#93 - Finally! The wait is over...

Today was a day of tears:  tears of stress, tears of nervous anticipation, tears of worry and unalloyed terror and finally...tears of relief.


Yes, it's official - I passed both of my practical exams although the Patisserie one was a very near thing.  It wasn't anywhere near what I would have called even a good effort in terms of technique, having done every single element better previously (and actually, same for the Cuisine final) - but it was done and it was enough to get me through.  I heard someone who is progressing through the levels tell someone else that now they are nervous - well, I can't help the tears which came with the relief of finally knowing, one way or the other.


The rundown
Friday's Patisserie was a nightmare.  It started with a dream during the night in which I was already in my exams, but then I woke up and I actually had to do it.  Who knows how long the dream lasted, but I was working on my sable biscuits in it - and in that odd, dreamlike way that time passes, it seemed like it had been going for days.


It was time to get equipment and things ready for the exam room - my bag had been packed the night before and all extraneous knives had been removed from my knife kit.  Eventually found the bread knife and the cleaver I had removed for the Cuisine final - in a box with odds and ends when I tidied up my room.  See, it might look more tidy with things put away, but then I can't get my hands on things so tidy is not the same as organized.


The first 3 hours of my exam were great - the brioche was done on time and proving in the prover (although I had initially written down the wrong time, I had written the start time so it was easy to fix) and the sable dough was done.  The bain maries were set up for the chocolates, my lemons zested, juiced and on the stove, ready to start reducing when we were allowed to turn on the heat and the raspberries with the sugar on another burner, ready to go for the jelly.  They have a rule that in the 1st hour, you may not turn on your stoves.


Turned the stove on as soon as I was allowed to so that things could do what they needed to do.  I set up my tray for the truffles (paper, wire rack) and baking trays for the jaconde biscuit (the cake sponge for my dessert) and tuiles.  The brioche was chilling in the fridge so I tempered the chocolate and checked on the lemon juice and raspberries, both merrily heating but not boiling away - perfect, right?


In which the cascade starts
Somewhere in the 4th hour, things started to go wrong.  I was all of a sudden starting to get a little behind and I'm not sure why.  The melted butter for my sponge had disappeared off my stove when I wasn't looking and I thought I had messed up the sponge (no, it turned out ok) but it was time to make the mousse.  The jelly was already setting in the blast chiller and the chocolate twirls were in the fridge but all of a sudden - my lemon juice and zest for the mousse were no longer on my stove.  There was no chance of sabotage because everyone was making different desserts and I wouldn't have taken the pots to the washup because I needed them - but where was the lemon juice?  The chef went to investigate but all of a sudden my timing was off.  The sugar couldn't get started because the mousse had to set while I did the sugar and my truffles hadn't been capped - already a problem because it was so cold in the Patisserie that the chocolate was too cold when I flooded the mould and the shells were very thick - I knew they weren't going to score high...what do you do when you know that things aren't going well and you can't fix it?  You keep on going and hope that somehow it works out. Had to keep going but there were a few moments when it would have been nice to curl up in a little ball under my station and just wait to wake up so that I could do my exam for real.  Except this was real and it was starting to feel horrible.


Towards the end, I knew I wasn't going to get the biscuits done in time because I didn't have enough time to chill them down as much as I needed to - a lightning decision to salvage what was possible - take them out early (delineations of the colors got lost, lost a bunch of points for technique and presentation) and presented them less than half baked because I was already 5 minutes over (automatic 10% deduction) and didn't want to get disqualified by going over the maximum time.  There is a certain agonizing pain that comes with presenting something you know is sub-par but there was nothing to be done except hope for the best and hope it was enough.


Debrief
Waiting for the results was absolutely excruciating.  On the one hand, not knowing means that there's always a glimmer of hope - you haven't failed until they tell you that you did.  On the other hand, waiting to know one way or the other leaves you unable to think of anything else. Despite everything I could do to keep my mind off it (tons of laundry, packing and re-packing,   multiple ballet classes in the same day, going out with friends) somehow it always came back to the nauseating finale of the Patisserie.  I knew the Cuisine exam wasn't as good as the mock exam but the Patisserie - it was touch and go as to whether I had passed.  Failure meant no Patisserie Diplome, no Grand Diplome (and trust me, it's a big piece of paper) and could almost seem to be a waste of having returned to London to finish the last month of classes.  Of course there's a bright side (seeing the new school, using the new equipment, being back in London)  but the silver lining was hard to see under the doom and gloom of a possible failure.


So - how did it all go?
Cuisine:
Chef EB told me I should go to France for 5 years and eat out at restaurants more.  Yes, chef!  I think he told a lot of people that they should go to France and eat there more, though - at least 5 other people in my group were told the same thing.  Oddly enough, the dishes were better during the mock exam although the timing was definitely better for this one.  Managed to have a respectable plate although the detailed comments weren't available due to a computer glitch.  Good - I don't need to know about my hollandaise or my tartlet which I know could have been better.  I'm sure they would have said the turning could have been better, some veggies overcooked (turnips again?), some veggies undercooked (carrots?) and who knows for the rest of it?


