Pastry School
Hey guys so I just finished with my last day of culinary school. It's been so much fun! My classmates are all really sweet and nice, and I've enjoyed hanging out with them on several separate occasions. The first day we made currant scones, pecan orange sticky buns, and pecan maple muffins. They were all so delicious and so fun to make! I do plan on one day having all three of those in my bakery.
The second day we made two types of tarts: an 8 inch apple tart and two fresh fruit tartlets filled with custard. At the end of the day I went shopping I probably shopped for about four hours! By the end of the day I realized I had walked over 6 miles. During the shopping session, I saw two extremely odd things. I saw a man eating a banana. He had peeled the banana completely, and then inserted it into his mouth. He didn't not use his hands but instead proceeded to consume the banana as though he were a wood chipper and the banana was a log. I Also saw a man with his head completely shave accept on the very top. It was all swept over to one side. The under tone was dark brown. On top was a bleached blonde color, and he allowed his hair to form into four-inch dreadlocks! It was shockingly odd. It made me think of a story.
One of my favorite teachers, Ms. Trouart, is incredibly odd in a wonderfully freighting way. She is amazingly talented in her field, a little strange, but always has a method to her madness. One day in seventh grade, Ms. Trouart told us a story. She had been driving down the street when she saw two men chained together by their nose rings. She pulled over and took a picture. This was first instinct when I saw that man. I however didn’t get a picture.
The third day was cupcake day. We made chocolate and vanilla cupcakes, a chocolate ganache glaze and a Swiss-meringue buttercream. If I'm being totally honest, they didn’t turn out great. Particularly, the Swiss-meringue buttercream has an acquired taste that I have not acquired.
On Thursday, we made pate a choux. Pate a choux is a French pastry dough used for cream puffs, éclairs, chouquettes, gougeres, and choux aux craquelin. Chouquettes are the puff pastry sprinkled with compressed sugar. Gougeres are the savory form of the pastry, usually mixed with cheese and spices. Choux aux craquelin is the pastry dough with a cookie-like round baked on top so that it has a crunch. We also made a base for the ice cream we would make the next day. For the ice cream base we used a lot of egg yolks, but not the whites. So I got the idea of making a meringue out of the extra egg whites and filling my puff pastries with it. It was so good!!!! It was simply delicious.
On the last day, my partner and I were assigned to make mango sorbet. It was good... not great. The rest of the class pitched in and we made an ice cream buffet complete with mango sorbet, strawberry sorbet, vanilla ice cream, caramel ice cream, macerated fruits, chocolate topping, blueberry syrup, raspberry syrup, caramel syrup, whipped cream, baked meringues, sprits cookies, brownies, and tuilles. Tuilles are thin cookies that you use stencils to make a shape and then serve as garnish. It was awesome!!!
I really enjoyed camp and cannot thank everyone enough for this opportunity. Especially my Mom, Dad, and Aunt Zoe. Thank you!!!! I will try to post more often as I enter this weekend (my mom's and my own birthday weekend!! July 18th!) and into the Fordham program.
More from me soon!!!!!
-Gigi
