Hello World!... from Ms Shooter

The land where they roam free...

2011-03-31T01:10:00.001+02:00

Nothing planned for a weekend in Belgium?

Drive to the Monde Sauvage, Belgique - the land where the animals roam wild and free... and apparently, also ask for a head scratch...

.....as demonstrated by the little bird down below to my mom!

View some of the amazing animals from your car window as you drive into the zoo park and watch while the giraffes, zebras and ostriches approach up close to personally greet you! It's quite the experience and being an animal lover that I am, I loved the whole experience. To top it all off, the day was beautiful as well!!

Advice: as it's a natural terrain, driving a comfort sedan may prove to be a bit difficult due to its big bumpy roads and what sorts... so ideally it would be great to drive in with a 4-wheel drive vehicle. BUT...for those too much in love with their car to let it get up close and personal with the horns of bulls and other sorts of creatures, rest assured that there is an option for visitors to ride in the mini-train that brings visitors within the wild-roaming compound! :)

Le Monde Sauvage

#3 Fange de Deigné
4920 Aywaille, Liege
BELGIUM

Phone: 04/360.90.70

C'est Paris: Mora - le spécialiste des ustensiles de votre cuisine

2011-03-04T00:53:00.003+01:00

"Les Halles, the city's main wholesale food market, occupied the area just south of the Église St-Eustache from the early 12th century until 1969..."

- Lonely Planet

And until now Les Halles still is! Where on every Thursday and weekends, the long avenues of top-knot restaurants, cafes and bakeries close shop to make way for the bustling fresh-foods market with boisterous vendors competing for sales of good quality, uber-fresh produce!

Not surprisingly as well, is that Les Halles is also the place where all the professionals go to, to shop and stock up on their essentials and gear! It's an awesome area to go flâneur-ing! You'll be surprised to find out what you've discovered!

Among the few gems is the shop called MORA <--- click here for link.

Specialist in all things in the kitchen, the store supplies everything from food colouring, chocolate molds, bake pans, professional mixers, cookbook encyclopedias (in french, of course!) to edible decorative sprinkles, glitters, colours and down to basic necessities like chef uniforms and table cloths in varying colour and sizes.

Whatever you're looking for, chances are that this store has it!

Personally, I've been to this store a few times and in all occasions I have failed to leave the store empty handed! The items are reasonably affordable (even cheaper compared to their neighbouring stores) and always in stock. Staff are always at hand to help you in case you have trouble.

Be warned: on weekends this shop can be quite busy and packed as a mélange of professional and non-professional folk swarm the store to stock up on their weekly essentials.

MORA

#13, Rue Montmartre
75001 PARIS

FRANCE

Métro station: "Les Halles"
sortie Rambuteau

Hours of Operation :
Monday to Friday : 9h00 to 18h15
Saturday: 10h00 to 13h00 & 13h45 to 18h30.

Photoblog: In the Louvre Museum

2011-02-18T01:07:00.000+01:00

A good painting to me has always been like a friend

It keeps me company, comforts and inspires.

-Hedy Lamarr

Bienvenue sur Le Cordon Bleu: Demonstration 14

2011-02-16T23:49:00.001+01:00

Demonstration 14: Brioche

"Let them have Brioche"

Those were the legendary words Marie-Antoinette had said in response to the starving French folks protesting outside the palace gates. It was from those fateful words that so suddenly, was born, Brioche as one of the staple breads in the French pastry world.

Personally I hadn't known what a brioche was until I came to France and saw the signs plastered on the windows of every single patisserie and boulangerie in every corner of Paris.

My discovery of Brioche was akin to one who just discovered the signifcance of gold! I had an epiphany. You know that feeling? You know, like in the movies where the character makes a surprising discovery towards the ending of the film? The scene where it's as though a brand new universe had just started to unravel right before your eyes, that so suddenly the rose-tinted glasses which you view the world with has suddenly been lifted...

Yeah... I had an epiphany like that...

Well... kind of...

Truly, it amazes me how the French can come up with something so wonderfully delicious, gob-smackingly delicious, did I mention delicious?, bread such as the Brioche! Seriously, why wasn't I born French??! I would love to be from a country that has stemmed itself with strong historical culinary and patisserie foundations.

Brioche is truly unheard of from the petite country of where I come from!

So what is a Brioche?

Brioche is a French bread, highly enriched in butter and egg rending its flavours sweet and rich, whilst flaky and uber-soft in texture. Although it falls under the category of patisseries, the brioche is more bread than cake because it requires yeast and kneading for a good 20-mins by hand!!! (can you say, STRONG BICEPS?!! - no wonder majority of the bakers in France are men!! Baking is labour-intensive!!!).

In France, Brioche is eaten as breakfast as well as tea/snack time. It's baked in different sizes and shapes from traditional rectangular bread loaves to the a small round dough baked on top of another bigger dough, resembling a cupcake with a growing head!!

Parisien Brioche: the cupcake with a growing head

The Grosse Brioche: The Big Brioches with bigger heads!

What I particularly loved about this demonstration was that Chef Jean-Jacques (so far my favourite chef of the lot because he's an AWESOME baker!) showed us the different bread-based desserts. Another reason why I love Brioche... i can make Brioche-based kougelhopf!!! YESSSSSSSSSSSSS!! Brioche-based rolls and so much more!! GAAAHH!! I'm SO excited to try them all out that I can't help but giggle like a school girl! Hehehe

Kougelhopf and a Braided Brioche

Chef Jean-Jacques Tranchant - my favourite chef

Sadly I didn't take photos of my brioches from practical because I had forgotten to bring my camera and I was in a rush! Much to my dismay, I had both the demonstration and practical on my birthday: the first being at an early 8:30am and the latter being the last session of the day at 6:30pm (ending at 10pm).

Not that I'm complaining but it didn't help that as well as being late for pratical, we had the horrendous Chef *ehem-I-refuse-to-mention-his-name* who... to my delight (and I'm being sarcastic)... threatened to give me a ZERO because he THOUGHT i hadn't bothered to listen to his directions and do something completely different...

WORSE was when he realised his mistake (that I actually WAS doing what he wanted me to do) and rather than apologising or anything a decent person would do... he simply said...

"MAYBE a zero"...

Ohhh boy was I angry that day. VERY angry.

But I tried not to let it get the best of me, and in the end I succeeded.

Because despite it all, I realised three things:

First: that I've already gone through one of the hardest experiences of my life, so a chef threatening me with a zero is NOTHING compared to what I've been through before;

Second: that once in a while, in life and at work (especially in a working kitchen) I'm definitely going to cross knives with people and chefs WORSE than him, with threats that are FAR MORE serious than a mere zero (such as... being fired, for one thing!);

Lastly third: in the end, Chef was just doing his job. It's normal and nothing out of the ordinary. It's one of the few ways a student can learn from their mistake. Although obviously there are better ways of going about it, but still in the end.. chef was just doing his job.

I have to say that this experience with the horrendous Chef certainly helps you learn to develope a thicker skin. Things like these aren't meant to be taken personally and being from an environment where it's very rare to experience these things, it was a big personal learning curve for me.

I'm also VERY VERY thankful I had people like Ellie, Klara and all in my class - who despite everything was brave enough to joke around with me and eventually got me to loosen up and let everything go. I'm happy to know that I have people like this in my life :)

Btw: I discovered that there exists an oven that can shoot out steam jets inside, whilst baking... WOOOO!!!!

Bienvenue sur Le Cordon Bleu: Demonstration 13

2011-02-15T23:43:00.003+01:00

Demonstration 13: Le Croissant & Pain Aux Chocolat

Aside from the uber-french classic baguette, there are two other baked goodies that have epitomised France in the patisserie world: the croissant and the pain aux chocolat. These mind-blowing tongue-pleasers are so enriched in buttery warmth and goodness (don't forget a whopping high-scaling calorie count) that the experience of eating them, is as if warmth had just exploded in your innards and drowned your senses - I have yet to meet someone who does not like them!

The dough for the croissant and pain aux chocolat is simple really, consisting mainly of tons of flour, tons more butter, some water, salt and yeast. Could it be any simpler than that? The beauty of these heavenly are is in the process of making them: a method which is long, wearisome and extremely repetitive. Dough is made, rested, rolled out and layered upon each other over and over again in between rests and succession.

Rested Croissant Doughs ready to be baked by Chef Cotte during Demo

For those pain aux chocolat lovers out there - did you know that pain aux chocolat is basically just croissant rolled with sticks of chocolate known as bâtons boulangers (Baker's sticks) which are chocolate sticks made in such away that they are resistant to heat when baking. Interesting, huh?

Pain aux chocolat by yours truly :)

Another reason why I LOVE living in Paris because the bakery ingredients here are widely available and so cheap! I bought myself some (300 sticks, actually) of bâtons boulangers for a mere 9 euros! Best part: it's the top quality Cacao Barry brand which we use in school, too!!

BUT!!!!!!

Even more interesting is the history of the Croissants themselves!

Did you know that (this is one of the many culinary legends we learn in class about the origins of certain cakes/desserts/etc.) that Croissants originially did not come from France but was developed in Austria?

Yup. Austria. Croissants originally are not FRENCH!

Oh.
Mon.
Dieu!

Croissants, or as I like to call them: my lobster-claws :)

There are actually plenty of varied stories circulating around about the origin of croissants but one that we learnt was of the bakers in Vienna 1683, who sounded the alarms upon hearing the enemies from the Ottoman Empire tunnelling into the walls late at night. In commemoration of their bravery and celebration of the Ottoman Empire defeat, the croissants - a reference to the Turkish crescents on the flags - was developed!

I told you it was interesting!

:)

For now, I can cross off one of the MANY MANY MANY MANY items on my bucket list and I'm content. The thought that I now know how to make croissants from scratch makes me want to jump up and squeal with delight... Ok, maybe not squeal. Maybe scream out of happiness!

It's days like these that makes love being in Le Cordon Bleu and being a patisserie student, learning from some of the best talents in the industry!

I count myself to be one lucky gal! ;)

I couldn't resist!

I simply LOVE girls with croissant-mustaches!

Love is in the Air.

2011-02-14T01:02:00.001+01:00

Happy Valentine's Day from

the City of Love, Paris!

With Hearts,
Ms. Shooter

To all my singletons out there,

Don't worry: Valentine's Day is over-rated :)

Bienvenue sur Le Cordon Bleu: Demonstration 12

2011-02-13T00:33:00.001+01:00

Demonstration 12: Le Gateau Moka

Le Gateau Moka: a double or sometimes triple (depending how generous your baker feels) layered cake of tongue-tingling delight – in other words (to be a tad bit crude) an oral orgasm of another, purely non-sexual sort.

Le Gateau Moka: Coffee Cake.

The better kind: light and velvety coffee-infused French butter cream sandwiched and slathered all over layers of thick, soft, air-like genoise sponge-cakes that are, in turn, steeped in deep aromatically seductive coffee syrup and finally sprinkled with fine roasted nuts.

I envy how the piping designs come naturally to the chef as he works

The genoise-sponge cakes out of the oven and piping hot!

Oh yeah, for all you coffee-aficionados out there…

This baby is the REAL. DEAL.

A slice of this darling here is what makes coffee time a tea-time paradise. Sitting down to enjoy a nice cup of GOOD brewed coffee, completed with a soft delicate sponge coffee cake that is neither too sweet nor strong.

In fact, it is just right.

For me, at least, my coffee world just became brighter.

Mind you, this cake is definitely not something I’ll have with my coffee ALL the time, EVERY time.

That’ll be like death by overkill - some things are meant to be enjoyed through rarity. This is one of many other things I’ve learnt from the French. And trust the French to know one or two things about the etiquette of dining...

Actually about food. Period.

The art of dining - something I think the French have mastered generations ago. It’s not something they learnt but rather, and I envy them for this, something that’s become second nature to them that it runs through their blood!

This art is the very thing that makes a French person eating their boeuf bourginon or cafe-ing with their friends, even eating their tarte tatin look so chic, so classy, so sophisticated... so FRENCH!

Dining in France is a luxurious experience - something that is meant to be relished...

In the case of Le Gateau Moka: it goes like this...

It’s the time where the moment you slice into the heavenly cake with your shiny fork, the world and time evidently stops. You carry your piece of cake and lift it to your lips.

You pause: the slight whiff of dark tantalising coffee syrup oozing into the air and eventually breathed in. The visual seduction of soft spongy layers, buttered with rich delicate buttercream and coatings of brown fine-roasted almonds.

The world is at a pause. Sounds are drowned out. And then, ever so slowly, you place it in your mouth...

Immediately textures and tastes explode onto your palate: soft sponge cakes against crunchy roasted nuts, thick smooth buttercream against infused flavours of coffee...

Oh yeah, trust a pastry student to describe how the experience of food-tasting is like...

Unfortunately for us students, along with this concoction of delightful textures and flavours comes the complications of preparing the cake itself: fragile, temperamental and extremely difficult (PLUS TIRING) to work with. The hand-whipping action was double than previous practicals - it was worse than hand-whipping the egg whites to stiff peak...

But as Chef Cotte says: “It is all about confidence”

Chef Cotte telling (and depicting) to us students about the importance of confidence when dealing with fragile cakes.

