First Week of My Internship!

If you haven’t already read about it, I was offered an internship with my school for 6 months after I graduated. This was my first week! It was pretty exciting! Since there was a lot of running around and working, I’ll just share the highlights with you:

• My very first day I was almost killed by fruit puree. No, seriously. We got a large delivery of frozen fruit puree that we had to unload and sort and get into the freezer. We loaded up a speedrack (which is a tall metal rack that you stack sheet trays onto) with at least 100 Kilos (yes, we only go by the metric system here) of puree and took it up to the walk in freezer on the 4th floor. The problem, however, is that there is an incline getting into the freezer, so I and two of my fellow interns were trying to get it up the little slope so we could close the freezer door while we unloaded to that the temperature wouldn’t get too high. Well, the rack was already a little top heavy and I was the one on the inside of the freezer pulling it in…and, well…the speedrack kind of fell over. Luckily, I was able to back up all the way to the back of the freezer, but I got a couple of containers to the head and shoulders. Chef Kristen (who is one of our supervisors) pulled me out of the freezer and had me sit in the offices for a little while after the incident. I was shaken, but I was fine. Later I found a couple bruises, but that could have been SO much worse! It’s the big joke now (since I’m okay) “Death by Fruit Puree” ;)
• I am a danger to myself. I have so many little cuts and bruises all over myself which (apart from the puree incident) I have no idea where they came from. Except when I banged my shin against the edge of a metal flatbed cart we were using to unload a delivery of flour.
• I’ve decided that this internship is an intense total body transformation workout. The school is spread out between 4 floors of the building we are in and we run up and down the stairs all the time. I have unloaded several 50lb bags of sugar and flour in the last week and I’m sure there’s more to come. I’m on my feet all day, running around and whatnot. I better be buff by December ;)
• I didn’t have much of a life (free time) when I was in school, but now I have less of a life. My day starts at 6:30am (which means I’m up at 4:30am) and goes until about 5-5:30. I’m in bed by 9…so please don’t call me or text me after that ;)

All in all, it’s a LOT of work, but it’s still fun. I really like the people that I work with and the new pastry students start on Tuesday! During classes, we are kind of like TA’s so that will be a lot of fun. I don’t know how much I’ll be able to take pictures and what not, but hopefully I’ll still have exciting things to share! :)

I Can’t Believe I’m DONE!

Oh my gosh!! I’m graduated! I did it! I’m done! Hurray!!!

But we had quite a crazy week before it was all over. We had BUFFET PREP. For the graduation reception, we as the students put together a huge dessert buffet and so that’s what we did most of last week. We started off with one more demo though. Chef Della did a presentation on California Raisins! She made us apple raisin strudel (YUM!) That strudel dough stretches like crazy, see it cover the table? She also made a dessert cocktail using a raisins and a couple of other desserts.

After the demo we went down to class to see what we were preparing that week. Then they pulled out: The White Board

Yeah, that first column is everything, the rest is mostly what day we were doing each thing on. Crazy huh? My class did all breads and breakfast pastries. (yummy!) Everything went pretty well, except for when we messed up the lemon pound cake and had to do it over (WAAAAY too much butter got added). Oh, and then there was the day we had no hot water in the building so we all had to boil water throughout the day to fill and refill the dish sinks (there are 3) and on the last night we forgot to take the sourdough multigrain out of the blast freezer and so all the loaves got serious freezer burn. But that was okay because the people measuring that out forgot to divide the recipe by 3 so we still had enough dough for another batch.

Whew! So maybe it wasn’t all smooth sailing, but we got through it and got it all done! Friday was spent doing a MAJOR CLEANING of the kitchens and getting the tables set up for the buffet on Saturday. And Saturday couldn’t come soon enough! Graduation was awesome. My dad flew in to see me and John got to come to the ceremony this time!

