well, I survived both practicals for this semester and I can see the light at the end of the tunnel!  Ok, I did better than just survive, and I am so relieved they are over.  I find those exams so stressful and nerve-wracking, I could never be on one of those cooking competition shows.  A lot of times people taste my food and say they can't wait to see me on Top Chef or one of those shows one day, and even though I greatly appreciate the compliment, all I can think is how I would never survive the stress and anxiety that would give me.  I would never sleep! 

So anyways, I made it through my chocolates practical on Wednesday and even though I'm not thrilled with the 92 I got, it's still an A, so I'm happy.  And I got my grade from my cakes practical and I was so excited - 100!!! That is my first perfect score on a practical, and even better, Chef told the whole class he thought my cake was the best :D  a little embarassing but mostly awesome!

For Chocolates, we had to make a truffle, a bonbon, and a molded chocolate utilizing all three chocolates (dark, milk, and white), a fruit, and a nut.  We were allowed to come up with our menus/recipes ahead of time, which I very much prefer.  I chose to do milk chocolate amaretto truffles rolled in toasted almonds, dark chocolate bonbons with white chocolate raspberry filling, and chocolate soft caramels dipped in dark chocolate and finished with sea salt.  I was super happy with all my flavors (I quadrupled the raspberry in the bonbons after tasting it and was finally pleased with the flavor), but my caps were a little thick on my bonbons and my chocolate soft caramels were almost rock hard.  They were delicious, but I cooked them just a little too long and they turned way too hard and chewy.  I still ate all the extras, but since they weren't how I intended, I lost some points there. 

On the left, each of my chocolates, on the right, my final plate

The bonbons were probably the part that made me the most nervous, because Chef is a tough judge on shells (supposed to be thin, shiny, and without air bubbles) and caps, so I decided to invest in a chocolate mold and practice at home (plus I wanted one anyways!).  Well my practice runs didn't turn out great, because I haven't figured out where to buy the high quality chocolate that we use at school yet.  I used Ghirardelli chocolate chips, which is about as good as it gets at Publix.  But it just wasn't the same, the chocolate didn't melt nearly as thin, and it made my shells and caps super thick.  But once I figure out how to get my hands on some couverture, I fully intend to keep making bonbons at home. 

My first practice run at home - white chocolate filled with some extra lemon curd I had in the fridge and raspberry jam - see how much thicker these shells are than my practical??

Second practice run at home - dark chocolate filled with extra caramel ganache from my cakes practical

Now I just have to make it through two more written exams - cost control and chocolates - this week and I will be done for the semester.  I love being in school, but I am still pumped to have almost five weeks off before fall semester starts. 

Oh, and a quick update after my little pity party about work last week - I ended up doing all the cake orders (I think it was 16 in total  including the wedding cake (luckily it wasn't stacked, so all I had to tackle this time was the decorating aspect and the customer was very pleased), but my manager helped me fill all of the other cases in the bakery - thank goodness!

The wedding cakes - she had her own stand, so I didn't have to stack them!.

Another one of my cakes order from Saturday - this sucker took FOREVER with all these details and then I showed up Monday and found out the people hadn't even picked it up :(