Which I think is true for most parts of the practical, until it came to piping designs on to our cake. This was the moment that I believe my confidence faltered... and I hestitated... half way through decorations... which is not good.

But at least, it came out ok in the end... if not a disaster.

My gateau moka

As Chef Walter says: “C’est pas mal...”

Chef Walter and evaluation of cakes at the end of class

Oh and best part? The end of the day: we finished our practical early and most of us had produced "well-made" cakes, much to the pleasure of Chef Walter. To my happy delight, we also started making these:

DOUGH??

I know: you're probably thinking WTF is that?? Well, it's dough... we prepared dough for our next practical where we will be making these:

uh huh, oh yeah baby. We're going to be making Croissants!! :)

Bienvenue sur Le Cordon Bleu: Demonstration 11

2011-02-12T00:08:00.002+01:00

So… It's back to the days of sucky internet.

Hence why the updates have been too little too few.

As we speak, we are encroaching on our 13th Practical session and the date of the written exam is bearing upon us SOON (less than 1 week to be exact!!)

Everyone (well.. MOST) are in full-speed study mode and much has happened since last update. After the written exams, we have give or take 2-3 more weeks before our finals on which we discover the fate our food-related dreams: whether the Gods look down on us and bless us with a Pass or a shattering Fail.

Up until then, I bury (attempt to, mostly) my nose deep in the depths of my pâtisserie notes…

Enough of misery!

Lets move on to… far more sweeter things in life, such as Demonstration 11.

Demonstration 11: Tartelettes.

Trust the French to come up with something more chic and gourmand than a cupcake – and they’ve been making this far longer than cupcakes have been around!

Tartelettes: a sweet pastry bowl of soft sandy and buttery texture shelling a wondrous assortment of filling within its cavity (chocolate, orange, strawberry, lemons and plenty more!). In my personal opinion, these are one of the most prettiest and versatile desserts on the pâtisserie block!

Made in smaller sizes, they are heartier and more refined than the best of cupcakes: petite enough so each person has their own to eat but slightly big enough that it can be satisfyingly-shared between two person.

The Raspberry Tartelettes

I especially love them when they come garnished with berries of sorts and when you take a bite into it, it's like experiencing "happiness" go crazy over your palate: the aroma and soft crunch of buttery-sandy shell, followed by the onslaught of silky smooth, light crème patisserie countered by the tart flavours of summer berries or acidic flavours of a sharp lemon.

I, for one, was certainly happy that we got the chance to learn and make these desserts!

Garnishing the Strawberry Tartelettes with powdered sugar

Our demonstration moved in a rapid pace, Chef Cotte worked fast and efficient (with the aid of two Chef assistants, of course!). As we entered the demonstration room, it was already clear that he had already started his work early because there were already a LOT of pre-baked tart shells!

Looking at our recipes for demo, I think he was aware that he had a big variety of tartelettes to show us - and this was true!

PLUS, knowing Chef Cotte and how he likes to present us with a surprise for the day (an additional pastry dessert you can make with the same ingredients), all in all there were 10 different varieties of tartelettes:

Amandine Tartelettes
Bourdeloue Tartelettes
Raspberry Tartelettes
Chocolate Tatelettes
Orange Tartelettes
Apple Tartelettes
Apricot Tartelettes
Strawberry tartelettes

and finally:

two varieties of Lemon tartelettes.

The trio, starting from front:

Apple Tartelette, Amandine Tartelette and Lemon Tartelette with Caramelised Meringue

The Orange Tartelettes with Caramelised Topping

Chocolate Tartelette with Gold Leaf Garnish & Amandine Tartelettes

That is a LOT, right?? The fact that he made these for 30+ students in under 3 hours is an accomplishment! I guess that’s why he has the right to yell at us to hurry in practicals.

All the tartelettes made were all a delight! Out of the whole selection, my favourite had to be: the raspberry tartelettes... and the strawberry... actually i loved the lemon tartelettes with the caramelised Meringue topping just as well (it was divine!)!

And yes, we got to play with the professional blow torch in practical as well :)

Everyone was in pure concentration as Chef went about his work. Enjoying the focused attention he was getting, to add icing to the cake (so to speak), Chef Cotte decorated the chocolate tartelettes with a nice touch of real gold leaf!

Yup, REAL. GOLD. LEAF - being pâtisserie noobs that we are, of course came en suite the sound of gasping echoes and girls squealing in demo! *eye rolls*

One would’ve thought we’ve never seen gold leaf before!

Practical 11: Making the Tartelettes.

Out of the 10 varieties, we made 2 in practical:

the chocolate tartelettes - sweet pastry dough encasing a deep, seductive aromatising dark chocolate ganache tart layered on top of a soft-baked light chocolate moelleux (mousse)

the orange tartelettes - sweet pastry dough encasing a tart refreshing orange-cream pastry custard with caramelised brown-sugar topping.

Now, after having survived the practical, I have to tip my hat to Chef Cotte for managing 10 varieties of tarts in less than 3 hours because for our practical, just having to make 4 of each was already a challenge.

Loud clanging of whisk against steel bowls, random screamings of "CHAUD" (HOT!), students scuttling back and forth from the work stations to the sinks… yeah, it wasn’t an easy practical with plenty of things to do.

Thankfully, because everyone worked out at helping each other – something I really love about our group - things went quite smoothly and most of us ended the session with finely made tartelettes!

For practical, we had Chef Christian Faure, MOF who (in a good mood thanks to the pretty Brazilian girls in our class ;) ) – was singing throughout practical . Due to his relaxed nature, i think we were all less stressed and this made it easier for us to properly concentrate on our dough: Sweet Pastry Dough.

This would be the second time we’ve worked with Sweet Pastry Dough (Pate Sucree) and in a way I was sort of eager to practice more with this dough– mainly because this was something I couldn’t do in my last pate sucree practical. Chef Cotte (despite his constant overbearing yellings) was kind enough to do most of the work for me.

However, I soon discovered why.

This dough is difficult to work with: it's tricky, extremely fragile and delicate. Anything besides a light, delicate roll would have torn holes everywhere (which happened to me often in this practical).

But thankfully I was able to fix it and my tart shell baked fine (except one which grew a big mound in the centre while baking – I had forgotten to place some holes in them!)

Aside from that, my tartelettes (after filling and garnishing) came out fine and chef commented on my well-accomplished work which really meant a lot to me. Sadly though, we weren’t given real gold leaves to garnish our chocolate tarts. Boo!

C'est Paris: Le Musée du Louvre

2011-02-08T22:57:00.002+01:00

Did you know?:

The Louvre Museum (the national museum of Paris) is the largest and most visited art museum in the world.

EVEN BETTER, did you know?:

That visiting the Louvre museum is FREE on the FIRST Sunday of each month.
Oui, c'est vrai!

Note: expect to encounter huge crowds and long line-ups. But if you enter through Carrousel du Louvre or Palais Royal- Musée du Louvre metro station, the line goes along relatively fast and once you're in the museum, crowding will no longer be an issue.

those of you who have seen the movie Da Vinci's Code maybe familiar

with the sight of this inverted pyramid?

About the Musée du Louvre.

A clossal 700m (nearly 2300 feet) along the Seine river, I once read somewhere that it would take up to 9 months to simply glance at every artwork (35,000 in total) housed in this museum!! How INSANE is that?

It is also home to the famous MONA LISA (La Joconde) - perched high on the wall, behind a bulletproof glass. Be warned: you'll be pushing and shoving in a crowd of people for a simple photo of this lady. She is quite famous!

The Musée du Louvre is housed within the former walls of a palace (you can still see part of it's original fortress if you go underground, there is a section of the museum is dedicated to this) and going about the Louvre can get quite confusing due to its astronomical size.

The original Palaise du Louvre

(now part of it is gone but the Musée du Louvre sits on top of its foundations)

Oh, and expect to spend 1 whole day there or more because there is SO much to see: famous paintings by Michaelangelo and Da Vinci, authentic jeweled crowns, statues of greek gods and goddesses and even a REAL mummy!

There was something about looking at this REAL mummy in front of me that made

the atmosphere very unsettling. Creepy.

Luckily the Musée has provided it's visitors free maps located at the main entrance hall, available in several languages. Curious to know what a lavish lifestyle feels like? If you look hard enough, you may be able to locate Napoleon Bonaparte's lavish apartments which has everything from bedrooms to dining rooms (jaw-dropping) and to entertainment/tea rooms (eye-popping)!

When at the Louvre, take the free maps located at the main info desk in the entrance

to help you from getting lost!

So far, I have visited the Musée du Louvre twice and still I find myself in areas of the Museum I haven't been to. What I love most about the Louvre isn't only the astonishing beautiful paintings and real-life mummies, but you also get to see real artists at work. Oh how I envy their talent. When I was younger, I had always dreamt about being able to paint portraits like them.

Bienvenue sur Le Cordon Bleu: Demonstration 10

2011-02-04T21:44:00.000+01:00

Chef Jean-Jacques leading the demonstration

Demonstration 10: Meringue-based Petits Fours.

Finally! It's here! The most-anticipated demonstration that we (mainly the students) have been waiting for since the first day we walked past through the school door!

The reason why most of us hoarded up years of financial earnings to pay our way through this academie d'art culinaire!

On account of why we endure and slave ourselves away in the oven-blazed kitchen, submitting our ears (and bruised egos!) to the yellings of PMS-ing chefs!

The cause as to why we launch ourselves into the frightening world of French pâtisserie...

Well...

Actually... that's a tad bit of an exaggeration...

BUT...

It's still (i believe, anyhow) one of the main reasons why MOST of us wanted to learn french patisserie anyway...

The Macarons!

Colourful macarons with chocolate-cinnamon ganache filling

Now before I begin, allow to start with other desserts we learnt to bake in the same demonstration. Today's main focus was: French Petit Fours.

pe·tit four
noun \ˌpe-tē-ˈfȯr, pə-ˌtē-, -ˈfu̇r\
plural petits fours

Origin of the word: French, literally meaning "small oven", first known use in 1884.
Definition by Cambridge Dictionary Online: "a small cake or biscuit, usually served at the end of a meal with coffee"

There are three different types of petits fours (pronounced as pet-ty fo-ur):

1. Les petits fours secs (Dry petits fours) consist of an assortment of small desserts like meringue-biscuits, macarons and mini puff pastries. I suppose they are considered dry because they've been baked off and are presented without any "wet" components such as icings and fondants.

2. Les petits fours glacés (Iced petits fours) are small desserts that have been iced (d'oh) or decorated. An few examples are: small eclairs, tartlets, and iced dainty cakes.

3. Les petits fours salés (Savourty petits fours) are the final category of this dainty desserts and are mainly bite-sized savoury (not sweet) appetizers served as part of cocktail parties or h'ordeuvres.

To find read out more interesting information about petits fours, click here.

In our demonstration we learnt to make 4 different types of petits fours secs: Raisin Biscuits, Marshall's Batons, Cigarettes and finally the Macarons (Chef was saving the macaron demonstration for last... and with it, he was expecting the onslaught of a million questions... which was true, in a way, there WERE a lot of questions).

Les Petits Fours (front, anti-clockwise): Macarons with Chocolate-Cinnamon Ganache, Cigarettes and Raisin Biscuits

Take note of the macaron bowls:

Instead of rolling the cigarettes, he molded the massive sheets into a bowl! How ingenious!

Between the four: i found the cigarettes most interesting! - no, not because of it's name, but because of it's method. The rolling action seems quite fun and the chef had given us another use of our instruments in our knife set! I'm eager to try this out!

Les Cigarettes

Les Palets aux Raisins (Raisin Biscuits)

The macarons were interesting and throughout the demonstration, chef gave us a LOT of helpful tips on how to make a successful macaron - which I was very happy to jot down! These tips were certainly NEVER in those macaron books you buy at the bookstores! Demonstration class was SO QUIET when he was making the macarons... because everyone was concentrating on everything he was doing!

I think that perhaps my notes on the macarons were by far MORE detailed than any other notes I've made in school so far...

... which is not good, is it?... hahaha

Marshall's batons

Practical 10: Les Petits Fours

Sadly though... we didn't make the macarons for practical. Unfortunately, Chef told us that due to the complicated nature of the meringue-based mixture, the macaron practical only starts once you're an intermediate student (how lucky you guys are!) - which is another 3 months of intensive baking!

However we made: the marshall's batons (one of my favourites) and the raisin biscuits (not my favourites).

waiting for the chocolates of my marshall's batons to set

We had a change of chef in our practicals and our class was lead by a cuisine chef who was in the past also a patisserie chef, Chef Patrick Caals (the infamous eye-candy chef uber-popular among the girls in school). In practical, Chef Caals was cool and calm - something I didn't expect because I have heard that he is quite stern with his students and a few times, he can be quite the charming chef, winking and singing at the girls in practical. I find it quite funny actually!

What I liked about this chef was that he made us responsible for the ovens and baking process of the biscuits - this was something that so far all the patisserie chefs haven't allowed us students to do (because they want to minimise the number of times we open to oven door and therefore conserve the heat, making cooking time shorter). Personally I think it's important that we learn to be responsible for our baking process, that way when it comes to practical exams, we know what to do and when to take it out!