You wanna know what ELSE?! I graduated with honors!!! I got a spiffy engraved rolling pin and a bouquet of flowers, along with my certificate and plaque. I was so excited!!! I didn’t get a really good picture of it all till I got home

The buffet was amazing (Obviously, I helped make it ;) The school just started a bread program that works exclusively on breads and they made some cool decorations for the event. It’s all made with some kind of flour dough, but it’s not necessarily nice to eat ;)
I love love LOVE the alligators! They hung out in the ovens and got slivered almonds for teeth when they were finished. So cute, huh?
Chef Pierre made this Eifel tower!! Sweet, huh? But my class made the little red and yellow flowers. We spent HOURS attaching toothpicks to the bottoms so Chef could put them on the base.
And here’s the alligator again with his teeth. He’s just so adorable. Love him.

I only got a couple shots of the buffet itself. It was soooo crowded!! It was hard to get a good shot of stuff without at least 10 people clamoring for goodies around the table. I got a few though

We ate until we were stuffed silly and then headed home so that my Dad and I could drive out to Virginia to see the family!!! I start my work as an intern on next Monday (bright and early!) and I’m pretty excited for this next chapter. Thank you all so much for reading about my adventures, I hope I have more deliciousness to share with you, even if I’m not in class anymore.

Thanks so much to my parents and in-laws for all of your love and support (emotional AND financial!)!! And most especially to my amazing husband, John. I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for you! Thanks so much for following me across the country so that I could pursue my dreams!  You all are the BEST!

The Dessertmeister

Or, “Meisterin” if we’re going with the Germ-lish thing I’ve got going here (the suffix “-in” means the noun is female in German).

Anyway.

This week was exams, which meant that we started off the week with a master demo. Chef Della gave this one and her topic was plated desserts. I feel like plated desserts is the “high end” stuff. Desserts you find at super fancy fine dining restaurants (which I’ve never set foot in…I don’t think), so yes, some of these desserts I’m showing you are a little…well…different. :) But it was still interesting to learn about and I tried some very interesting foods that day. Mom, you’d be so proud ;)

To start: A Petit Basque Soufflé with Sour Cherries and Toasted Walnuts

Petit Basque is a type of French cheese. And it is so. good. So in this dessert was a souffle made with this cheese and some dehydrated sour cherries. On the plate we have more cheese as a garnish, a cherry and black pepper tuile, walnuts, a cherry dressing and I forget with the green herb was…so sorry.  I didn’t get to taste this dessert (though I was pretty happy with just eating the cheese…) but it was cool to see it put together.

Next up: Red Shiso Sorbet with Champagne Mango and Grains of Paradise

Even though we each got a little tasting, I didn’t try this one either. That mysterious white jelly on the right is a Sake (a rice alcohol) jelly and there was sake in the sorbet as well. Anyway, in this dessert, the sorbet interested me the most. Shiso is an herb, so to make the shiso sorbet, Chef infused the shiso leaves into the sorbet base and it really turned that bright fuchsia/purple color. There was mango puree, pickled mango, and a mango tuile as well. The mango tuile was seasoned with grains of paradise, a spice that looks a lot like black peppercorns, but is white on the inside.

And now: I can’t remember the name of this one. So bear with me ;) It was a cake made from a dessert wine and olive oil, with olive oil ice cream, and strawberries in balsamic vinegar and dried strawberry chips. That’s a mouthful!
The cake was cut into little “crouton” shapes, put on top of the strawberries in vinegar, topped with the olive oil ice cream. The ice cream was very…interesting. Olive oil is pretty fatty, so it made it very creamy. But I can’t say I really liked the olive oil taste afterwards. The strawberries in balsamic vinegar were actually really good! I was surprised! I didn’t try the cake, I don’t really like the flavors of alcohol, even when it’s been cooked out. But the overall dessert wasn’t as weird as I thought it would be.

You know what else I tried during the demo (and didn’t get a picture of) and LIKED?!? Mom, you’re going to be in shock: Thai Curry Ice Cream. That’s right. Ice Cream. Now, it’s not something I would order for sure, give me raspberry or vanilla any day, but since I had the chance to actually try it, it was pretty good! You would take a bite, and you’d feel the cold creamy texture of the ice cream on your tongue, then you’d swallow and get a kick of the all spices in your throat! A weird sensation, but fun all the same ;) It was served with fritters…which can be made into churros…if that gives you any indication of what they’re like. I thought it was kind of a weird combination, but it was still pretty tasty.

