Week 6 (Superior Patisserie)

This week was our tea party event.

Monday was an early start, and we went straight into the kitchens armed with our group’s recipes and time plans. We got a good start and kept on plan well.  A couple of mistakes were made, our mousse set too much before spreading it, so had to be reheated a little so we could spread it over the sponge, and I managed to split some ganache – not my finest moment! It wasn’t helpful that we had a chef that hadn’t really done the tea party event before so wasn’t sure what was going on at some points. Some of the recipes are way out as well, some you need to scale up, others leave you with ridiculous amounts of leftovers. Keeping up with that wasn’t easy, but we got there. At one point the chef really irritated me. I’d been working hard all morning, we hadn’t had a break, I literally stopped for no more than 20 seconds to swig some water, because I was getting a headache, the chef saw and told me I needed to start picking up the pace and delivering now. One of my teammates heard this and looked at me completely surprised and disgusted at what he’d said! My mouth just said “yes chef” to keep the peace, my head however was screaming “oh just p*ss off you utterly useless twat”, I felt exhausted and annoyed, there’s nothing wrong with me having a drink in class and I knew I’d been working hard keeping the sub-team on track AND delivering, so I’m not apologising for thinking that!

It was a really busy couple of sessions, and despite a couple of setbacks we still managed to get ahead of the time plan, so got ourselves in a good place ready for the next day. This wasn’t the end of the day though, we had to drop our knife kits off in our lockers and run back up to one of the classrooms for the wine lecture. This lesson was mostly about sweet wines, although I think the lecturer got the sense we were all really tired and not really feeling the lesson so he started to rattle through it quickly (thankfully!).  I can’t tell you what he talked about in the first 15 minutes of the lesson, I was too distracted going through the tea party paperwork and updating the time plan to make sure we were clear on what needed doing the next day so we could hit the ground running. We tried four wines and paired each against some apple tart (which looked about 3 days old and tasted horribly bland!), lemon curd, custard (which tasted suspiciously like Ambrosia – for which I have no complaints!), chocolate and crystallised ginger. I went through the motions and only really liked one of the wines, the others were ok, I wasn’t really feeling the lesson at all after such a busy morning. So I can now firmly say the least enjoyable lessons of the whole course have been the wine lectures!

Tuesday seemed to whizz by once we got into the kitchen, luckily we had a different chef, which helped massively (he’s great at being encouraging and keeping spirits up, as well as being approachable and helpful, he’s also a thoroughly nice chap!) because in the first hour of the lesson everything seemed to unravel from the day before. The raspberry glacage hadn’t been cooked enough (which irritated me a bit because the chef the day before had checked it and said it was ok) so hadn’t set on top of the galaxie. We had to scrape it off and boil the leftovers down in 4 pans however two ended up overcooked! Also I’d made some tempered chocolate decorations on a transfer sheet the day before and when they were unmoulded it was discovered I’d applied the chocolate on the wrong side and they’d come off the sheet completely blank! I was horrified, as I’d done it to help another group out while doing our decorations (which came out ok!). Alas, we got over the issues and everything started coming together nicely. Each dish got portioned and decorated, and the eclairs were painstakingly fondant iced. The chef showed me one dipped but I was quicker running an éclair through a slow stream of it falling from the spatula, so opted for that method. Some sub-groups finished before others, so we all helped each other out at the end of the lesson to make sure everything got done, it was really nice to be part of such a great team. Everything was assembled on the trolleys (there was SO much!) and taken upstairs. Another sub-team leader and I stayed behind to cook the scones, so they were fresh. The rooms were set up very quickly once we’d assembled with Group A, and we were each given our jobs. I was on the tea station, back of house, for the first part of the event. It was very busy with the rush of pots and cups of 4 different types of tea to make! After that I was front of house serving one of the tables, it had died down a bit by this point though, so I got to go and see my parents and sister quickly. After that we had to have our five items marked by the chef. He was happy with all of them, and the group were very complimentary of my leadership skills, which was very nice to hear. I was extremely proud of how our sub-group did, each of them really worked hard and did a fantastic job, it was a privilege to work with them. We managed to break a record for getting cleaned up as well, it stood at 6:02pm, however we were cleared up and assembled for the debrief at 5:48pm – groups A & B at their best!!

I was really tired before the tea party event, however once it started I felt awake and ready to go. We had a very special guest at the event; Mich Turner, a famous lady in the cake world, she made William and Kate’s wedding cake! Everyone I spoke to said how much they enjoyed everything and it was nice to see all of our hard work being appreciated. I was on such a high after the event, and having my family there enjoying it meant the world to me. There were two full trolleys left of food at the end so I took two boxes full home – I didn’t eat it all, I took it into the office!

Wednesday morning we had the mid-term review. I had a good chat with the chef and got my mark breakdown, which is averaging out at 77%! I’m very happy with that. Superior term has been a big step up and I’ve never been quite sure whether I’ve been hitting the mark or not. Just need to keep up the pace and pass the final exam now!

My sisters pictures from the event! This was when I was out on the floor, serving my designated table (table 2!)

Group A's efforts. There were around 40-50 of each item on the tray. 

Group B's (my group) efforts! My sub-team made the four dishes in the far left column; Marble cake, Galaxie, Parisien, Pistachio eclair and the fruit scone! Again, around 40-50 of each item on the tray was made!

The buffet table/display. We had to make larger items for the display, all of which looked really nice once they were assembled. A great team effort!

The room set up and ready to go, all we needed was the guests! And yes, we did have to set the tables and arrange the cutlery etc., on top of having already made all the patisserie items!