Despite not being rushed by the chef, we were done with our practical one hour ahead of schedule and eventually everyone slowed their paced a little, taking more time to organise and clean the work stations appropriately and allowing our chocolates (coated under the marshall's batons) to cool.

I wasn't quite happy with my raisin biscuits because:

1. they kept popping out of the cookies AFTER being baked; and

2. the raisins were dried out due to the high temperature baking process; and finally

3. presentation-wise, I really didn't find the cookies appealing. Perhaps I just dont like this biscuits due to my dislike of raisins? I never really liked them, even as a kid!

mes palets aux raisins

Bienvenue a Le Cordon Bleu: Demonstration 9

2011-02-02T21:32:00.000+01:00

Demonstration 9: Tarte Meringuee aux Poires

Demonstration

We're reaching our halfway mark of course sooner than I expected! I've learnt, experienced, seen and heard so many new things and now we're already in February! I have approximately 1 more month of school left before the start of examinations and after than in 5 days time, graduation!

I can't believe how fast time is flying by! In two weeks time, we'll be having the written exams and after than would be the final practical!

... Dang...

I probably should start studying...

... Actually... more like start baking...
Ok, time to save up some $$ for the baking equipments!

In this demonstration, we learnt the basics of sweet pastry dough and made the ever-delightful Pear Meringue Tart! Crunchy sweet pastry dough lining cooked and softened chopped pears and raisins, topped with a delicious (AND GENEROUS) mound of meringue topping, sprinkled with sliced almonds before popping into the oven to be browned!

Up, close and personal: Pear Meringue Tart with Roasted Almonds and Powder Sugar

Sounds delicious doesn't it?

In this class, Chef Cotte was more serious than ever. Rolling up his sleeves and just getting his hands straight into work. Sometimes, demonstration can be good that way. Everyone quiet, intently watching the chef bake and design the tarts carefully. You could seriously hear a pin drop!

Chef Cotte explaining... something?

Also in this class we learnt to make Caramlised Almond Tartelettes - something I wasn't really fond of due to the bitterness of the caramel mixed in with the sugar. I personally would've added a form of creme or custard in the base to balance out the crunchy-ness of the roasted caramalised almonds. It was a simple recipe which only involved 4 ingredients mixed all in all.

tarte amande caramélisée

Bienvenue a Le Cordon Bleu: Demonstration 8

2011-02-02T19:40:00.001+01:00

Demonstration 8: Gateau Basque & Diplomat's Pudding.

Back: Diplomat's Pudding

Front: Le gateau basque

Yes folks, another new discovery in the land of French pâtisserie: Le Gateau Basque - a

traditional tart dessert from the Basque region of France. A deceptively plain-looking cake: the first impression of the Gateau Basque resembles that of a un-iced plain sponge cake, streaked across it's browned-crusted surface with triangular scores similar to that of a tartan design. But who would've known that inside this round thingy-ma-gig could be housing something as delicious and delightful as custard creme and sweet fruits?

I for one would LOVE to try and bake-experiment this cake further more: fresh strawberries perhaps? blueberries? raspberries?

Hmmm...

I wonder how that would turn out?

As usual for our demonstration, we had Chef Cotte who (as usual) charmed us with his flirty-comedic behaviour, bringing the girls to little flirty giggles and the guys to the eye-rolls. I'm starting to think that Chef Cotte is our head pâtissier for the basic level in Le Cordon Bleu, Paris. On a side note: I wonder what the guys in class think of Chef Cotte?

Actually now that I think about it: we don't really have much men in basic pâtisserie level. Unfortunately, most of the men in Le Cordon Bleu have enrolled themselves into the cuisine department.... even more unfortunate is that none of them are even remotely cute!

Although....

there is a CHEF in that department who is reputed to be quite the eye-candy!

Hmmmmm......

Ok, I'm done...
back to baking stuff...

Chef Cotte: explaining how to plate a dessert dish

In this class we also learnt to make the diplomat's pudding: a dessert of brioche and custard pudding baked with candied-fruits, served with fresh creme anglaise. Surprisingly, this was the first dessert made in school that I did not like! I think this was mainly because of the candied fruit?

The Diplomat's Pudding with Plating Designs

I wonder if the diplomat's pudding has anything to do with diplomats and their nature? - Fancy looking in presentation but really just full of crap?

Hahahaha
Bad joke..
I know...

So...........................
On to practical!

Practical 8: The Gateau Basque

Well... memories of this practical are still fresh on my mind and I think I will forever remember it because it was my first practical with Chef Cotte.

Sheer.

Utter.

Dreadfulness.

I have heard (and read) about how dreadful it was to be working with this chef but I never did I imagine it was going to be that horrible.

Throughout the entire practical class, each and everyone of us were at the receiving at of his impatient yelling. Unfortunately for myself and another friend, we got it a lot more than others... because our working station was directly next to his standing post (the place were he stands *duh* throughout the class, after pacing back and forth yelling at each student). So whatever we were doing, he was there to see it all the way through.

As I mentioned before, we're halfway through the course and now aside from learning the basics of french pâtisserie, we're also beginning to incorporate complex plating designs for our desserts. In this practical, the upside to it was that we were learning to design with Chocolate!!

Unfortunately, learning the principles of chocolate and sugarcraft is a difficult process and therefore in Le Cordon Bleu, Paris you don't begin to work with these until the later stages of Intermediate and Superior Levels (boo..!). Alas...I can only dream until then!

Making Piping Cones for Chocolate

Chef Cotte teaching us how to design cursive words in chocolate

Quite possibly the hardest practical class I had to go through, not because of the cake but mainly because of him. I have to say that I was quite unnerved by the whole experience that I didn't really know how to react to it, which bothered me to a point where I had trouble letting it go: I wasn't sure if I should've been angry, upset or just be plain fine with it.

Chef Cotte evaluating each and every student's work

It was like working with a bipolar person! One minute he's yelling at the top of his lungs (in fast french, mind you!) telling me to start making my fillings and heating up the stove then another minute, he's completely calm and nice, kindly rolling out my entire dough for me. Like... HUH!?! WHA....?? It threw me off balance!

However, despite all that... my cake turned out well. "Tres Bien" as the chef said, giving me a big pat on the shoulders.

.My Gateau Basque at the end of the practical.

Never was I so relieved that the class had finally ended.

C'est Paris: Historic-Architectural Discovery

2011-02-01T00:58:00.001+01:00

For those of you interested in historical architectures, the churches in Paris may offer some interest.

A few weeks ago, I took the opportunity to visit the Notre Dame de Paris Cathedral ("Our Lady of Paris Cathedral" in French). I for one am not a Christian so the purpose of my visit was more out of interest in its history and architecture rather than its religious aspects (although religious history, particularly the Christian-Islamic relation and their influence culturally, socially and politically on one another is quite interesting as well!).

the Notre-Dame Cathedral

Huge historical buildings have always had a magical grasp on me, rending me speechless and in awe of their sheer magnificence and beauty - and to think, so many events and people have taken place and walked on the very same floor you walk upon in the cathedral... Kinda amazing, huh?

I find the Notre Dame to be a very beautiful building: massive high ceilings, extensively decorated walls and huge stained glass decorations on the window panes. The stained glass works were amazing (I say this because I love stained glass... When I was younger, I took a stained-glass after school activity and learnt how they were created! It was amazing!)

For the Catholics out there, Notre Dame is currently the cathedral of the Catholic Archdiocese of Paris - the official chair of the Archbishop of Paris, who at the moment is André Vingt-Trois (André 23rd).

and to think back then all these statues were carved and designed by hand??

The Cathedral is widely considered to be the finest examples of French Gothic architecture in France and all over Europe. The cathedral is even home to some popular childhood stories of our past such as: the Hunchback of Notre-Dame.

If you're interested in visiting: Directions can be found here (link)

It is also from this cathedral that you can also visit Paris' Crypt of the Parvis of Notre Dame (link) or climb up high to the towers - the infamous home of Quasimodo (link)

Bienvenue a Le Cordon Bleu: Demonstration 7

2011-01-28T00:40:00.001+01:00

Demonstration 7: the meringue-based cakes

A recently beautiful discovery I came to know of from class is the meringue-based cakes! Soft, light, spongy and best of all not overpoweringly sweet! Actually, come to think about it... most of the baked goods we've made in school so far are hardly sweet! For this class, we learnt to make the dacquoise (pronounced: DUCK-KWA-AA).

Dacquoise is a layered cake created from a mixture of nuts and meringue. It is layered in between with a GENEROUS amount of buttercream (in our case, it was the traditional french buttercream! Very very very rich and buttery) I actually loved the cake layer itself more than the cream, which i oddly enough thought was a tad bit too sweet for my liking.

The cake originates from feminine form of the french word "dacquois", which means "DAX" - a town in the south-west region of France.

SOMETHING TO SHARE WITH YOU:

you know you're a pro when you don't need a sugar thermometer to check

the consistency and stage of your boiling sugar syrup

Many little steps are made in order to create this beautiful cake. After watching and noting the recipe and methods required, I thought it was something quite simple to do.... but boy oh boy was I ever wrong in practical.

La Dacquoise

Practical 6: The Dacquoise

We had a new chef for our practical: Chef Patrick - a much older man who it turns out in the end is a very hard critique when it comes to judging our end cakes. Throughout the practical, he was a bit like Chef i-forgot-his-name in where he didn't really say much and simply just walked around class watching every students do their own thing.

Sometimes he'll help a student or as with my case, give me a reassuring pat on my shoulders as I "patiently" wait for my syrup to reach its right stage. However in general, he didn't really say much... unless a student messes-up then he becomes angry and very nag-y (which I think is a common trait for all the patisserie chefs here).

As for making the dacquoise... well...

The steps may be simple in theory but in practice... that's another story!

Before I go on, allow me to say that in Le Cordon Bleu... there is no such thing as using a machine UNLESS you are catering to a HUGE group. Everything and i mean EVERYTHING in practical is done manually (and by manually, i mean by HAND). It's a tiring but worthy practice.

There are a few students who complain about this but I personally don't have any problems with it. Actually I can see the logic behind this evil-necessity: it is only by hand will we know the proper texture, consistency, feel and look of each mixture. A machine may help you do things faster, but you won't know if your mixture is at the right consistency unless you feel it.

As for the dacquoise, we were required to whip 8 egg whites into stiff peak... and this was all to be done by... hand... (some students actually believed Chef Cotte's joke about how we would be whipping egg whites with the Kitchen Aids in our practical... very cruel joke to play on innocent students!)

So... yes, I did whip the egg whites into stiff peak...

yes... I did it all by hand...

and yes... my arm felt like it was going to fall off...

I have a theory that by the time I graduate Le Cordon Bleu I think my right biceps are going to be bigger than my left! GAHHHH!!!

By the end of the practical session, my arm was in PAIN from all the whisking: we had to whisk 8 egg whites into stiff peak BY HAND without ANY help from the chef (the only help you get from the chef is him telling you to whip faster and faster!) AND after that we had to whip hot egg-sugar mixture UNTIL it was COLD (because if we left it, the egg would simply cook!) - do you know how LONG that takes???

By the end of the night, i couldn't even wash the dishes without pain jabbing through my arms...
but alas, as they always say: no pain, no gain!

Towards the end of the practical we were also given time to learn to design (by hand naturally) marzipan roses - a daunting task - to decorate our cakes. Delicate process but interesting, none the less! My rose ended up being HUGE which I thought was fine because it covered my wonky top icing decorations! hahaha...

the marzipan rose made by Chef Cotte during demo class

Sadly though chef thought my dacquoise was "just ok..." because unwittingly I had pipped too much buttercream in the centre layer that it started droop out of the layers, it pushed out after being sandwiched between the two meringue-based cake layers. Damn... that was disappointing.

this was how my dacquoise was supposed to look like with the buttercream piping...

but it didn't!

But it's ok... I'll try to be better next class. Pay attention and work hard.

*Fingers crossed*

Unfortunately I didn't get to take a photo of my beloved cake... because... i had locked both my keys and cameras in my locker! Yeah, that blows.... In the end, I had to have someone cut my lock and waste 8euros for another lock (provided by the school... what a rip-off!!). I could've gotten a much better quality lock for less than 8 euros! But alas, I couldn't complain... i was in need of a lock very badly :(

2 lessons learnt from the day:

Do push ups at home to develope strong arm muscles for baking
Always check your keys before you lock the locker door

In demo: making meringue mushrooms as well!

All The Le Cordon Bleu Students Eat Well At School

2011-01-27T10:52:00.000+01:00

It's very common to see food laden out on the table in the winter garden after class. Very often students leave their baked goodies or demonstration class share their excess taste-test products rather than chucking it all into the bin.

Most of the time it's by the patisserie students (I don't blame them, too much cake for 1 person at home!) but once in a while you do get the cuisine students dropping off their latest practical foods.

I was lucky enough to get my fingers on these goodies here. Macarons! Sables! Biscuits! My absolute favourite of the bunch is the chocolate diamants topped with the patisserie creme and fresh raspberries on top. It was absolutely delicious!!

