have liked – probably down to using a bowl that was slightly too small, however it got there in the end so we didn’t lose too much time on it. Got some really good comments from the chef, so a great end to the day.

Tuesday we had a demo and practical introducing us to our first entremet (there will be a few next term apparently, so this was preparing us for that). An entremet is a base of some description encased in a mousse, with an insert of fruit jelly. In the case of todays lesson it was a pistachio piped sponge as the base. A redcurrant fruit jelly in the centre and this was all encased in a white chocolate mousse. A white chocolate ganache glaze was applied to the top and we had to pipe dark chocolate on to this, which we had to feather through with a toothpick. It was then decorated with fresh berries. Around the sides we had to attached squares of dark chocolate. These were made on a ridged acetate sheet, which had to be brushed over with a luster powder first, the chocolate then had to be tempered before being spread over the sheet. Once the chocolate had started to set it was then cut into squares and left to dry fully. At which point you hoped you hadn’t spread it too thin, so they came off the acetate without cracking (a couple of mine did near the edge…sodding wonky palette knife!!).

The only issue we had in the lesson was the mousse (again!), it needed to be put in ring asap so it could set in the blast chiller, however ours wasn’t quite cold enough to be at setting point and was still fairly liquid. It assembled ok, but did start to leak out the bottom a little bit, luckily not too much though, so disaster was mostly averted! The other issue was my dark chocolate piping/glaze setting before I could run the toothpick through it, so rather than drag the pattern through the glaze, it started snapping the little solidified chocolate sticks! That aside though I got great comments from the chef, and was immensely proud of what I produced.

Wednesday afternoon was the last lesson of the week, a lecture on sugar paste flowers. There are a couple of really good cake decorators among the pastry chefs, and we had one of them for this lesson. Watching him work could be described as painstaking if you weren’t interested in the lesson, however I found it fascinating. The flowers he managed to create looked really realistic; daisies, lilies, little buds that could be used as inserts in large floral displays, a rose and carnation. We’ll be decorating the fruit cakes we made a few weeks back, at the end of the term, and need to start thinking about how we want them to look. This lesson left me with a fair few ideas. I really enjoyed this lesson and will definitely look forward to practicing the flowers for any celebration cakes I make in the future.

It was a really good week this week. I never lose the love for the course, however every now and again I have the odd week or lesson that acts as a reminder just how much I truly, deeply, love it, and how much this is absolutely, completely, 100% what I want to do for the rest of my life – this week was one of those weeks.

The caramelised pear and chocolate mousse 'thing' - can't remember what it was described as in class! The name matters not though, the taste was divine! Plus I'm pretty happy with how the chocolate piping is coming along, actually, I don't blow my own trumpet often, sod it - I'm extremely happy with how the chocolate piping is coming along! 

This entremet is quite possibly the nicest thing we've made so far. Its perfectly balanced, the white chocolate really goes well with the pistachio sponge, redcurrant jelly and fresh fruit on top. Plus I'm quite chuffed that the chocolate spike on top managed to stay in one piece, it was very fragile and got blown over by a gust of wind as I walked up to the chef to get it presented. Fortunately it stayed in one piece and I got it stood back up! 

Week 5 (Intermediate Patisserie)

This week marked not only the halfway point through the term, but also the whole course as well. Where on Earth has the time gone!

Monday was a long day, we had three sessions back to back. We started at 8am with the demo for our final potential exam dish, the gateau Alhambra. It’s essentially a play on the Sachertorte (which I have been fortunate enough to sample from where it originates in Vienna!). It was a fairly dense hazelnut and chocolate sponge filled and covered with a chocolate ganache, and glazed with another ganache, made runnier with the addition of butter – not the dieters option! It was then decorated with crushed pistachios, a marzipan rose and had the word “Alhambra” piped elaborately on top. The chef made two so there was enough to go around, which was lucky because it didn’t last long! It was obvious there was going to be a crush when it was time to taste when the chef got the sponge out of the oven and cut it, through the middle, in two. He flipped the top half over and the middle of the cake looked nice and rice, dense and chocolatey. There were moans of pleasure from the class when the two were separated, and then with chocolate ganache then piped on the top, who could say no to that!

Straight from the demo we went into the practical. It was quite quick paced, we had to cream the butter, sugar and eggs first. Then sieve all the dry ingredients together, and then make a French meringue. The meringue and dry ingredients then had to be folded into the creamed butter/eggs in alternate inclusions. While that was baking we had to make a ganache, the marzipan rose and temper some chocolate. This was used to pipe leaves, to accompany the rose, which were left to set on acetate. Tempering the chocolate proved my nemesis yet again, I really want to get this right, but its tough! I think I let it get too cold before heating it up again, but we’re working on that more in the coming weeks, so hopefully by the exam it’ll be ok…fingers crossed! We also made a soaking syrup, flavoured with a little coffee and rum, to keep the sponge nice and moist.

Once the cake was baked it was in and out of the blast chiller so we could cool it down as quickly as possible to assemble it. It assembled ok fortunately, the room was warm so the ganache took a while to set and there was a risk of everything melting. I masked it and let it set in the chiller a bit more while I got the second ganache ready for the glaze. The glazing wasn’t as much of a chore as I thought it’d be, it went over nice and evenly. A bit of a messy job to then pick it up to apply chopped pistachios around the bottom but I just about managed it ok. Then it was a case of putting the rose on top, removing the leaves from the acetate and placing them next to it – 2 of the 3 I’d made broke, so only one actually made it onto the cake! It looked ok though. I need to be a bit more heavy handed with the chocolate piping to strengthen them next time. Then I piped the word “Alhambra” on top. In hindsight I should have let the glaze set a little before piping as the chocolate didn’t quite sit as proud on top as it should have. You live and learn!