Finally: White Chocolate Frozen Yogurt Mousse with Stewed Rhubarb and Coriander Shortbread

I thought this one was the prettiest to look at. The squiggly thing going on is rhubarb tuile. We have here coriander shortbread with a white chocolate yogurt mousse (she used greek yogurt), rhubard puree, and cilantro sauce (the green stuff)

And that was the master demo! Interesting, huh? Plated desserts aren’t really my thing, hence the forgetting what one of those was even called…but the demo was pretty interesting, mostly because of the different flavor combinations that are out there. I mean, I know I’d never come up with stuff like this. But all the same…interesting, isn’t it?

Exams were crazy, as usual. We covered Breads & Breakfast Pastries and Petit Fours. And there was soooo much to do. I had a blunder the second day, and forgot to take my croissant dough out of the freezer before we left that night, so on the third day (also the LAST day) I was scrambling to thaw out my croissant dough so that I could get them proofed and baked in time. I managed, and was so proud of myself that I kept my cool and didn’t freak out and tell Chef Jonathan, but it turns out he could tell once he looked at my croissants anyway! It’s uncanny, how they can tell. He cut open one of my croissants, looked at it and asked “did you leave your dough in the freezer?”

Wha..?!?

I guess you can tell because they were underproofed. That’s what happens when they get left in the freezer and don’t have the time to thaw. But I think they still tasted good. And Chef Pierre walked in later and said my laminations (layers of butter and dough) were very nice. So regardless of the grade I get, I think that makes up for it ;) Everything else went pretty smoothly, but I’m glad exams are over. And that was my LAST round of exams! Oh my gosh. This next week is our last week! We’ll be doing buffet prep and cleaning. And then graduation! My dad is flying in and I’m so excited!!!

Last week??! WHAT?!

I know. This past week was our last official week of class. Next week we have exams, and then our last week is spent doing major cleaning and prep for the graduation dessert buffet. We make everything for the buffet. Cool, huh?

Anyway, we finished up our petit fours class and we have LOTS of deliciousness to discuss, so grab your towel!

We learned how to make macarons. NOT macaroons. MacaRONs (mah-kah-ROHNz) They are soooo yummy. Especially when filled with french meringue buttercream. French meringue buttercream is made with egg yolks and whole eggs, as opposed to italian meringue buttercream, which only uses whites. Do you know what that means? It means those yolks in the french meringue buttercream brought an AMAZING creaminess and flavor and I’m a little obsessed with it. When Chef Jonathan made it for demo, he passed some around with tasting spoons to try. After I tried (and kind of freaked out with excitement) he let me have what was leftover to myself. And I just sat and ate buttercream throughout the rest of the demo. Oy. I need to exercise.

But I digress…

Macarons:
They are basically a meringue cookie with almond flour and then we sandwich them together with a filling…and they look like little hamburgers :)

See? Mini dessert hamburgers! These were probably my favorite from this week. I didn’t let John take them to work. And I finished them off for breakfast yesterday morning. ;)

We learned that with the exception of chocolate, macaron shells are rarely flavored. They are colored however, to reflect the filling of the macaron. We made a chocolate raspberry ganache as a filling and so we colored some macarons PINK! And, oh, were they pink

And of course, we made chocolate macarons. We flavored our leftover french meringue buttercream with hazelnut paste (oh my goodness, it’s amazing) and used that to fill the chocolate ones.

We made some pear tartletts with almond cream

We made something called an opera cake. It’s a traditional French cake, but I didn’t have any because all the layers of cake inside were drenched in a coffee syrup we made. (I hate the smell of coffee, by the way…I was gagging making this thing) But it turned out really pretty!

We made an apple-nougat tart, which had cooked apples with an egg white/almond topping

We made madeleines (MA-deh-linz)
 
We also made a “plain” (almond) financier. I LOVE this one…because we stick a raspberry in the middle right before baking it and it comes out sooooo moist and yummy!

We made coconut rochers. I learned that rochers means “rocks”. Interesting, no? I’m not a huge fan of coconut, but these were really good!

We made an almond caramel tuile (TWEEL) and I made them WAY too big so they melded all together during the baking so they took up all the space on my rolling pin when we pulled them off to shape them. They were really good though. Think caramel with butter and almonds in a crunch. Yum.
Behold the MEGATUILE!