The flavours of the macarons are a bit of an acquired taste I suppose... something I haven't acquired yet, it appears! The texture was a bit different than other macarons I've tried... this was more dense and chewy... and the filling was different... pistachio? green tea? I couldn't really tell. I wanted to try out the pink macarons with fresh rapsberries but they were too large and I was much too in love with the chocolate sable :)

Maybe I should give that a try one day at home?

Bienvenue a Le Cordon Bleu: Demonstration 6

2011-01-27T10:28:00.001+01:00

Demonstration 6: the Art of Choux Pastry
Warning: Tons of Photos Ahead!

By now we're delving into the land of choux pastries (a favourite.... among many favourites, that is!) and I was very excited to start this class. Definitely was looking forward to the tutorial!! Here we learnt to make the many french classic desserts: eclairs, choux puffs with creme filling, chouquettes and plenty more! They all turned out so beautiful!!!

the huge variety of choux pastry desserts

chocolate and coffee eclairs

Choux pastry, for me, is one of the best things you can make! I love playing around with choux pastry! Mainly because I find that this patisserie is very versatile and flexible - you can make soooo many things with it ranging from sweet pâtisserie desserts to savoury ones - the possibilities are endless! But then, I just realised this applies to all the basic french pâtisserie goodies!

chocolate eclairs (top) and choux pastry with creme filling (bottom)

As for a choux pastry dessert, an absolute childhood favourite of mine was a savoury dish my mom used to whip up for us as an after school treat! She would make choux puffs and stuff them with a delightful mélange of flaked creamy tuna... oh... man... drool, much?

I wonder if i can get my mom to do that again for me one day?

Yeah right!!

Knowing my mom, she'll most likely tell me to make it myself as I've now already learnt how to make them! hehehe. I don't mind actually... but I'm quite sure it won't taste the same as hers!

That always happens, doesn't it? That my friends is what we call the mommy touch.

More choux puffs with creme filling

For the sweet choux pâtisserie desserts, I've come to realised most of the time the fillings incorporate plenty of crémes in their core centre - something that by now (4 weeks into the school semester... 4 WEEKS!!) is something I've ~~grown to dislike~~ - actually more like grown to be sick of.

Why?

Because for the past 4 weeks, we've been sampling a sorted lot of crémes and I believe my tolerance for anything creamy has dramatically dipped to an all-time low. In fact, I think I'm not the only one in class experiencing this: during the taste-tests for practicals, I have noticed the remaining desserts left untouched by grubby pâtisserie student fingers are those with créme filling. Hahaha...

Practical 06: Making the Eclairs & Chouquettes.

Chef i-forgot-his-name evaluating and critique-ing our baked goods

In practicals, we got down and dirty on making our eclairs and chouquettes. I ended up with chocolate covered uniform! :(

The eclairs we made for practicals were chocolate-coffee flavoured (choc créme filling with a coffee glaze on top). My eclairs in particular had a very rich and dense creme filling - mostly because I secretly popped in extra servings of chocolates into my pastry cream. Did you know that eclairs have to be piped with filling until they become heavy in your hand? Yeah... that's a LOT of cream!!

For our class, the chef decided to tint our coffee glaze in an odd brown-red colour combo which to me seemed a bit odd. According to the chef, this is the colour of chocolate. What do you guys think?

My huge ass wonky chocolate-filling coffee-glazed eclairs

I wasn't really fond of the eclairs we made in practical as I found them a bit too rich (my fault, really!) and furthermore I was a bit bothered by the wonky shapes they had formed into during the process of baking. I wonder how the patisserie shops always manage to make then uniformed and perfect in shape?? Do they bake the eclairs in a mould??

Personally I've always been a chocolate-kind-of-girl but being in patisserie school, I think I've grown to love non-chocolate based desserts, such as: apple tarts (I really didn't like baked fruits before!) and more recently I've discovered the pleasantries of chouquettes!

the chouquettes in demo

Deceptively simple to make, it's an amazing light dessert that you grow to become addicted to! It's like a popcorn: once you pop one in your mouth, you'll just keep coming back for more! During the end of my practicals, Chef Faure kept nicking our chouquettes everytime he passed our tables! It was funny :)

my chouquettes in practical

I think chouquettes would go well for an afternoon tea session! The sugar used for chouquettes is something of a wonder to me (mostly because you will NEVER find it in Brunei AND it's a new ingredient I just learnt about!). The sugar used in these recipes are called sugar pearls and they are made in such a way that when placed in HIGH HEAT, they won't dissolve! Awesome, right?

Apparently, I just recently found out that this is the same sugar used to make those thick bread-cake like waffles in Belgium as well!

What Pâtisserie Students Do On A Day Off...

2011-01-23T00:37:00.000+01:00

... we went macaron hunting.

one of the best (and expensive) macaron-makers in Paris: Pierre Herme!

So this is how pâtisserie students spend their day away from class...

We burn off our calories roaming about the streets of Paris in search of calorie replacements that come in little dainty forms of French pâtisserie. Here we try (keyword: TRY) to study the presentation, the texture and finish of each and every dessert that we've crossed paths with... then we compare each and every one of them...

I think it's quite interesting how the French really take their pâtisseries to whole new dimension of art. You won't find something like this in Brunei...

Before that, a quick stop over for lunch to celebrate a birthday :)
Korean food... IS... GOOD!

Happy Birthday Sonia :)

A nice hot lunch to fill us up against the cold chilly winter days... After which, we walked off our lunch and replaced it with a STUNNING visual pâtisserie imagery from the assorted bakeries that lined the 2nd floor of Gallerie Lafayette Gourmet (note: if you are EVER in town and would like to see what French pâtisserie is all about, this would be a good starting point to visit!!! A MUST!)

Here we saw little booths of top French pâtisserie showing off their talents, notible names like Pierre Herme and Dallayou (a pâtissier boutique MOST of our chefs have trained at!! It's considered to be one of France's highly regarded pâtisserie boutiques). Among the lot in Gallerie Lafayette was this...

I know what most of you are thinking: A japanese pâtissier? In France? Really?

Yup... but as you can tell, ALL her stuff looks amazing!!
DEFINITELY will not find this in Brunei!!

Assorted Chocolates in various colours and flavours

Sadaharu Aoki Assorted Cakes

Salted Caramel Tart

So who is this Sadaharu Aoki?

Well Sadaharu Aoki is a pâtisserie chef, born and trained in Japan before she brought in her talent across the globe to France. She has trained in many places from France to Switzerland and thus has gained some impressive experience. This talent can be seen through the craftmanship of her pâtisseries. From macarons to millefeulle and chocolates... each one is really a work of art!

A varied selection of macarons

Interesting fact about Sadaharu Aoki and her pâtisseries:

Sadaharu Aoki pâtisseries are catering the dessert line of all NIPPON AIRWAYS first and business class flights from Paris.
Chef Sadaharu Aoki was appointed an honorable HEAD of Paris' Federation of Japanese Pastry Chefs.
Sadaharu Aoki pâtisseries are catered to some of Paris' big fashion houses: Kenzo, Chanel and Christian Dior.

For more info about her: click here (translated from French).

yes, you read right: WASABI macaron

Bienvenue a Le Cordon Bleu: Demonstration #05 and Practical #05

2011-01-21T01:40:00.002+01:00

Again we had Chef Cotte as our demo chef, which I personally don't mind because I find that he is always a pleasure to have because of his happy comedic character. Sometimes I love the fact that he doesn't mind ridiculing himself in front of the whole class... (personally I'd be too shy to do that!).

Chef Cotte and his knife suitcase kit!

Somehow he always manages to bring the class to laughter... but I wonder will we eventually get bored of his jokes? Until now, I have yet to have him as a chef in my practical classes because (maybe fortunately for me) the one time we actually did have him, I was absent.

Anyhow, demonstration #05: grasping the delicate art of puff pastries.

By now, our recipes are becoming more and more challenging. I've realised that we're also starting to incorporate decorating techniques into our repertoire as well. Before in the past few classes, it had just been all about grasping basic patisserie knowledge like making certain doughs and mixtures, but now... they're upping the game by throwing in decoration skills like marzipan flower and awesome-ass piping skills. It's our finesse of these things that determine our overall evaluation in practical class...

So...Puff pastries...

Puff pastries are a hell to work with. Firstly because of the sheer amount of BUTTER used in the recipe and secondly, you really really really need to concentrate and focus on what you're doing - puff pastries are one of those recipes where it's a procedure involving little steps which ultimately have a GIGANTIC effect on the end product after baking.

So, if you have a memory of a goldfish or you just simply weren't paying attention, then...

good luck!

In this demonstration class, we learnt 3 classic french puff pastry desserts:

Chaussons aux pommes
(Apple turn overs... or maybe Apple PIE for those of you McDonald-holics!)

Palmiers

Raspberry strawhats

Grasping the techniques and methods of puff pastry can be very daunting because they're required to be made in a certain way. However, if you don't stress about how much you're going to screw up, you may end up enjoying the process of making it.

I'm actually quite keen to give the Raspberry strawhats a try during my individual time - the taste test after demo was quite delicious! I wonder how it goes with other fruity flavours: pears? grapes? strawberries?

The palmiers were great too - i just didn't expect them to be SO HUGE!! Each one was bigger than the size of my palm! Nonetheless, it doesn't mean they weren't good: the big sizes ensure that they retain a soft chewy texture inside while having crispy carmalised edges on the outside. This recipe calls for a ridiculous amount of butter AND sugar. I was so shocked... !

Apple Chaussons were even BETTER!! I've never been one to love hot fruity desserts but I'm glad to have discovered them. Being slightly sick and still recovering, the feeling of nice hot chopped apples slide down my throat during the cold winter days was just simply... divine!

For our practical, we had a rare treat:

our presiding chef was one of France's highly regarded Chefs - Chef Christian Faure, MOF.

my chaussons aux pommes

my palmiers

FIRST, allow to me say that it was a HONORABLE PLEASURE to have him as our practical chef! He was very patient, very instructive and VERY helpful. Whenever we had a problem, not only would he NOT criticise us and NOT make us feel bad about it but he PROPERLY SHOWED us the right method of doing it! It was a good class and I was quite happy with it.

the Brazilian girls

SECOND, not once did he say that what we were doing was BAD or WRONG or *BOO!* (some Chefs do say that...) or actually say NOTHING AT ALL (yes we have those too!). Some students ended up with wacky palmiers or smaller chaussons but he was nice about it. He was fine as long as the characteristics of a puff pastry were still there... he also explained that generally they're made to be a different size or shape.

What I loved about him was that in the end, he said it was up to our preference and style. It felt like he was encouraging us to develope our own style, which was very rewarding.

By now, I'm sure you're wondering what an MOF Chef is?

MOF stands for "Meillure Ouvrier de France" (translated as Best Craftsman of France).

It is a coveted prestigious title awarded only to a very few in France. The MOF competition takes place every 3 years and here you'll only see the best artisans in France doing their very finest. The standards are VERY high and those who succeed in winning are awarded the title MOF for LIFE.

Every chef whose won is awarded (FOREVER) a special chef's jacket with a collar of the French flag. This title is recognised by professionals and the French public.

Training for this competition requires years of preparation because of the demand for PERFECTION! Technical skills, innovation, respect for traditions and other aspects are all practiced repeatedly to a level of refinement. Through this, they develope excellence, effectiveness and speed to succeed. All this will be judged by a jury, which makes its decision according to the distribution of points awarded during the entire process.

Chef Christian Faure, MOF doing product evaluation

If you'd like to see his impressive achievements in life: Click Here.

Bienvenue a Le Cordon Bleu: Demonstration #04

2011-01-20T00:33:00.000+01:00

Apologies for the lack of updates. Experiencing internet delay as I wait for France Telecom to activate my 3g internet key, which is a drag because it's been more than 3 days since I posted the letter! I'm going to give it until tomorrow, after which I will probably start raising hell at the Orange customer service office... in bad french...

As a result, my updates have been inconsistent because the internet I'm currently relying upon has real bad reception which comes and goes.

Really... GAAHHHHH!!

Anyhow, I won't complain any further.

Just wanted to share with you folks how our demonstration #04 went: here we learnt how to make 3 renowned French pastry desserts - the cream-filled choux puffs, the Paris Brest and the St. Honore.

a close view of the cream-filled choux puff garnished with caramelised almond

Basically: choux pastries with endless upon endless use of towering whipped cream!
Yeah... I was whipped out... (whipped out? whipped cream? joke... get it?)

(lame... i know... )

Anyhow, it was this practical that I ended missing because of my falling sick. Luckily, I managed to see a doctor in time to get my medical letter and the school had no problems with that. And I'm happy because that means I won't get a zero for missing class.

*whew*

I was in awe watching the chef make these beautiful creations. Piping skills were good and fast! However in terms of taste, I think more could've been done to give more "zing" to it. But then again, I'm fully aware that this is just a mere basics course - whereby the classes are more focused towards teaching you the techniques rather than anything else.

Personally if I were to recreate these beautiful desserts, I would put some personal twists to it :)
Maybe I should try it one day? I'm looking forward to that!

the famed Paris-Brest in the spot-light

the renowned St-Honore

We had Chef I-always-forget-his-name again for demonstration and as usual, he was quite instructive with his methods and in addition to our recipes, he also took the opportunity to teach us a few neat tricks to add to the choux puffsm which is always bonus points for me!! Because it was a demo class, he increased the serving sizes than those called on by the recipe, this resulted in him dishing out a TON of food (more than the number of students in demo).

