Practical #02: Just had my second practical yesterday and guess what I made??
my funny little French Classic Apple Tart
I was a bit nervous for practical yesterday that I had trouble falling asleep the night before.
Why?
Because knowing how the gods of misfortune look lovingly upon me: for this whole week, I've been assigned the post of Assistant Class with another girl.
Which means.... we girls are in charge of ensuring the kitchen supplies & ingredients are ample enough for the whole group and if not, we are to run down and up 6 flights of high stairs (because the French love stairs... and you guys WONDER WHY French women are so petite despite what they eat, huh?) with our heavy safety shoes to bring up more ingredients.
In other words: fail to provide for the class...or.....
you DIE
Ok, maybe that was a bit of an exaggeration... maybe you'll die just a bit... after having the chef boss you around unforgivingly... ?
Yeah... and not knowing which Chef we were going to get... well, I was very nervous.
We ended up getting Chef Jean-François Deguignet, who before anything called us terrorists for NOT being able to speak French. Hehehe.
Chef Deguignet critique-ing everyone's tarte at the end of each class
TIP of the day:
When he called us terrorist, he's not referring to the gun-wielding, bomb-threatening kind... he means that we were a terror (more like a nightmare) to work with because he doesn't speak english (I personally think his English is good although "broken"... out of all the chefs I've worked with so far, keyword: SO FAR, i think he speaks English the best)
With majority of the chefs, you can tell their dislike for working with debutants and this chef was not an exception.
But despite that, I think I actually find this chef quite humorous.
Funny story with my apple tart:
Somewhere during prepping my dough, I did an unforgivable sin (by chef standards) and had forgotten to add vanilla powder to my dry ingredients.
*insert SHOCKING BIG-EYED LOUD GASPS!*
I know... an unforgivable sin!
It wasn't until sometime when I started blending my dough with the wet ingredients did I realise my mistake.
*insert more BIG-EYED LOUD GASPS!*
So in a VERY desperate attempt to save my ass from a yelling, I quickly sprinkled vanilla onto my dough. Unfortunately for me (since the gods of misfortune love me so much), it didn't blend into the dough well...
So rather than speckled vanilla bits all over my dough, I had huge clusters of them...
And then... the Chef saw my dough.
"Can I zay zom-zing baad?" he said... and then the guns came rolling in...
In short: I had placed TOO much vanilla in my dough whereby after baking will result in a deep brown colour that will look like.... shit. lol
Yup, he just compared my dough to shit. LOL
I'm thankful he wasn't mean about it and despite his constant yelling of "allez, vite! HURRY! FASTER PLEAZZEEEE...", I find that he's fun to work with.
the Chef giving us explanation on how to nappage our tarts
His criticisms and explanations are quite in depth and he gives proper instructed techniques although annoyingly the ones he employed are VERY different from the other chef in demonstration.
while waiting for our tarts to bake,
we were taught to perfect our paper-piping bag making skills
Sadly from the beginning of class one girl got kicked out of practical because she didn't attend the demonstration.
The rules applied in Le Cordon Bleu are strict:
if you don't attend demonstration, you are not allowed to attend practical and that is counted as 2 absences in a row. Pâtisserie students are only allowed a maximum of 5 absences.
Rules are rules here and as a student, you have to be aware of what they are.
In the case of the poor girl in class: the chef didn't bother to listen to her explanation. To put it delicately: he simply told her to pack her kit and leave the room,
Now THAT my dear friends is scary...
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