And we finished up the week with fruit tarts. Fruit tarts are only good the day you make them, so I only made four. And then I ate them. ;) I brought home leftover pastry cream so that I could use it to make more in the rest of my tart shells, but we’ll see if that actually happens or not…
I love fruit tarts, they are so pretty!

Well my friends, that is the last of my classes! Can you believe it?! Neither can I!! We’ll have a master demo next week, so I might have pictures of that for next time, and I will definitely have pictures of graduation! Oh my goodness…I can’t believe it’s almost here! It’s been quite the ride, hasn’t it? Thanks for keeping up with my pastry adventure!!!

Oh. My. Cuteness.

So John has this theory. When it comes to girls, the smaller an item is, the cuter we will think the item is. So basically, to a girl, mini-anything is adorable.

He’s probably right ;)

This week we started petit fours. Mini pastries. CUTE mini pastries (see?). I mean, how can a little bitty tart NOT be cute?! Anyway, we made more than just tarts, we made lots of yummy things this week. (grab your drool towel!)

We made daquoise (dah-KWAHZ) cookies with a yummy cream filling
We learned how to make a lot or different things using pate a choux (pah-tah-SHOO) It’s the stuff we use and fill to make cream puffs. But we learned new and wondrously delicious fillings. Like the hazelnut/pastry cream/buttercream mixture we made for the paris brest (PAH-ree BREST)
We mixed pastry cream and hazelnut praline to fill the chouquettes (shoo-KETTS)
Just regular pastry cream for the Salambos (sah-LAHM-bohs) – well, we were supposed to put kirsch in there too…but we didn’t. And then we topped them with caramelized sugar and an almond.
We made chocolate pastry cream for these mini éclairs. Aren’t they so CUTE?! They are about the size of my index finger. :) Betcha didn’t know that éclair means lightning! Another translation (as I understand it) is the zipper of your pants. Weird. I know.
We made mini blueberry tarts, topped with streusel
Here’s the collection for that day :) Yeah, I brought half of this home on one day. John ran a race downtown that day and so we towed it all over downtown before bringing it home. Then I had John take it back to work with him. They LOVE me over there! By the way, John did AWESOME on his race, running 3.5 miles in less than 22 minutes. He was given the “Eating Healthy is Overrated Award” at his office for running his time at the race “fueled solely by cookies, pastries, and cakes”. Nice, huh?  
We made chocolate financiers (fih-NOHN-see-ehys). These were made with bankers and workers of the financial district in mind. Traditionally, they are made into a bar shape. To look like a bar of gold ;)
At the end of the week we made these chocolate espresso tarts. I didn’t have any of these because of the coffee, but there are still cute, yes?

And that was pretty much it this week for class, but I did go on a little field trip on Wednesday. The school had gotten us free passes to the Sweets and Snacks Expo, a large floorshow of candy and snack companies, so I headed over Wednesday morning with Jill to check it out. IT WAS SO COOL!

We were given these gift bags that we FILLED with TONS of free samples! Oh yeah, sugar overload at 10:30 in the morning? Yes, please.

This was a booth for this super sour candy (which I LOVE). The stuff in the jar on the left was really good :)
LOVE me some jelly bellys!
The place was huge!!
The displays were awesome
And at the bottom floor, we found this: (This is for you Mom)

A PEEPS bug! AH!! So cute!

That night I laid out my spoils of the day. I came home with soooo much candy
That lollipop is the biggest jawbreaker I’ve ever seen. Whether or not I’ll actually try to eat it remains to be seen. I’ll keep you posted ;)
There were several companies there that I didn’t recognize, so it was fun to try something new
KOALA COOKIES!!!!!!!!! They had these in Okinawa! LOVE THEM.
Some companies (like Hershey) were giving out samples of candy that hadn’t hit the market yet. It’s pretty cool!

So it’s been less than a week and I’ve probably gone through more of my stash here than is healthy…what can I say? ;)

We are down to 3 weeks left of school! One more week of petit fours (stay tuned!) then we have a week of exams, and then we spend a week making sweets for our graduation dessert buffet (I know, right? awesome) and cleaning for the end of the term. It’s going by so fast!