So by the end of class, he kept shoving huge slices of pastries to random students passing by in front of him. It was funny because he gave one to a friend of mine...

my friends concentrating so hard on what the chef was doing!

And look of content on her face was... epic :)

the scene after EVERY SINGLE demo: all the students FIGHT to get food photos

Bienvenue a Le Cordon Bleu: Student Knife Kit.

2011-01-19T16:09:00.000+01:00

As promised (though i made this promise weeks ago), here is a post on the student knife kit from Le Cordon Bleu. Receiving this kit was probably one of my biggest highlights of the day! (yeah, I'm weird like that... I get more giddy over knives than I do with jewellery! hehehe).

A smooth, black soft folding knife case housing 41 set of stainless steel Le Cordon Bleu engraved German Wusthof utensils of all sorts and smack-down in the centre of the cover is the bright white emblem of Le Cordon Bleu, Paris. This is kit is given to all pâtisserie debutant students on the first week of class.

Boy oh boy, are they ever heavy! (Especially if you have to climb 6 flights of stairs, carrying these babies). Unfortunately for us pâtisserie students, we won't be using all the knives given to us... such as the cleaver knife and the boning knife. I don't know why they have included them into the kits, and I'm sure they could've replaced them with utensils that we actually needed more but alas these are the standard Le Cordon Bleu kit.

Cuisine students on the other hand are given a different set of knives and all are placed in a big money-like squared metal suitcase. I find it a little funny seeing them lunging their little money-case around in the chef uniforms... because somehow whenever I see these suitcases, I am reminded of Hollywood movies and how they use these cases to transport money.

Included in the kit were:

Knife Case
Wavy Edge Slicer
Flat Icing Spatula
Bent Icing Spatula
Cook's Knife- 9"
Meat Fork
Paring Knife
Filleting Knife
Turning Knife
Boning Knife
Light Cleaver
Scissors
Sharpening Steel
Zester
Melon Baller
Apple Corer
Channeling Knife
Trussing Needle
Vegetable Peeler
Pastry Brush
Pastry Crimper
Piping Bag- 350mm
Piping Bag- 430mm
Plastic Scraper
Sugar Thermometer
Exoglass Spatula- 30cm
Whisk- 30cm
Table Fork
Soup Spoon
Teaspoon
7 Stainless Steel Nozzle- U6, U8, U10, U12, U20, A7, D7,
4 Plastic Nozzle- StH, E6, E8, PF16

Also included in the kit are:

an electronic balance (scale) including batteries
Stewart Large Plastic Container for leftovers
Cylindrical Small Plastic Container
Two scale bowls

All in all the total estimate price of the Le Cordon Bleu student knife kit is priced to be over US$1,000. Students are expected to label or engrave all their utensils in class because sadly we were told that theft of knives and utensils are quite precedent in the school.

C'est Paris: Treading off the Beaten Track.

2011-01-19T09:42:00.001+01:00

If you're ever in Paris and you happen to be looking for something off the beaten track (something aside from the 100+ year old paintings, towering architectural feats, beautiful gardens and luxurious gastronomy...) then perhaps this could be something you'd like to visit when you're in town.

I like to think that the French folks see art in everything they happen upon: paintings, pottery, architecture, food, drinking..

They see art in EVERYTHING!

Recently...

I also found out that the French also see the art in dying... How macabre?

Yes, in France... Death is Art and act of dying is even more so...

Nothing rings this statement true-r than a visit to Paris' legendary Les Catacombes de Paris (The Catacombs of Paris).

A famous underground ossuary located in the capital of France. Dating back to the late 18th Century, Les Catacombes are actually former mining quarries chosen by the City of Paris to deposit bones of the deceased (removed from The Cemetery of the Innocents after overcrowding became a cause of health concerns and complaints by the local residents). For an interesting read of the history and details, click here.

To date: there's an estimate number of bones equivalent to 6 million people in the Catacombes.

However, the place isn't all just bones and skulls for viewing. As you walk, you'll encounter some amazing miniature architectural structures carved out from the stones by workers before. Here, you'll have a view on what buildings looked like back then... you may even recognise some of them!

Clearly this is not everyone's cup of tea! Particularly if you are afraid of the dark or happen to be gifted with a very very very very imaginative mind.

Deep underground 130 steps below ground, it is a different perspective of Paris than from what you see on above on street level. You spend at least 45mins underground and unfortunately to those who are petrified, this is one of those tours where you truly have to keep on going forward in order to get out - there is no turning back because you simply can't...

Truly macabre scene.

My hat goes off to those staff members manning the areas down below - I truly don't know how they can stand being there amongst the pile of bones...

But then again some people aren't frigtened by it.

After all, they're simply just a place of stacked bones and skulls..
Remember folks: something only holds to be true if you place meaning and belief upon them.

The bones and skulls have been rearranged in an almost decorative manner and it's so weird to see them that way. Unlike the bones and skulls in Cambodia placed behind a window pane, here you are literally surrounded left and right by them, within touching distance. Hoards of skulls and bones line the walls from end to end. You can even touch them, which I was not brave enough to bring myself to do.

Expect to do a lot of walking as you enter the catacombs as the route will go as far as 2km... however you maybe happy to know that not 100% of the route is lined with bones. Perhaps half of it or even less? An entrance with engraved words will mark the beginning of the actual catacombs. Words bold and big set deep in the stone entrance frame, translating as

"Stop! Here lies the Empire of the Dead!"

As you walk down the route of the catacombs, you can actually see that some of the walkways are split heading into other directions, but these areas have been sealed off by barred gates

Personally I suspect that the hype of being in the catacombes is more scary than what it actually is... I was more fascinated with the marvel of its architectural feats because as you continue walking you see the area become wider and wider, ceilings become taller and taller. Years are engraved into the stones to mark when they started building each sections... and some of them go as back as 1750s! How awesome is that?

I didn't find the place scary at all... however I'm certain this was because (if more than anything) I was getting really annoyed with a certain stupid American tourist who tagged behind our group, she was petrified of being there... ditching her friends and followed our group. My guess is because we had a guy with us... LOL.

Throughout the entire 2km all I could hear was her whinging whine right behind me in the ultimate high-school girly pitch voice about:

1. how she was going to die

2. how much she's scared

3. how she's going to faint

4. how much she's getting dizzy; and

5. "OMG!! 6 MILLION PEOPLE buried here!!!!!!!"

I was trying my best not to go ape-shit on her, but deep down inside i was dying to scream at her:

My GOD, make up your mind: if you want to die, go and die... if you want to faint, go faint... do anything but PLEASEEEE stop whinging....

Luckily by the time she got on my last few nerves, we reached the end of the catacombs.

Seeing daylight and breathing in fresh air had never felt so good!

Photoblog: Gypsies

2011-01-17T11:01:00.002+01:00

Bienvenue a Le Cordon Bleu: Demonstration #03 and Practical #03

2011-01-14T10:58:00.000+01:00

This blows: I'm sick today and I'm missing out my first ever class... Certainly not liking it! I think I keep saying this but pâtisserie students are only allowed a maximum of 5 absences (this also includes sickness leave)... Anymore than that, you automatically fail you course...

Yikes!!!

Those people who know my quite well can attest to the fact that I'm the type of person who worries about ~~EVERYTHING~~... well, NEARLY EVERYTHING.

I try not to though.

In a way, I'm thankful that I'm just missing a practical class today because that means my absences is only counted as 1. If I were to miss demo class... well, then that's a different story. (To read what happens when you miss demo, click here and read the bottom end of the article)

Almost everyone in school are sick and being a cooking school where people share food for taste-tests and are constantly in close proximity with one another... Well, you can imagine: it's so easy to catch the damned bug!

Anyhow, seeing that I have the whole day to myself, I figured that I may as well take some time to update my blog:

Demonstration #03 and Practical #03.
Advance note: no photos of demonstration :(

Reason:
Amidst the crowded entrance into the demo room, a friend and I manage to scuttle and shuffle our way into the front row of demo class - a feat that is ALMOST impossible to manage in demo!

The first two rows of demo class is prime location. The seats on these rows ensures students that they get the chance to take good damn photos, carefully watch the chef at work and before the stampede of white jacket-ed students arrive, jump out for a good photo opportunity of the food in presentation.

So there I was, minutes before the class started, the eager pâtisserie newbie sitting front row armed with her notepad and pen out and ready, camera in the other hand ready to document EVERYTHING or ANYTHING the chef does.

AND THEN.....

Just as lady misfortune would have it: my camera (my main important learning tool - because I'm a visual person) proved to be useless as I had FORGOTTEN *pause for HUGE MORTIFIED GASP* the memory card back in the apartment.

Greaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaattt!

So....

I was resorted to making EXTRA-DETAILED notes: sitting there, squiggling 5-year-old-qualified illustrations besides my notes, making weird faces, tongue sticking out as I concentrate on doing clear drawings for my notes.

Boy oh boy was my hand ever SORE after that class!

We had Chef...well, i forgot his name now... for demo. So far in all our demos, we've only had two chefs. Compared to chef Cotte, this chef was less comical and more instructional, getting straight down to work with funny business set aside.

Chef i-forgot-his-name during demo

I liked his demonstration because his explanations were detailed and often during the demonstration, he encouraged us to ask questions. There was even a time in demo where he invited students to come up to the front of the room and practice some piping skills.

This was something I liked about the chef: the encouragement he gave us students and in truth, I was kinda eager to have him as a practical chef.

However... that proved short-lived!

In practical, he was totally different. Quiet, stern and totally a ghost in the background. He moved back and forth around class in silence (like a ninja... CHEF NINJA!!!!!!), simply watching us do our work. Once in a while, he'd come and stand next to me, his hawkish eyes just watching... and watching... and watching...

We didn't even know if we were doing it right or wrong. I'm guessing the reason so he was like that was because as we had him the day before as a DEMO chef, he was expecting us to do everything he taught us without any trouble...?

One of the few things I learnt so far in Le Cordon Bleu is after each demo, every student is expected to go home and try out their skills before coming to practical.

Because in practical, the chefs are already expecting you to do things perfectly. Practical is not really a place to practice - that is something you do independently OUTSIDE the working kitchen.

Example: PIPING SKILLS.

After demo, the translator kept reiterating to us on how later after the demo, all the students should buy piping bags & shaving cream on the way home so we get to practice the skills at home.

I later found out why: in practical, ALL the chefs expect your piping work to be done PERFECTLY!!

Pratical #03: the Madeleine and Pound Cake challenge
I bought my camera this time! Whoopie!

For this practical, we made madeleines and pound cakes: a pleasant discovery in the world of pâtisserie.

I read it once somewhere that the madeleines are the cupcakes of the French world. Personally, I had never been one for madeleines. Why? I honestly don't know. I was never really taken to them. I just thought they were ok and I never really had an interest in baking them...

BUT THAT was BEFORE I came to Le Cordon Bleu:

Two textures in the shape of one sea shell: crunchy & crispy on the outside from the caramelised and browned edges baked from the oven with a soft, spongy texture in the centre.

Madeleines we baked on that day were DIVINE!!!!

The pound cake was good as well! Dense, fruity and subtle vanilla flavours... I actually wouldn't mind making these at home again!

Practical was a bit of a *ehem ehem* bitch that day because as class assistants, another girl and myself had to run up and down 6 flights of stairs to bring up our ingredients to the room.

waiting for Chef evaluation of our baked goodies

It wasn't until long that we encountered problems:

1. Sent a WHOLE LOAD of food supply into the food shaft elevator to the third floor, only to find out that (after we climbed the 6 flights of stairs in a rush, with myself nearly bumping into chef Cotte otw)...our food supply was sent back downstairs by some ass!!

2. After having run up and down the school and effectively running our leg muscles into overdrive, we finally get the products into the room only to be told by the chefs: it wasn't necessary. All the supplies were in the room already.

3. Having completed the food run, we ran back and forth in class prepping ingredients and utensils for everyone in class to use.

And it was crap because by the time we were done prepping, EVERYONE was half way through their first baking session.... bullshit!

Meh...

It's ok... It doesn't bother me... because...

I made MADELEINES!

Which by the way, when I took home to share with the folks in my apartment... was gone before the sun had set!

Cool, huh?

I can make madeleines now :)

view of the class room at the end of practical

Bienvenue a Le Cordon Bleu: Practical#02

2011-01-11T00:01:00.001+01:00

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 the French people make a joke,~~ well... when FRENCH CHEFS make a joke, it may come off as really rude but by heart, they don't truly mean it.

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. ~~More often~~ Actually more than VERY often, you'll hear him sigh in frustration as he strides back and forth in class ensuring we do our job well.

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...

Weekend in Paris: Learning to Walk the Walk

2011-01-10T22:21:00.003+01:00

My first weekend in Paris has passed. Paris, being a lovely city with its dainty alleyways and meandering little lanes, is just one of the few places in the world where you really need to get off your bum and aimlessly walk.