I’m not quite sure what happened during the lesson but I managed to walk in with my chefs whites nice and white, and left looking like I’d been stood next to a vat of molten chocolate after it exploded! Don’t ask me how I did it, but I found chocolate in places I didn’t realise it was even possible to reach. Needless to say I’ve got quite the challenge on my hands to get the uniform gleaming white again! Still, it could have been worse, it could have been blackcurrant puree!

The blasted marzipan rose is proving to be more of a chore than it needs to be, after practicing it at the weekend I thought I’d got better until the chef made a throwaway comment that I could store the piped chocolate leaves and “cauliflower” on the shelf behind me to save a bit of space on my workstation. It took a minute or two to register that he’d described my rose like a cauliflower but when I did, I asked him about it, at which point he laughed and confirmed that was what he had said – we laughed! I then got a fit of the giggles every time I thought about it after that as well!! On the plus side, after I trimmed down the bottom it looked much more like a rose, and the chef even said it looked good then! Got good feedback overall, some really useful advice as well, so I finished the lesson happy. Especially as I’d have just finished it on time, and it would have passed the exam – we’re on the right track!

After this we had our midterm review. I managed to switch the flaps on the front of my jacket so I didn’t go in looking a complete mess. It was the same chef as the practical though, so as least he knew what had happened! I’ll double check when I’m leaning over something next time! I got my marks so far for the term and was surprised to see I was doing really well, the chef also told me I was in the top 3 of the class! I’ve struggled this term (or at least felt like I’ve been struggling), so hearing this really gave me a confidence boost. We’re marked out of 5 for everything and my marks are averaging at 3.9, which in percentage terms is 78% - only 2% off a merit again! So I’m really really happy with that. Chef also told me that I’d had a really strong start to Intermediate, and to keep it up. Encouragingly he also said our group was a strong group, which was really nice to hear.  I finished the day exhausted from the early start and pressure of the exam dish, but elated and full of enthusiasm for the remainder of the course.

Tuesday was another back to back demo/practical, this time it was bread. I LOVE bread. If it were possible to exist on bread alone I’d give it a damned good try! So I was very excited for this lesson. And it didn’t disappoint. The chef made a nice rye loaf, baked in a ring so it looked like a crown, a sweet dough, which was split into 4 strands and then plaited, and finally a focaccia. A giant focaccia slab, filled with fresh herbs, roast garlic, herb infused oil and olives. There was a bigger rush for this than there was for the Alhambra. The smell was amazing and the taste was beyond compare, especially the focaccia. I’m not ashamed to say I’d knock over a line of doddery old pensioners to get to the front of the queue for a piece of it fresh out the oven, it was divine!

In the practical we started off with the rye loaf, we then paired up so one could get on with the sweet dough (my partner) and the other could do the focaccia (me!). It was all made in the kitchen aid machines, to my slight disappointment, I really like working the dough by hand, but it was necessary for speed. One dough was set aside to prove while we worked on the other two, each. Then it was back to shaping the first one, while the other two were proving. The rye loaf was split into rolls and put in a ring, and the offcuts formed into a turtle-ish thing! Once these were set aside to prove again it was back to the other two doughs. The focaccia had roast garlic and fresh herbs added to the dough, and had been allowed to sit proving in a bowl with lots of olive oil. Needless to say it already smelled amazing. Some people put gloves on to take it out the bowl, but part of the reason I love this job is getting messy hands! So I plunged them straight into the bowl and got the dough straight out onto a tray, this wasn’t knocked back at all, it was just patted out lightly to make a nice sized slab. This was then set aside to prove also. Next, the sweet dough was divided into four strips and plaited together. This seemed to flummox some people, and I have to confess to having got it a bit wrong at the start, so I had to undo it and carry on from where I’d gone wrong. I managed to rectify it though and was proud of the plait I managed to form. These were all baked, after the focaccia was studded with olives and sundried tomatoes, and all came out smelling lovely. I couldn’t wait to dig in to the focaccia so had a cheeky slice after I’d had it marked! Got good feedback from the chef, the plait was slightly bigger one end than the other and the rye bread was a little over-proved, but apart from that it was good. The coach ride home was filled with the occasional waft of freshly baked bread – heaven!  

Thursday was the final lesson of the week, unfortunately it also coincided with a tube strike in London, which meant I was at the mercy of the roads and the hoards of tourists clogging up the paths down Oxford Street. Fortunately I made it in on time, after a morning at work. The lesson was on savoury petit fours. Five were made with puff pastry, and one with a brioche dough. The brioche dough was used to make tiny pizzas, with tomato, olives, cheese and capers on top – no bigger than a 50p coin. They were really tasty. The puff pastry was used to make; ham croissants, chicken and mushroom vol-au-vents, spiced cheese twists, sausage rolls and smoked salmon swirls. They all tasted lovely and were really nice ideas for canapés, well worth battling through London for!

And that was that for the week. One half of the course done…now the tough half starts! 

The Gateau Alhambra (just in case the name on top didn't give it away!. The leaf wasn't tempered properly but the rest tasted really nice. A bucket load of chocolate and cream - how could you go wrong with that!

The three loaves of bread, and the turtle-ish thing! The plait was really nice smothered in Nutella, the focaccia just needed chunks torn off and devoured greedily, and the rye bread was lovely with Marmite (I'm in the love camp, can't understand why/how people hate it!). My favourite was the focaccia, it had an intensely savoury taste and will be my go to recipe for focaccia from now on.