The Final Four

Still running off a wedding cake high we were all reminded that the final four days were upon us. The Final exam is four days long and consists of a 2 hour written exam and 3 days of practical exam. We are all given one large and small tart or cake, one large and small vienoiserie item, one dozen petits fours, and one dozen chocolates that we need to make plus a showpiece demonstrating our favorite thing about NYC to hold it all. Mine were Dacquoise cake, Challah bread, Dark chocolate caramel bonbons, and petits fours glacee. And my showpiece was a tribute to Strawberry Fields.

Day one went well with the written portion in the morning and I was pretty confident that I got a good grade on that. Then the practical started and we were off. All of us following our own personal schedules and trying to get as much work done as quickly as possible. The four days flew by as we all tried to balance our time between making pastries and creating a beautiful showpiece.

We then had the frightening task of carrying our showpieces all the way down the hall and placing all of our pastries on them without them breaking. I was glad that it went mostly smoothly with minimal damage and nothing that couldn't easily be fixed. I blushed as people awed my chocolate painting of John Lennon as echos of the song Imagine played in my head.

We all were very nervous as we waited to be called in by the judges who were top industry professionals that had never seen our work before. Judging went well and she complimented my artistry and said what had set me apart was that just from looking at my work she could really tell that I cared. Phew it was all done... almost!

Tiny Bubbles!

On the day that I did my tour here at FCI the Level 3 class was making wedding cakes as we walked by and looked in the windows. And now my FCI wedding day has come. This is the project I had been looking forward to most.

The Level 2 class came in and did a presentation about a hypothetical wedding they put together for us. The theme was to be "classic island chic" set at the four seasons Bora Bora. The colors were to be coral and green and the flowers were orchids.

Immediately my mind went in different directions and 5 sketches latter I decided on the wedding cake. A white cake soaked with framboise with a strawberry filling, it was then covered with an ivory fondant. There is shimmering coral piped on the bottom tier with piped pearls bordering every tier as well. It is then decorated with crystal clear blown sugar bubbles, dusted sugar sea shells, and green sugar paste orchids.

For once I was happy with a cake I made. And my class was as well. I was voted best wedding cake from both my class and the level 2 class. Very pleased with myself I took the cake to Jacques Torres Chocolates for everyone to enjoy and Chef high five'd me and said I did good work!

A Menu of My Own

As we continued on to our 3rd level of plated desserts there were other things on our minds. And that other thing was our future. A somewhat far off future for me. The assignment was to design a plan and an executable menu for a future place of business that we can see ourselves actually opening. This was a lot to think about. what kind of place do I want? What is important to me?

What did I come up with? "The North Star Inn at Lorenzo" A country Inn serving brunch and dinners in Cazenovia's Historic Lorenzo Estate. With overnight guests and a reputation for wonderful home cooked pastries. The real focus for the restaurant though is to promote sustainability and seasonality with a dedication to representing and promoting local family farms and small businesses. I even brought in several samples of locally grown products that I bought from Nelson Farms.

After we all did our business pitches to the class the chefs chose two items on our menu and we had to make it and plate it exactly to our diagram. The Chefs chose a Pumpkin and Gingerbread Parfait with Cinnamon and Anglaise. And a Rum Mocha Roulade with a Cranberry Drizzle. The plating went very smoothly and the Chefs said they both tasted great.

This project was my baby, and possibly even my future. But who knows, I fully expect my plans to change a million times. But the devotion to sustainability will remain the same. We need to know where our food comes from and how gets to our plate. Think about it. Do you have any idea where that chicken your eating came from? And I don't mean the super market.

Sugar!

Our next unit was sugar. The thought of stretching and pulling hot molten sugar amazed me and I was excited! We first practiced making poured sugar and with that I made a poured sugar fish. Next we learned how to make pulled sugar decorations of course I was most excited to make a rose with this new medium!! Sort of like babysitting one always needs to watch the sugar when under the heat lamp if you don't they will melt too much and crystallize and ruin the batch, and we wouldn't want that would we?

Next we got to make some blown sugar, I have always been fascinated with the blown glass at the corning museum so I thought that this would be a lot of fun. And it was! I made several different color bubbles and even a little blown bird! Then we made a magnificent Christmas sugar showpiece towering 5x5 feet and 4x3 feet and my task was to make the angel for the top of the Christmas tree.