Just plain simple walk: no directions, no destinations, nothing planned, just plain old good walking. You don't even have to worry about getting lost because in Paris, there's a metro (subway) at every single corner to take you back to square one.

You know how the French have an art to nearly every single thing? ie. the art to tea, the art to coffee and drinking it, the art to drama, drawing, etc.

Well, did you know they even have an art to walking?

The Parisiens call it: Flâneurie (pronounced FLAA.NEW.REE)

Coined by the French and ultimately Parisien writer Charles Baudelaire (1812-1867):

a "flâneur" is defined as a "gentleman stroller of the city streets" or a "detached pedestrian observer of the metropolis". *

The term is now widely used, especially in the context of achitecture and town planning. But Paris - with its village-like backstreets, its riverbank paths, its parks and gardens and its arcades - remains the ultimate place for a flâneur to meander without any particular destination in mind.*

*definition from: Lonely Planet's Paris Encounter

And last Saturday, this is just what I did! Having met up with a friend, we became flâneurs and walked aimlessly from Champs-Elysee to just... somewhere. Where did we end up? All the way under the Eiffel Tower. :)

the view of the eiffel tower just opposite the road

It was a nice walk, although the weather was a tad bit cold for our liking. During our walks, we discovered a few nice food boutiques (yes, in Paris there even have luxury gastronomic boutiques) and inside they were brimming with an assortment of fine quality teas, spices and chocolates to name a few! In our walk, we also came across Paris's Museum of Fashion which sadly due to renovations, was closed to the public :(

the entrance to the museum

On our way back from the Eiffel tower, my friend got hit-on by a flirty vender trying to sell his key rings. Hahahahaha. Poor girl!

The weather started getting gloomy towards the evening but a cold weather always makes coffee sessions much more pleasant: hot drinks in a warm and cosy cafe, watching people eat Tarte Tatin (something we recently learnt) and the tourists walking about in hoards.

Towards the evening, we even walked our way back to our apartments (on our way back, surprisingly we both discovered that we live within walking distance of one another!)

----

Sunday was a more relaxed day for me: as majority of the stores were closed (aside from Champs-Elysee).

So along with the daughter of a family friend, we decided to bake the Normandy Tart I learnt from demo - which I didn't mind because it gave me a good opportunity to practice my dough skills.

On our way to buy the essential ingredients for the tart, we stopped by to buy ourselves this:

MACARONS By Pierre Hermé

In the following flavours:

Rose

(Rose & Rose Petals)

Truffe Blanche & Noisette

(White Truffles & Slivers of Grilled Piémont Hazelnuts)

Mogador

(Milk Chocolate & Passionfruit)

Olive Oil & Mandarin

(Olive Oil & Mandarin)

Marron & Thé Vert Matcha

(Brown and Green Matcha Tea)

Infiniment Caramel

(Caramel with Salted Butter)

6 unique varieties of Macarons, which I was more than delighted to share with the family I'm living with... and they were good!

I think my favourite at the moment has got to be the: Olive Oil-Mandarin Macaron (yup, you read right: OLIVE OIL AND MANDARIN!). The buttercream filling of savoury subtle and well rounded taste of the olive oil and in that was a small filling of tart mandarin confiture. SO GOOD!

For some reason, the macarons here in Paris taste waaay much better and less sweeter than those out of France. Hmmm... are the French keeping something away from us? lol Just kidding. I know further on in my course, we will be having a demo on macarons (and boy, oh boy, i can't wait!!) but I realised that in that same week we won't be doing macarons for practical (booo!)

Hmmm.... if only!!

Bienvenue a Le Cordon Bleu, Paris: First Practical & Class #02

2011-01-07T21:30:00.005+01:00

Practical 01:

5 mins before the start of practical: students eagerly waiting for the chef to arrive

First practical of the whole school session and from here on then, the recipes will become more and more complex as the chefs become more and more strict and stern. Top on the day's list (well, the only thing on our baking list, actually): Diamants (that's diamonds, for you non-french folks).

I can see why they have that name: These shortbread biscuits are blended with vanilla and fruit pieces before the dough is enrobed and rolled in light sprinkles of sugar, resulting in shine and glitter when they pop fresh out of the ovens!

my diamants out of the oven: sadly they didn't turn out as nice as I had hoped

too much sugar and i forgot to roll the dough

In my practical there were 12 eager folks locked, loaded and ready to please the chef and out of that group, only two (?) were guys.... - well I think that one of the guys is in fact a girl with a really boyish haircut because I could've sworn I saw her in the girls' locker. Actually in patisserie courses, the number of women exceeds the number of guys by far! Funnily enough, you'll find more men in the culinary course.

For our practical, we had a substitute french chef: a tall, foreboding and stern chef. He spoke very minimal english and it proved to be challenging for everyone because in our practical class, only two people could understand french.

We didn't really focus much on the practical today because the chef was far too concern about setting down the rules and regulations of the working kitchen: again, with the emphasis on organisation, cleanliness and no wastage.

Personally I felt like he didn't really care much about being there, just to give us enough information about working the kitchen, letting us make the biscuits quickly before proceeding to take us on a quick tour to the supplies room upstairs and downstairs!

The chef we had was primarily a culinary chef with prior experience in patisserie. He didn't really give us much help in this practical... up until he sees something he doesn't like: such as unattended knives or filled workspaces - which in my case, was both.

In the kitchen, one must always maintain a clear workspace. Anything and everything not required at that given time, must be stacked away in an aluminium pan. In my case, I had my small knife and several bowls stacked up neatly by my workspace.

Within a span of a few seconds, I had the long-legged chef (he is quite TALL) stride across the room and proceed to explain to me the importance of clearing everything away - taking EACH item individually, showing them to me and explaining the dangerousness of it before proceeding to stack and clear them away from me.

All in a matter of 5 seconds (an eternity for me actually, because I could feel his eyes boring holes into my skull), my workspace was empty. I probably should be thankful - and I am... to a certain degree. :)

Accidents are bound to happen and with our uber-new and super-duper extra sharp knives... Well, you may have guessed: a girl had cut her finger quite deep - eshhhhh!!

Seems like accidents are quite common in the first lesson: in another practical, there were two people who had cut their fingers... and another student who had cut TWO fingers!!

Extra caution folks!

our diamants baking away in the industrial oven

i wonder where i can buy one?

note: notice the kitchen aid? yup, even school uses it :) but theirs are heavy duty though

Despite it all, I sort of had fun and enjoyed it. My diamants didn't turn out as great as others - perhaps I had placed a wee bit much sugar and forgot to give it a final roll before chopping them up?

Being it the first practical and how simple the recipe was, the chef didn't bother evaluating our biscuits. No one really paid much attention to their baking time either so some students ended up with really dry biscuits.

everyone with their baked diamants, packing away in their tupperwares

I was lucky that my biscuits were placed slightly later than the other so they maintained their soft crumbly texture.

my diamants: ended up giving mine away to folks at the office

i might try it again but this time incorporate different flavours to it?

Demonstration Class #02:

Personally I never really liked tart desserts: the sweet-tangy taste of the fruit had never been a personal favourite of mine. BUT, after watching the chef come up with the different kinds of apple tarts... I'm actually kinda psyched to give them a try in practical on Monday.

I was dead smack centre to watch Chef Xavier at work

The chef demonstrated a few ways of creating and presenting apple tarts and they were ALL AMAZING! My favourite has to be the Tarte Tatin (upside-down apple tart) - in caramalised butter and infused spices (just the thought of it right now is making my mouth watery!).

When the chef took the tart out and flipped it outside down onto the serving plate, everyone in the room was in awe! Seriously! There was an echo of "whoaaaaaaaaaaa!" Obviously it was a stroke to the chef's ego and he absolutely was living each moment of it!

the different tarts made by the end of the demonstration session

one thing i hate: shuffling with the students to get decent photos of the tarts

This happens at the end of EVERY demo

Sadly, we won't be making the tarte tatin on Monday. Instead, we'll be making the classic french tarte aux pommes (french apple tart) but still, I'm loving the techniques he employed in making the pastry dough.I'm eager to try it out in class!

The chef even made the pastry crust on a bottomless ring cutter! How awesome is that? Usually at home, you'll normally use the pie pans but clearly, no short cuts here!

Chef Xavier's fast ninja-skills at work:

crimping the dough

layering the apples which he ninja-sliced without even LOOKING!

More impressive was his cutting skills - secretly I think by now the chef was simply showing off his guns but still I reckon he has the right to... because (SERIOUSLY!!) AWESOME SKILLS TO HAVE!!

I think everyone in demo literally dropped their jaws watching him QUICKLY and EVENLY slice the apples with ease, without even looking down! We're definitely learning from a pro here!

the end product: Tartes aux pommes, Tarte Tatin, & Tarte Normandie

A Day in the life of a Le Cordon Bleu Debutante: Class #00 and #01

2011-01-06T18:28:00.001+01:00

Our demonstration class with Chef Xavier Cotte

First of all you may be wondering how in the world could there possibly be a class #00? Well, to answer this question: it's because in Le Cordon Bleu the chefs want one!

Two days have passed since the school's orientation day and along with it, two demonstrations covering the basics! (well, everything in this course is basic but I'm talking about the basics of basics)

Along with it, here's what I learnt so far:

1. In the Kitchen, there is a hierarchy and the Chef is the head man.

No matter how stubborn you are, how argumentative you are, how talented you are: what the chef says, ultimate goes! Everything the chef does or says must be replied by everyone in the kitchen with a firm and forceful "oui, chef!!"

This was actually one of the first few things reiterated to us by the school director Mr. Damien Julia during our orientation - even he doesn't have power over the chefs!

2. Organisation, organisation, organisation, cleanliness, cleanliness, cleanliness and no matter what ABSOLUTELY NO WASTING ANYTHING in patisserie.

Doughs often times are reused and reincorporated into newer batches and very rarely (even in French restaurants and cafes) are they made with 100% fresh dough. Rested dough tend to produce better patisserie, finer in texture and taste.

The learning structure in LCB is not consistent: more often than not, you will find yourself having a class on Monday evenings and other times Saturday (yes, Saturday) mornings! For each basic patisserie principle you learn, there are two classes: 1. The demonstration and 2. The practical.

Demonstration (no. of students: 35-40):
Whereby the chef demonstrates (duh) the different methods of some basic techniques used in patisserie. Here, he will show and explain in indepth explanation as to why certain things are done about one way or another, how to attain a certain texture, elasticity - or no elasticity in doughs, ways of blending ingredients and plenty more.

A day in the life of a Le Cordon Bleu debutante in Demonstration

Students shuffling and bustling one another to fight their way for the taste test

A taste test by students is deemed mandatory after each demo,

failure to do so will result in chef giving the students a big, fat ZERO!

Practical (no. of students: 12-15):
Here is where you learn to apply all those newly-learnt skills from demo in real life under direct supervision of the chef. Techniques used will differ depending on the preference of each chefs and chefs are rotated so you will learn a variety of techniques!

-------

Class Demo #00: Basic prep of patisserie ingredients.
Here we learnt of different basic patisserie products and ingredients deemed necessary to have in a patisserie environment, how its made industrially and how it's made by hand: from raw almond paste to coffee extract and more.

The end product of class #00 of basic patisserie ingredients

such as apricot glaze, coffee extract and etc.

We had Chef Xavier Cotte for the past two demonstrations. So far, I'm loving his demos because of his cheerful energy and playfullness. In all the demos so far, he (with the translator helping of course) always manages to bring the whole group to a roaring laughter...

I have yet to have him as a head chef in practical and If I do, i wonder will he be different?

Class Demo #01: Sables (French Shortbreads).

The variety of sables made by the chef during demo

Chef Xavier Cotte explaining the ideal properties and colour of sables to students.

Our first-ever baking demonstration for the week and here we learnt all the basics covering sables and the art of producing them. Also important were the little blending and sable-ing techniques we will most certainly be using to make pastries later on in the course.

a preview of the sables he made in total for the day

It was quite interesting to see the chef at work and some of the techniques employed are really good! Hmmmmmmmm *lightbulb!* Perhaps I'll apply these newly-acquired knowledge on my linzers??

C'est Paris: Day 4

2011-01-06T12:33:00.002+01:00

It's cold, wet and gloomy in Paris - it's been that way since last night as I made my way to school for our first demonstration class. Skies are grey, rain is light but continuous, sun is no where to be seen and as it's still winter: the temperature is cold cold COLD!

the view from my window this morning

I woke up today feeling very.... blergh? if that somehow makes sense. With the gloomy weather and uber cold temperature, I didn't really feel like going out to do some exploring of Paris yet, so instead I opted to stay in, sort some stuff at the apartment, maybe blog a few stuff, cook for myself and just relax.

my lunch? lol

As I mentioned before I had a late demonstration class yesterday... our first! It started at 6:30 in the evening and despite the full-sized class, the demo was gooooooooood - I'll blog about the demonstration later. I'm looking forward to my classes. I'm trying my best not to have too much expectations about the whole course and also I'm trying to change my perspective on the way I see things: mainly to enjoy the learning experience, rather than freak out at every little movement the chef makes in the kitchen.