"Congratulations - you passed."  Even though I had felt quite confident about the Cuisine final, I didn't realize how tightly I'd been strung while waiting to hear those words until the tears started.  The release of some of the tension was almost unbearable, especially as Patisserie debrief was next and the tension ratcheted back up almost immediately, even worse than before.  I exited the debriefing room for a hug from classmates who were going through the same thing.  Some concern from the others as they saw my tears - "What happened?  Did you pass?"  A sigh of relief as I nodded, then congratulations all around as we said them to each other as each person exited a debriefing room (the Cuisine and Patisserie debriefs were in adjacent rooms - I am guessing it's because a few of us had to go to both rooms).


Patisserie:
Chef CB's comment about my tuiles - "cremated".  Well, that's about right - I'm not sure what happened - the temperature in the oven at home must be a little different from the one at school - hard go gauge, I didn't use the oven thermometer at home.  Also - a tuile and the backup broke during plating so marks were deducted for the plates not being identical, although since all the elements on the plate were present, I got credit for that and the portfolio.


And then the compulsory items...brioche - a bit tasteless (needed more salt) and the head was crooked.  Otherwise, ok.

Truffles - white chocolate went out of temper (again!) and the shells were too thick, the caps uneven, but the ganache had a good texture, technique was fine and tasted very nice (yes, the extra 5 drops of Framboise helped, I think).


Sable biscuis - were not cooked, not chilled enough before cutting, etc. etc.  No points for taste because it wasn't cooked so they wouldn't have tasted the biscuits.  Evil petit fours - I saw some on a menu the other night and ended up pushing it away with a shudder, unable to think about the ones I had presented on the cakeboard.


Coulis needed more sugar, the glacage was a bit too runny, mousse was nice, jelly was too jelled and at the bottom of the mousse instead of in the middle and the sponge needed more syrup (which also had Framboise in it.  I soaked the sponge well, but maybe I should have done the sides too...)  Messy plate, messy sauces...it could have been so much better.  The white chocolate twirl was way too thick - I probably should have used the small teeth on the comb but was too nervous I'd melt through them while plating - my fingers tend to run hot which sucks when working with dough or sugar or chocolate.


Then the sugar...oh dear - let's just say it was not good - but I'm glad I managed to get it done at all and it was still standing when it got downstairs - a relief since the sugar kind of got overcooked at the initial stages.  I don't have a photo of it (for my reference only) but let's just say that it fell far short of what I had hoped to produce.


"Despite all that, you passed."  More tears, a hug and a kiss before heading downstairs to clean out my locker.  What a relief to know that it hadn't all been in vain and although the day produced a crappy performance, it was enough to get me through to the end.


Nor was I the only one to cry from the sheer relief of knowing finally - and knowing that we had done it.  There was more than one person who was still upset about the performance we had handed in on the exam days and we compared notes in terms of what we had been told - quite a few of us were told our dishes didn't taste so nice (hence the the suggestions that we live  in France and eat out more), as well as other problematic areas of our techniques and things.


I do want to re-do and try out some of the suggestions the chefs made - I'm sure I can do better than I did.  Now just to figure out a way to do it...some things are easier to try at home than others and although my sugar pretty much sucked, I am so glad I don't have to do it again.


So until next time, may you find that the effort you put in is worth the final result.

#85 - Finals Practice Day 1 - Compulsories

It's almost like the old school figure skating competitions.  We worked on our compulsory items today and tomorrow we work on our free plated dessert.


Disclaimer:  Keep in mind the following while you look at the photos:  I haven't made chocolates since October and this is my second sugar sculpture since November.  I have never before made the spiral sables (and it shows!) but I made the brioche a few times last week.  You can see what was practiced recently and what wasn't...I'd fix the formatting but it's difficult to keep my eyes open and I have an early class, so must get on with it.

Compulsories started well enough.  The first hour was a frantic rush - the brioche got made, the sables were finished and rolled and by the second hour, the chocolate shells for the truffles had set and were filled with ganache.  It all started to come apart in the third hour - my sables ended up way too big (I'll make a half recipe next time) and the brioche took twice as long as it should have to prove.


Then the truffles - the seal went on well enough, but they were really stuck when I tried to get them out at the end.  Chef asked if I had cleaned my mould well - yes I had, and I had the extra spilled over bits of chocolate which had gotten into other holds in the mould which had come out easily, all shiny and pretty.  The culprit was my white chocolate - it had gone out of temper when I brushed it onto the mould because I wanted to get a lot of definition on the white lines.  Too many brush strokes and it kills your chocolate - the truffles stick to the mould and they don't come out cleanly, if at all.  The result - broken chocolates.  Since we have to present 6 identical chocolates on the day, this is a bit of a failure unless you count the broken-ness as them being identical.  I think the chefs might consider that an identical lack of skill... 

