survived my first practical!

and it was crah-AZY!  I am talking cutthroat, chaotic, stressful craziness.  Let me give you a little background....  So our practical exam for Pastry Techniques was this week, and most of us had never had a practical exam before (non-written, hands-on, etc).  So all we knew going into it was that we would have three hours, undetermined groups, and have to make multiple recipes from memory.  Oh, and that SEVERAL people cried last semester.  Not to mention that it's 15% of our grade.  Needless to say, we were all terrified.  We already have enough trouble sharing the mixers and other tools between 6 groups, and this exam was individual, so I brought everything I could carry from home, and I am so glad.  I am talking all my mixing bowls, all my utensils, a hand mixer, anything I could think of.   And it's a good thing because some people showed up an hour early to pick the "best" spots and hoard all of the equipment. 

So we started the exam and I was so relieved to get a great group (the test was individual but we had groups that we had to share counter space, ovens, stove burners, and stand mixers with).  This was a huge plus because we all get along really well and we were able to communicate about who was using the stove next, etc with no problems.  Not the case for all the groups, just saying...  We had to make three mini tart shells (the dough for these was the only thing we made ahead of time), and fill one with ganache and one with caramel pastry cream.  Then we had to make pate a choux and pipe and bake eclairs and cream puffs.  We filled those with the caramel pastry cream we made and dipped them in ganache.  Last, we made a swiss meringue and piped it on top of the pastry cream tart and torched it.  All from scratch.  Chef gave us the ingredients but we had to know the process to make each recipe from memory.  All in three hours.  Actually the time limit wouldn't have been so bad if we didn't have to share the stove burners.  For example, my group had two burners (one behind the other, so you have to lean over the other person to use the back one - not great for those of us that are 4'11") between the three of us and we each needed to use it four times during the three hours - once for pate a choux, once to make the caramel and then the pastry cream, once for the ganache, and once for the meringue. 

All in all, it wasn't as bad as I expected for me, but much worse for some people.  My group was the only group to finish on time, and some people finished at least an hour and a half late (you lost 1 point for every 5 minutes late).  I ended up getting an A even though something went terribly wrong with my tart dough and it puffed up like it thought it was a cake.  And now that it's over, I feel a little more confident going into my practical exam for Cakes this week.  A little. 

I was so flustered and nervous that I forgot to take pictures of my final products before Chef cut and tasted them, though...sorry!

I did get a bunch of pictures of the petit fours we finished up in cookies class the next morning though!  I had so much fun in this class.  We had pretty much everything made up from the week before, so we had plenty of time to get creative with our decorating. 

In cakes class, we didn't make anything :( because we prepped for the Grand Buffet the next day (all semester all the classes freeze their leftovers, and then there is a buffet open to the public for $20 each and they get to come eat all of our goodies.)  But our mini-entremets from last week were set so we got to taste them and I got a picture of ours.  So freaking good!

Stenciled jaconde filled with lemon cremeux, chardonnay-soaked blueberries, and topped with a lemon creme anglaise bavarian

Also, I have gotten braver about taking pictures of my cakes at work.  I have been working less hours (whew) now that Easter is over, so I am having way more fun again and less exhausted.  I have been learning all of the decadent desserts and cakes this week and even did my first airbrushed cake!

Alrighty that is all for now because I am supposed to be using this day off to work on my portfolios for cookies and cakes that are due this week and study for my cakes practical!  I'll let you know how it goes!