Well, we'll see how far that goes... hahahaha

By the time I left the school, it was already raining quite a bit. Thank god I wore a two-layered jacket because it was freezing, what didn't help though was that I had to lunge around my student knife kit* which was impossibly heavy. *yup, we all have our knife kits :) - definitely blog about that later!

Before I arrived home, I decided to take a little stroll by Avenue Champs-Elysee... the french-equivalent to London's Oxford Street, except here the avenues and walk-ways were much wider, beautifully lit and bombarded with high fashion brands and chic Parisian cafes. It's situated right next to where I'm staying so... why not? just a nice walk at night before I head home.

the shopping window of Nespresso

can you imagine living in a world like that? It would be like caffeine-high everyday!

the french cafe: Fouquet's - one cafe you MUST try, they have good coffee and dessert goods!

word of caution: expect to pay 6euros (almost B$12) for a cup of coffee!

I think the Parisians are still in winter holiday mood because the entire avenue was so colourful and bright, decorated by winter themes. At the end of the avenue, there's a winter-market which I was told will be open until the end of January. So within these next few days, I intend to visit!

the walkways at Avenue Champs-Elysee: a BIG tourist hotspot

if you continue walking down this street, you'll walk towards the winter-market!

This avenue is situated facing L'arc de triomphe

See the queue-ing line to Louis Vitton? Insane!!

Photoblog: Turbo

2011-01-05T07:29:00.003+01:00

“Time spent with cats is never wasted.”

- Sigmund Freud, 1856-1939

(Renowned Austrian neurologist and Founder of psychoanalysis)

(Also father to prominent children's psychoanalyst Anna Freud)

Bienvenue a Le Cordon Bleu: Orientation Day

2011-01-04T16:37:00.001+01:00

It was Orientation Day in Le Cordon Bleu this morning. Woke up early and again took my time in getting ready for my first day of school ensuring that all my school stuff were packed and available. A few months ago, I had received an email from them stating that new students must attend orientation day and to bring along their safety steel-toed shoes - yes, you read right... steel-toed protection shoes (and who ever said being in the kitchen wasn't hardcore stuff?).

The e-mail said that there was a possibility that first day of baking demonstration may happen.

The train to school was held up a bit (less than 5 mins but still, in Paris time is of the essence) due to some metro/train accident. I arrived at the station at 9:28am and the e-mail stated that orientation starts at 9:30am sharp.

So I quickly made my way there... I was petrified of being late and just as I ran across the street, I could see a longggggg queue of students lining all the way up to the entrance. So it appears that I came just in time! *longgggggger sigh of relief*

What sucked was that I had to join in the queue... outside in the COLD. I swear, I could feel my fingers slowly freezing themselves solid. Luckily the school director (a short - and when i say short, i mean my-height-short-compared-to-freakish-Europeans-short and funny man who seems to be a nice fellow) kind enough to pop out and invite everyone to stand inside, albeit huddled all in one tight corner.

I apologies for the lack of photos... i think after signing in and getting my student card, I was in ~~too much~~ wayyyyyyyyy too much awe of the place. I couldn't believe I was in Le Cordon Bleu, sitting at their winter garden chit-chatting with other new students. A few long minutes of necessary introduction by staff members on-suit and then my group was taken for a quick tour of the school and its facilities.

If there was one thing I have to say about the building itself: OMG SMALL... (ok, make that two words...)

The school is quite small, composed of two buildings joined together: it was 4 floors high and oddly enough to me it seemed like the school was attempting to use every possible space available as a room. There was even one area, called the PS 1 (petite salle 1 = literally translated to "small room" ) where the ceilings were so low, I could just tip-toe and touch them!

There were SOOOO many rooms! But despite the small-sizes what I LOVED most about them were this:

1. The rooms were geared with some of the BEST kitchen equipments: wall to wall, there were endless counters of electrical stove-tops, ovens, tempering chocolate machines and god knows what else.

2. Best of all, smack down in the centre of the room was the REFRIDGERATED, yes... read it again: REFRIDGERATED marble counter table, placed on top of individual mini-refridgerators! I WANTTTT!!

After the quick tour, we were taken downstairs to receive our kits and dear god were they HEAVY! It was bad enough I had my handbag and my sports bag (with my steel-toed boots). Here, I had to juggle 3 additional bags which were all heavy individually.

I'm proud to say, I now have in my possession:

1. the Le Cordon Bleu knife kit, worth over US$1,000!!

(which hopefully this weekend I can get engraved for ID reasons)

2. a nice set of professional Le Cordon Bleu Chef uniform

(which must be dry-cleaned and pressed for each class)

3. additional free set of kitchen-aides like weight balance, LCB towels, chef hat, apron , tupperwares and what nots.

Awesome, isn't it? Also, I was given my class schedule... odd timetable indeed.

Unlike normal school schedule, Le Cordon Bleu classes only have start at 4 specific times:

8h30
12h30
13h30
18h30

Odd, eh? Even weirder: not every week is the same. It's sort of fluid. Sometimes I have class on Monday, other times I have class on Saturday... sometimes is 8h30, other times like... tomorrow is at 18h30.

C'est Paris: Day 1

2011-01-03T22:02:00.010+01:00

Woke up real darn early today! - not that I'm complaining... Actually if I could, I'd love to wake up this early everyday!! That way, days would be much longer and then I would have more opportunity and time to discover Paris :)

It's still wintertime and although the snow has pretty much melted and the streets are no longer slushy, the air is still biting cold. I mean like your-face-is-frozen-eyes-burning-watery-type of cold! BbbbbbRRrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!!

But despite it all, I still think winter is my favourite season!

Well it's 15mins to 10am and as I write this, the sun is just (emphasis on the just) about to rise. So having woken up early this morning, I took my time in getting ready for the day, did more unpacking and rearranging, plus somewhere in between it all, i had planned my day's itinerary.

And now here I am, in Paris. At a très parisienne cafe, enjoying my to-die-for freshly brewed cafe au creme (because here they don't understand what cafe latte is) and killing time before I hit the stores to buy some necessities and sort out internet access for my temporary accomodation.

Actually, awesome thing is: this cafe I'm currently in is just 2mins walk from my school, which I decided to visit again a few mins ago to time to metro and what-nots.

The Le Cordon Bleu school since 1895 - when it first started!

Interesting fact about Le Cordon Bleu:

Le Cordon Bleu actually started as a magazine by a French journalist Marthe Distel where. This was where all the famous chefs in Paris contributed to each issue, providing a free recipes to subscribers. This eventually evolved into a free school meant for subscribers only. More info? Click here

From outside, it seems like a small school but I won't truly know until tomorrow *insert suspense-building theme song* when my class begins! But oddly enough standing there across the street from my school, I couldn't help but think of all the chefs who have come here! That ~~maybe,~~ no wait, make that most certainly the very street I was treading on was the same ones where Julia Child, Brad Farmerie and countless others have once walked on as well!

Defined by white and blue emblem on the top right side of the building.

It's SO BIG, you'd really have to try hard to NOT see it!
It's almost like slap-in-your-face-I-AM-HERE kind of thing...

Will I ever be successful as them?? Can I be the next michelin-star chef??

WHAT??

Wait... Hold on a minute...

I think I'm getting waaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyy ahead of myself here! LOL

I've learnt a long time ago that just because you've been somewhere and studied at some place graced by famous folks does not define your future success - ok, maybe character-wise you'll be defined celebrity-stalker at most....?) but still nonetheless... abilities and success isn't defined by where you've been!

What matters most is how far you're willing to go to cultivate and nurture your talent. An art teacher once told me:

We give you the paintbrush and it's just a matter of how far you're willing to run with it.

Secretly though, I've kinda always thought she unoriginally gotten that phrase from the famous "pass with flying colours" saying.... Hhhhmmmmmmmmm!

Anyhow... the school is situated in a very impressive area I must say! Surrounded by artisan bakers, exotic tea and coffee venders and ultra-parisien cafes....

Well... I will cut it short for now: off I go!

Aside from the household necessities I require, I plan on getting myself a tourist's guide to Paris and it's streets!

Until next entry!

Au revoir!

PS. On my way back to the apartment, I stopped by to take this photo...

Btw: did you know you can go to the top of L'arc de Triomphe? I didn't know! LOL

Photoblog: Glimpse of Paris

2011-01-03T21:14:00.002+01:00

If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man, then wherever you go for the rest of your life, it stays with you, for Paris is a moveable feast.

- Ernest Hemingway, 1899-1961

(American author and journalist. Also winner of Nobel Prize in Literature, 1954)

Naturally, things like these are bound to happen here... c'est Paris!

Well Hello Hello 2011!

2011-01-02T07:27:00.001+01:00

Quick blog post as I rush through my room, making sure that everything I need has been re-packed into my suitcase. Approximately 2 hours from now, I shall be cooping myself in a car heading my way to Paris to begin a new start on life. *fingers crossed, everyone*

My feelings right now: anticipation, nervous, giddy, happy, petrified, ecstatic, eager - all bottled up into one small jar... waiting to burst out.

2011 holds so many promises and possibilities we can all take to improve anything - as long as you set your heart to it.

Apologies for the impromptu AWOL* (an acronym i just learnt 2 days ago, I'm proud to say... hahaha) ~~slave~~ intensely build-up from the blogging world. I was in Brunei, attempting to enjoy as much freedom as I could before I my muscle arms and fingers away to baking classical french patisseries for the next few months!

GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH! I'm GOING TO PARIS!!

- ok yeah, I'm done freaking out... hahahaha

You may have noticed a slight, ok fine a BIG, change to my blog layout. I'm still in the process of editing some stuff, so please bear with me if you can't seem to read the last few posts.

More photos and updates to come, I just haven't had time yet. :)

Till nxt read,

Ms. Shooter

Oh and btw: Have an AWESOME 2011! :)

Le silence assourdissant

2010-11-03T15:54:00.001+01:00

“Time takes it all whether you want it to or not, time takes it all.

bares it away, and in the end there is only darkness.

Sometimes we find others in that darkness, and sometimes we lose them there again.”

~Stephen King

J'ai un rêve...

2010-10-25T01:30:00.012+02:00

I think lately my drive for patisserie has kicked up into high gear - I simply just can't stop making things! (not that I'm complaining... its the people who are my taste-testers who complain after devouring god-knows-how-many cakes hehehe). Just the other day I made another, albiet smaller, batch of chocolates with the Mannekin-Pis on top. More of that on a better day :)

Alors....

It's less than 6 hours before I pack off to the airport and you guys should see (!) my fridge! It's packed to the max with goodie giveaways for some office staffs and friends as an uber-advanced new years greeting... without the card. Somehow in the midst of the packing, running, baking, printing, yelling and etc, etc, I had forgotten to buy some early new year cards to give with the goodies. Good thing, there's facebook.

Anyhow... this post is going to be ULTRA-brief: it's 1:47am and I'm knackered... but I know my mind won't rest well until I share this post with you guys... :)

Actually I was just kidding, this wasn't it - but isn't he cute though??

He was sleeping on Mom's lap when I popped into the room with my camera and starting interrupting his beauty sleep with me flashing away... lol the king of the house does not like to be disturbed.... clearly! You can tell I was bothering him...

No, in truth what I wanted to share with you guys was this: that today, quite possibly... just possibly, I think I made the biggest leap in my walk of life:

.This just came in today.

Yup, you read it right. Need I say more?

I'm happy as a bunny :)

Donc, je vais a Paris et je ferai beaucoup du gateaux et du pains!

La quête pour les chocolats

2010-10-19T16:33:00.000+02:00

Just taking one snippet of a bite from Dad's chocolat bombe gateau in Paris was enough to propel me into a quest to create my very own concocted chocolate. Yup, this is when you now know that officially you've crossed the border into obessession! How insane is that??

Returning from the trip, my days were sacrificed in research for chocolate and all possible flavour-combinations: lavender? speculoos? cinnamon? chilli? basil? I was in full-gear, fueled by my recent discoveries in Paris. Oh, the fun!

Truth be told, playing with chocolate was an idea that's been boggling my mind for a while. It wasn't until now that I've given it ago and I have to say that I abso-friggin-lutely love it! I wish I had the courage to give it a go sooner. I had so much fun creating these babies... and I plan to do more!

When it came to making the little chocolates, I wanted to create my own mini-version of what I had tasted at Fouquet's cafe in Paris. So.... being miss-indecisive-of-what-i-want, I created a list of all the things I wanted to achieve in the chocolates themselves:

* I wanted to use dark chocolate but I didn't want it to be too dark. Mainly because I wanted to avoid the overwhelming, bitter taste of the cacao. Personally when it comes to chocolates, I opt for dark chocolate because I think it's a good "vehicle" for flavours. Dark chocolate carries them well because it's not sweet.
* Most importantly, I didn't want to chocolate to be sweet: some people have this automatic (and irritating) belief that chocolate = sweet.... when in fact, it's NOT*!

*just depends on the amount of cacao the chocolate has. Anything above 60% falls under dark chocolate (....I think, please don't quote me on that!)

* Lastly: I also wanted to play with the textures in chocolate: just like at Fouquet's, I wanted the chocolate to be light in taste and airy in texture with a crunch or snap to it (NOTE: this proved difficult! why oh why am I making life harder for myself?)