What was more intimidating than that was that when it was all finished I had to put it on the top of the Christmas tree. And well I'd liked to say that it didn't break but when it started to lean my friend fifii went to catch it and half the tree came crashing down. Yes it was sad but that's how things work in pastry world. You spend a lot of time making it and then its gone just like that.

Hello Momma!

While I am starting to get used to city life I do still get home sick a lot too, although I do try to go home when I can it's hard with my hectic schedule between studying for class and interning. So I was overjoyed when My mother and Grandmother decided to come see me for a weekend to help pass the time between Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Their visit came with perfect timing. They got to come and dine at our afternoon of desserts at school. As a class we had prepared for this day all week Mise en Place-ing our desserts and then when the orders came in from our families we fired them and sent them out. I even got to be in charge of calling out orders and making sure that they got to the table timely, ( they should have known better than to give me permission to yell!)

After a quick tour of school we settled into our hotel room. The next day we went exploring some and went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. I all ready can't wait to go back again. Everything was just simply beautiful and completely inspiring.

Before they left on Sunday we went to L'Ecole for brunch. It was good I got Steak tartar with a raw quail egg. I think better than eating it was watching the look on my mom and grandma's faces when I spilled the egg on to the raw meat and dug in!

My Favorite Toy

Settling into our new spacious kitchen was very nice. But the fact that we were now to work on more chocolate worried some. I have to admit even I was a little worried, I still hadn't quite mastered this tempering thing just yet. Although thanks to my manager at Jacques Torres who insisted that I try tempering chocolate with out a thermometer. You want me to do what!? The thought of not using a thermometer made no sense to me in my head I knew that there were very specific numbers that we had to hit as we heated and cooled the chocolate how could I possibly do that with no thermometer? But as Melissa explained that it was all about learning

the look and feel of chocolate when its tempered I thought OK, maybe I can do this. So when Chef Jurgen said that we were to be doing out final Chocolate showpiece the next day I decided to put my thermometer back in my tool kit and see if I could do this relying only on my senses. And to my excitement batch after batch came out perfectly tempered with no sign of a thermometer in sight. And by class end I was very happy with my Chocolate show piece.

I was nervous yet excited to bring my chocolate showpiece into Jacques Torres chocolate to show everyone, yet their opinion and knowledge of chocolate was greatly respected. Melissa was overjoyed that I didn't use a thermometer like she suggested. I think she was even more amused by how excited I was about it. An then there was Chef Torres himself. Part of me didn't want to show him the showpiece, after all he is the master. Chef was very impressed and said it was beautiful and he couldn't do better. He even asked me how I made some elements of it! Hearing that from him meant so much to me, truly a proud moment.

sugar one

After all that plating I was definitely excited to get back into some show piece work. Our First level of sugar was one I had been pretty excited for. First we got to work with marzipan and we made several different fruits and vegetables along with a nougatine basket. I've always enjoyed sculpting so this was a lot of fun, plus I got to use an airbrush again which I am all ready pretty confident with.

Next we moved on to working with pastillage, a stiff sugar dough that drys like porcelain and is very fragile. This medium proved to be frustrating for all of us. The goal was to make a 12in tall cake stand that could support a 6 inch round cake with both design and air flow. I chose to do a Japanese dressing screen type design. And after much frustration of pieces breaking and not adhering as planned I finally got it together and it held the weight!

Now it was time for what I had been most excited to learn, sugar paste flowers with Ron Ben Israel!!! At home I can often be found at the table all night working on sugar paste flowers so it was no surprise that I would be excited for this lesson. We watched videos and eagerly asked all the questions we could think of in our short time with Ron Ben and in the end we came out with some very beautiful flowers. Even on the plane ride home for Thanksgiving had them sitting on my lap and the man sitting next to me asked to take a picture of them. I couldn't help but laugh.

At the end of our last day of sugar one Chef Jurgen came into our class room and gave us his "tomorrow you will be mine!" speech. And with that we were all reminded that this was our last day of level 2 and that tomorrow we would be in level 3, our last level before graduation.