I don't know what happened to my sugar but it was all bad.  It crystallized, which it had never done before, so it was hideous when I tried to stick things together.  Then the main piece was too top heavy (and answers the question of which way the teardrop window should face) and it broke before I managed to present it to the chef.  In the exam you have to somehow glue the pieces back together and present something because the compulsories are just that - compulsory.  Failure to present one is an automatic disqualification - i.e. you fail the exam and the course - or at least, that's how I understand it.  If you manage to stick something on a cake board, you might eke out a half point, keeping you in the game - as long as the rest of your work is good.  I think most people had a shocker of a day today, although not all.  In my case, most of the tasting seemed ok but the execution of the techniques - oh my.  I so don't want to put up photos because it was all a bit of a disaster, but the whole point of this is to share the good (sometimes) and the not-so-good (lately feels like an awful lot of the time).


The brioche wasn't so bad although the head was on crooked.  I felt so disorganized this morning - my kit and bits and pieces had all been left at home because I had taken things out of my bag or put them back in or I thought I had put them back in.  When I found I didn't have a few things, there was some mild panicking for the first hour or so.  Hopefully tomorrow will go more smoothly now that I kind of have a better idea of what I want to do and I've reviewed my knife kit / Patisserie toolbox.  It's kind of stupid - there's a rule that you can't bring in a bag other than your knife kit because people were stealing stuff from the old school.  The thing is, we need a lot of extra stuff in Patisserie so you actually do need that extra bag for things like our paint scrapers, grout spreaders (I'm not sure if that's even the right term), extra palette knife - and since there are quite a few of us who seem to want to do the same thing, I've packed my own moulds.  This way I am guaranteed to have the correct sized moulds for various things, like my chocolate and tuile decorations, as well as the actual dessert itself.


Lunch provided a sop to the OCD part of my personality -a sink right in the middle of a casual Portuguese chicken place!  No need for hand sanitizer, I could wash my hands after I paid for my food and before I sat down.  How could any germaphobe or a self-professed clean freak not be happy?


Wish us Merde - we will need it in order to survive our feedback and the subsequent change of recipes.


Until next time, may you feel more competent at whatever it is you're doing than I have felt today.

#75 - Preparations for finals (again)

So handy...
I have evidence of having assisted in putting together a bookshelf.  The assistance was mainly of the moral support variety although I did hold some of the pieces together while putting them together...as you can see.  It looks so simple, but somehow it always takes longer to put furniture together.  Such was the case here.



Then I got spoiled - friends made me lunch.  It's something that you always appreciate and I agree with others that somehow it always tastes better when someone else cooks.  It must be the TLC because I have had meals at restaurants that I hated, but on the whole, food made by friends (or family) just tastes better.  Sometimes people apologize for something being "really simple" but I don't think they realize that what we cook isn't necessarily something we want to eat.  I think even Jamie Oliver says in his shows that what he cooks at home wasn't what he made when he worked in restaurants.  I'm not sure anyone could possibly eat those quantities of butter, cream, sugar, white flour, etc. etc. on any kind of frequent basis and be able to adhere to any kind of healthy eating plan.


Another High Tea

Went to High Tea again over the weekend - one of the girls organized it and I went - for research purposes, of course.  An observation was made the other day that I seem to love High Tea.  Well, kind of - I like the little sandwiches.  Generally the sweets aren't my thing, although the past year has been more of an exercise of tasting.  There was a certain amount of critiquing based on what I am hoping to turn out for the exams.  Not these...these weren't shiny and the white chocolate was pretty thick on the shell.  I didn't taste the filling that much because I didn't like them, so couldn't tell you what they were.

The chocolate centrepiece was quite pretty - someone saw me taking a photo and when I told her I thought it was chocolate, she touched it.  Apparently it was.  Anyway - I liked the bending of the sculpture and the twigs they made out of it.  The rose isn't as pretty as the one Chef NH does in Patisserie, but it was still pretty.  I couldn't tell if it was marzipan or something else.


Exam Prep
Got my emails from LCB - I got the finals papers and plane tickets are booked - after several emails.


How do you make sables again?
Have started preparations for exams.  I don't have all my equipment here so the practice is limited - that, and the fact that once again, I am London bound in the not-too-distant future.  The only thing is, I seem to have forgotten how to cook.  Oh dear...

I haven't figured out why these cracked - maybe I should have turned on the fan in the oven.  Something to do for next time.  Also - the scales must be off a bit - the weight of salt looked like a lot and the biscuits actually tasted quite salty.  Amazing when you consider that it's only 2g compared to the 100g of sugar.

They are still nice and crunchy - but a bit on the salty side.  Panic has started to set in as it appears that things I thought I had worked out are now having problems.  They're not kidding -  you need to do this several times to get it down.  Oh well - if we haven't gotten things worked out, hopefully I'll find out during the skills tests in 3 weeks.

So until next time - happy Valentine's Day for those of you who celebrate / observe it.  And happy Un-Valentine's Day for those of you who refuse to put pressure on yourselves and your significant others by letting Hallmark and commercial hype dictate when you should be loving to each other.  After all - a just-because present is better than one that is given because an occasion dictates it.