L’expérience de chocolat

So what have I done?
I created earl-grey chocolate mousse with a torte base, all encased in dark chocolate.

the two most difficult steps:
1. Infusing & Steeping the desired flavour

2. (quite possibly the MOST important step) Tempering chocolate

Whoever said patisserie doesn't involve science,
clearly hasn't played with chocolates yet.

If you're chocolate-obsessed like me or have done some chocolatier-ing work before, then chances are you know what tempering is. Basic explanation is this: tempering is a heating-cooling method used to achieve the professional-quality look and feel of a chocolate bar.

Professional-quality: smooth and clean finish with a nice glossy sheen on the surface of the chocolate. When broken or bitten into, you can actually get a proper snap from the chocolate.

As you can see from this photo, the tempered chocolate yields a smooth and ultra-glossy finish.
Beau.ti.ful.

Aside from look and feel, tempered chocolate gives a more desirable quality to work with: the chocolates don't bloom (the whitish deposits you get on the surface of the chocolates, note: chocolate would still be safely edible... just not desirable to look at) as much and best of all, when handled with fingers, they don't melt as easily as improperly tempered chocolate.

Especially when it comes to molding chocolates, tempered chocolates are god-sent! They release from their molds easily due to their desired smooth finish. So BIG TIP: if you're planning on dipping chocolates, molding chocolates or creating truffles... then temper your chocolates!

What does tempering do? Tempering allows the crystals in chocolate to be distributed and suspended evenly throughout the final product. Correctly tempered chocolate will yield a bright, crisp, and shiny chocolate, while incorrectly tempered chocolate will produce results that are streaky and dull. Help on tempering chocolates are here.

It's a whole lot of work but trust me, the end product is worth the effort. Oh...and another tip: as always with other forms of baking, ALWAYS use the best ingredients available even though it's $1 or $2 more: best ingredients always cost more. Personally for me, i would rather buy a good quality chocolate instead of your $0.50 chocolates over at the tuck-shop.

In plain english: don't bother making chocolate truffles if you're just going to use generic-brand creme. Why? Because you're risking flavour.

Seriously? what's the point of baking a cake if your butter doesn't taste like butter, it's like using kid's art glue to fix a broken toy?

Enough said.

Chocolat Oh Chocolat

2010-10-19T02:59:00.009+02:00

Inspired by Paris:
Chocolat Noir filled with Earl Grey-Chocolate Mousse

my take on the Patisserie du Maison Dad got at Fouquet's... only bite-sized

Secretly, I think I'm dying to become a chocolatier!

Je n'suis qu'un soulman...

2010-10-17T02:04:00.011+02:00

Paris:

the city of love.
the city of french baguettes, french poodles* and the Eiffel Tower.

*Truth be told, I didn't see ANY french poodles in Paris :)

Definitely a city that should be in your "TOP 10 CITIES TO VISIT-before-I-grow-saggy-tits-and-flabby-skins" list. I've been fortunate enough to have visited this beautiful city twice and both times: a completely different and new experience.

A few years ago, if I went to Paris and spoke English I would be subject to blatant rudeness and outright rejection. I remember that there was even a time where a ticket person for the Eiffel Tower refused to sell us tickets because we didn't speak french! Nonchalantly, she just shut her till, moved to a new cashier and opened shop there... yup, you read right!

Now it's been 5 years since my day as a young high school student and things have absolutely changed: waiters and salespersons speak english, they don't even get touchy* when you tell them that you don't speak their language. Once in a while though, do expect a rude wakening... 5 years isn't really a long time...

*When I say touchy, I mean: the "OH-MY-GOD! YOU VILE THING" expression on their faces when you say that forbidden statement "sorry, I don't speak french"

As for me, I absolutely adored it: the language, the shopping, the SALE, the food (PASTRY!!), every-single-friggin-thing!! Even down to the typical commercialised tourism you get when you go to the ever popular touristy places. Why? Simply because there's always something to experience!

.Sidewalks packed with illegal immigrants selling goods, among them: key chains, eiffel tower replicas,
even grilled corn cooked from a huge dented paint tins atop of a stolen shopping cart.

In this particular trip, I was amused by the sights of illegal immigrants hoarding the sidewalks of the Eiffel tower, selling pre-made souvenirs for easy cash. I thought it was odd because all these items were placed on top of square rags with ropes tied tightly to the corners. It wasn't long until I found out why: a policeman came walking by to help a small lost child and immediately, these sellers were on the get-ready-to-scram pose with the corners of the rags all scooped up to make an easy get away carrier for their items... just in case the police turned to chase after them.

Amusingly odd, no?

During my trip to Paris, the one thing I've noticed was the sudden popular growth of macarons!! Oh man! I've tried making these at home and je detest, absolutement. It was most definitely the most challenging thing I've tried to make in the kitchen.

Then I came across this cafe...

Oh. My. God.

Macaron-pornography to the max! I dream to work in a place like this! While dad and l'oncle 'brahim went to check out some guy tech-stuff, mom and I decided to go for a sneaky quick trip into the boutique store... the queue inside was INSANE! Small macarons were sold for 3 or 5 euros each whilst the big ones were 8euros (I think?) Crazy right?! They have an immense collection of macarons, you can check out what they offer here: LaDuree.

I managed to sneak in a quick photo before being politely told off by one of the staff and I mumbled my apologies in french. hehehe. I couldn't resist! I think the cafe was gorgeous!!

I've tried a few macarons back when I was in Brunei from Fleur-de-lys but I have to say, I was quite put off by the whole thing due to its tooth-aching sweetness. And no wonder why, if you look up the recipe for it, the icing sugar used is super-duper insane! Paris was a pleasant surprise because when I tried to macarons here, they were to-die-for: texture, taste, smell... everything and the best part is: they weren't sweet at all!!

.When in Rome do as the Romans do, so when in Paris.... : At Fouquet's "

.the price definitely reflects the quality of your coffee: are you willing to pay 9euros for coffee? :).

They say: when in rome, do as the romans do... so now that we were in Paris... what else was to be done but go for a nice coffee? :) Dad ordered the patisserie du maison and boy, oh, boy was that one heck of a dessert! I love how the french make their desserts without it being overwhelming sweet...

.cafe viennois: coffee with whipped cream.
.la patisserie du maison: gateau bombe au chocolat.

The quick weekend trip to Paris was refreshing and I was inspired to create something in the kitchen. Parisian-inspired cupcake? I wonder how that would go in terms of flavours and designs. Any thoughts?

I have yet to figure out what Parisian-inspired cupcake I can come up with... until then, I've been busying myself with french chocolates! Particularly inspired by the bombe au chocolat Dad ordered from one of the cafes... when I got back, I decided on making my own version! More on this on the next post! :)

Parisian Subway

2010-10-17T01:42:00.004+02:00

Parisian Subway

Lights flickering and flashing. Blinding for some folks.
Metal wheels churning and screeching on the tracks.
Steel-mechanised doors and subway carts rattle and slam against one another.
People of various shapes, sizes and styles cling onto the metal bars for dear life,
Feet plant firmly on the ground as they fight inertia to keep their balance.

Eyes dart back and forth, up, down and sideways so as not to blatantly stare.
Sadly, some folks try to blend in as one of the parisians... unsuccessfully,
their garments silently advertising "TOURISTS!!!", while the true parisians are non-chalant:
earphones plunged deeply into their ear canals, not giving a hoot of those around them.

Amongst this all, an accordian musical wrings out into the crammed unsavoury atmosphere.
Once, twice, thrice - an incoherent mumbling tries to pass of as singing.
French buskers, perhaps?
Tin cans occasionally jiggle for some extra change.
Eyes then just avert to other directions - clearly no one gives a toot.

J'adore. Absolutement, j'adore. Cette une ville incroyable. Despite some of the ugliness, it's still beautiful and I would very much like to drown myself in its entirety.

Cafe viennois, Cafe latte, Lait russe, Cafe au creme, Cappucino...

2010-10-12T00:23:00.006+02:00

I forget that by now half of the world is already asleep soundly on their beds. A little more than a few minutes ago I was so engrossed with doing some paperwork, time absolutely dissolved around me... until I walked out of my room and was greeted by the deafening silence in the house... even ceasar was not there!

If I've never ever given you guys a helpful tip, here's one: never ever make tiramisu on the night before giving it away (and when I say tiramisu, i'm talking about the REAL italian dessert, not the tooth-achingly sweet and super-duper creamy cheese-y variety you get in Brunei). Sooo.....if you're keen to make fresh tiramisu (because it requires the use of raw eggs), make it on the afternoon before the day you serve it to give it ample time to rest - bearing in mind you have to do a little taste test as well. This probably, no, actually this definitely will explain why I'm still up like a night owl: the hardcore espresso I used to dip the ladyfinger biscuits...

Et voila! It doesn't really take a PHD to figure that out... but in my case, I forgot about doing the taste-testing until AFTER i made the whole thing and started to make my daily-help-me-sleep-evening-tea. HAH! And I can still smell the lingering seductive aroma of the espresso on the tips of my fingers... like that's going to help me sleep!

It's ok... time to reminisce on my brief but abso-friggin-lutely beautiful weekend in Paris!! J'adore! Absolutement! Before, back in my younger days, I used to be so hesitant about going to Paris mainly because of the language barrier but now... ever since I started taking the french classes I've grown to LOVE IT!

Interesting Ramblings: Funny Facts on Boobies :)

2010-09-30T01:17:00.000+02:00

Via: Online Schools

.Scenes from Last Eid Celebration.

2010-09-28T14:31:00.005+02:00

I can't believe Eid just came and went as fast as a blink of the eye. Just last Sunday I attended one of the office staff's open house - and I fear that, this might be the last open house I attend for the year. Sadly I've had to skip several occasions before as I was feeling under the weather and I think my allergies (to god knows what?!!...) had surged up suddenly over night. For several days, I was walking around Belgium like a red-rimmed-eyed zombie... that must've been a nice sight to see!

Je suis un peu triste because my french class is finally over... who would've thought I was going to have so much fun learning this difficult romance-laced language? Those who are really familiar with me absolutely knows how i'm terribly allergic to anything to do with corny romances!

Now it's back to filling application after application after application.. or to put it like the way I whined on my twitter: une demande apres de demande apres de demande apres de demande apres de demande..

Anyhow, these photos were taken well over two weeks ago... the weekend of the Eid Celebrations. We had hosted a reception to celebrate it with some friends. Pleasant times...

.The ever-so-popular satay.

.Don't worry, he's not getting arrested: people find him too cute to be mischevious.

Some of the Bruneian folks and their friends:

.Back to Blogging Again.

2010-09-27T00:49:00.004+02:00

I'm back!!

... from my unplanned hiatus.... and my brain is barely making a dismal effort to say something remotely interesting right now. It's ok, it's 1am...

Haven't been able to blog much, aside from the occasional pictorial update: I've either been singing my ZZZzzzzs away or you would've found me walking about the house speaking french loudly to myself.

Alas, my french course is now finished. It's a bittersweet feeling: I would've loved to continue learning it because it's such a beautiful language, but time isn't being so generous with me. So now, I can dedicate a few hours to blogging :)

Tons of discovery and self-exploration have been made. A festive celebration has passed. Seasons have changed. My friends have come and gone. And quite soon, I think it shall be my turn....

Je me demande: Où est la rue que ma vie prende?

.A Little Late.

2010-09-16T23:58:00.002+02:00

"Pray you now, forget and forgive."
.Maaf Zahir dan Batin my friends, 2010.

2010-09-16T22:41:00.002+02:00

.J'adore cette photo.
Je me demande: Que ils ont pensé quand j'ai pris cette photo?

.When Blueberries Are In Season.

2010-08-22T01:04:00.001+02:00

So what do you do when blueberries are in season?
I play with them, of course! :)

It was time for me to grab all my baking accessories and gadgetry and finally, create a ruckus in the kitchen! A maddening sight, I must tell you: blurry clouds of flour puffing up in the air, deafening buzzing sound of the mixer (which in the process, I am ashamed to say I broke... Eep!!), clanking of muffin trays and rustling of paper cups...

J'adore faire des gateaux, absolument

Berries are something I find that I can't live without. They. Are. Simply. Gorgeous! The best part about it is that you can't get them any fresher than this! They are the ultimate summer fruits: blueberries, cranberries, raspberries, mulberries, gooseberries... etc etc - the list goes on and on...

So as you may have noticed, blueberries were in season... meaning: they come super-duper cheap! I was so happy when I saw this at the market because you can't get these in Brunei, which is sad because I love these berries! I could just watch a movie and eat them as other people would eat popcorn! So with tons of blueberries for my disposal... I made blueberry muffins with lemon glaze... Ahhhh...

Heaven....

Best served piping hot and i guarantee, you can thoroughly enjoy it on a rainy day. There are so many ways to enjoy eating this muffin. My mom loves to heat in up in the microwave and spread it with butter (which is SO good). But for this occasion I opted to make these a tidbit delectable by adding cinnamon crumble on top of the muffins before baking.

This added some interesting and lovely crunchy-spicy texture to the muffin. All together the bite was topped off with a slightly sweetened lemon glaze. C'est tres delicieux!