#44 - Jinxes, chocolate and more chocolate.

It has been just a few short days since the last post and already it feels like things are starting to ratchet up about 100 notches.  For one thing, we now have our briefs for our final exams for each of Cuisine and Patisserie.

Let the Panicking begin
The Patisserie final is 6 hours long and designed to take up pretty much every second of those 6 hours.  Am seriously contemplating the need for those astronaut diaper things - they don't stop the clock once it starts.  We are having 6-hour stints in Patisserie at the moment as quite a few of our practicals require 2 parts (we get a break in the middle, our pieces get a chance to set before assembling) so it's almost a chance to get used to working for that time.  This entire term is basically going to be spent going over things to prepare us for our final (3 compulsory items, poured sugar sculpture and our 2 identical plated desserts which have 8 components by the time you get to the sauces and decorations).

The Cuisine final is 4 hours long - and includes my current bete-noir, Hollandaise.  Hopefully we get an extra egg or two because poached eggs have known to break during reheating under the stress of plating.  We have to plate two identical starters (savory shortcrust pastry tart with what looks like sauteed spinach, poached egg, Hollandaise and garnish) then two identical main course plates (pigeon, chicken mousse[?], more turned vegetables, confit something or other and sauce).

Recap
Ah, but I am ahead of myself here.  First, a backtrack to the last two Cuisine dishes from last week:  the herb crusted salmon steak with mushroom flan and Madeira jus, followed by the grilled Lamb Noisettes with Potatoes Maxim and Asparagus with Hollandaise.

The Salmon Steak
I think I am jinxed when Chef FJ is in the kitchen.  Every single practical we have had with him has ended with sad food...in this case, the salmon was overcooked (I like it cooked all the way through but they wanted it medium) and the mushroom flan was too egg-y, even though I followed the recipe.  I can't tell if the photo I have is of Chef's demo plate or mine, so I have left it out.  I suspect it's the demo plate because the mousse looks fine on it and mine had problems.

I have promised Chef FJ that one of these days I will get him a good dish.  He said he is waiting...

Lamb Noisettes
This one was a bit of a Three Bears and Goldilocks plate - I thought I sliced the pieces evenly but somehow ended up with one overcooked (just how I like it), one just right (medium) and one undercooked.  Part of that was running out of time - I'm not quite sure how or when, but it happened.

Return of the Evil Hollandaise
Well, a variation of the evil Hollandaise, anyway.  I'm not sure if the difficulty here is that the sauce is actually so difficult or whether I've gotten psyched out by its reputation.  In any case, it seemed to be going well, then split while I was adding my butter before service, which is why it is missing from my asparagus stems.  The result was a slightly acidic butter coating on the asparagus (which needed more salt - go figure).

A deep breath
Then it was a lovely weekend of catching up with friends (World Cup Rugby breakfast on Saturday, lunch cooked for me by a friend, dinner with another friend from Sydney) dancing on Sunday and trying to figure out my recipes for Cuisine and Superior finals.  Oh - and laundry.  Somehow I ended up doing laundry every day last week due to chocolate mysteriously appearing in random places on my uniform and the heat in the Cuisine kitchens (a cool and breezy 33C).

Chocolate nightmare
Monday was not a good day this week.  It started out well enough with tempering the chocolate.  The problems came when it was time to unmould our large egg moulds - my chocolate egg halves came out of the moulds like they were supposed to when I flipped it.  Unfortunately, I happened to tap the mould down to release the last egg (there were 3 halves) just as one of them dropped out of the mould.  The result:  unmitigated disaster.  I tried to fix the egg but ended up having to borrow Chef's egg in order to finish the windmill.  Having handled the base so much, my fingers left smudges all over it which is why it's not shiny in the photo.

Then of course there was the cracking of the windmill blades (?) themselves.  Oh dear...the only thing that turned out ok were the practice milk chocolate truffle shells, although they could use a bit more white chocolate by way of decoration so that it doesn't look like a mistake.  We have to use 2 different colors of chocolate and temper both simultaneously.  This was just a practice run - I am so glad they built in so much practice time for these.  If something must go wrong, better to do it while there is a chef in the room so they can tell you what you did wrong (other than being stubborn and not listening to them).

We don't need no stinkin' gym!
One of the things about tempering chocolate (other than trying to keep your own temper when things are not going well) is that the initial melting and tempering becomes easier (not easy, you'll note).  The hard part comes with trying to keep it at the right temperature to use.  The Chefs can tell pretty much by looking at it.  I have to check by using the back of my finger.  So as it gets cooler, it gets thicker and more viscous.  Which isn't fun when you have to keep stirring it to get it back to temperature.  I haven't been to the gym in longer than I care to remember, but all the aching arms (both of them, from switching when one gets tired) have resulted in getting stronger.  Moms have babies, Patisserie students have chocolate.  And dough.

Sweet success

Today went much better - the chocolate tempered, the shells for the truffles got made (ok, a little thick at the very top) and the chocolate box was (mostly) ok except for the little bit where I didn't spread enough chocolate for the bottom.  There was a certain amount of hurry up and wait because you have to work fast with the chocolate when you work with it, then you have to wait for it to set.
Somehow the mistakes got salvaged with the result on the left.  This is my Chocolate Box (entirely made of chocolate) and a couple of different types of chocolate technique thrown in - or rather, required by Chef CB.  I wanted to do a swirl but the pieces kept breaking (hence the skinny ones) and the ones I had meant to make swirly ended up being the larger curls.  At this point, I was just happy to get them on the box.

One of the girls in class didn't want her white chocolate truffles so she offered them to me - I put them in my box because they all look so pretty together.  And I dropped the box lid on the way home, so it's good I have the couple of extra truffles kicking around in there - it doesn't look quite as incomplete.

Tomorrow we get going in Cuisine again - Beef Wellington Part 1 (the puff pastry, chicken mousse, beef and a few other bits and pieces).  Wish us luck with the puff pastry.  I have a feeling we are going to have to work on the baking trays again because we don't start cooking until noon.  I am guessing the kitchen will be hot.

Until next time - enjoy the eating.  And now I know why chocolates are so darn expensive!